Although sealing the deal with your trade show leads is the goal of post-show follow up, rarely does that happen in just one email or phone call. With all of the hard work you put in to the show—from your trade show exhibit design to your keynote presentations—communicating with your leads once the dust settles will bring it all full circle.
But sometimes, just sending a brief email or leaving a voicemail won’t cut it. Nurturing your prospects through continuous communication, however, can help you get there.
Not only do some leads need more time to decide, but it’s important to remember that no one wants to be sold to. That being said, there are ways you can approach post-show follow up without being “salesy”. Below, we’ve outlined some out-of-the-box ideas for you to leverage when reaching out to prospects.
1. Share Attendees’ Perspective on the Event
When your trade show is over, it’s likely that you’ve got an influx of LinkedIn requests, business cards, and new Twitter followers. So how can you capitalize on all of these new connections?
Reach out to these people with an incentive; get their perspective on their trade show experience with a promise to credit them on your marketing materials. You can link to their LinkedIn or Twitter profiles, or if they’re comfortable with it, share their professional contact information.
In addition to your new connections, consider contacting prominent people in the industry that attended and/or held presentations. Your prospects will remember their names and be interested in what they have to say about the event.
Once you’ve gathered everyone’s quotes and perspectives, compile them in to one cohesive piece. This is something you can share in an email campaign, your reps can send to their leads, or all employees can post on their social media. It’s a wide-stretching piece of content that can be shared across multiple departments and mediums.
2. Gather and Share Industry Predictions
One piece of content everyone loves to indulge in is industry trends. It helps them feel in the know about the trajectory of their field and how or if they can keep up. Stand out from the crowd, and be the early aggregator of this year’s trends.
You have a few options when it comes to compiling this information. Whether it’s from keynote presentations or attendees themselves, make a point to document or audio record the hot predictions for the year to come. You can also put out a survey or have reps working the booth informally ask attendees their predictions. Another idea is to set up a camera in a high traffic area, and have one of your employees interview attendees as they pass by.
Once you’ve gathered all of the trends, make a plan to share it with attendees and leads from the event. No matter how you capture this material, the outcome will be high quality, shareable information that your employees and company can share. Industry trends can be posted on social media, sprinkled in to an email campaign, or written up as its own article.
3. Recap Presentations from the Event
Every show will have at least a few keynote presentations and educational sessions. Learn which ones were crowd favorites and get the inside scoop on them. These recaps will be particularly helpful for attendees who were unable to attend those meetings. They will also be useful for anyone who just wants a refresher from a stellar session.
However, you can take these summaries a step further by providing an analysis and the company’s perspective on the specific session. Be sure to have employees that were at the show and/or attending the presentation share their key takeaways. They could provide a level of insight that attendees missed if they were caught up in taking notes or had to leave early.
4. Test Your Leads
What better way for tradeshow engagement towards your prospects than give them a post-show quiz to test their knowledge? You can really entice them to engage by offering an incentive like a free giveaway, discounted service or product, or a free, on-site demo.
Your questions could be about your company, the industry, or the trade show. You want to include trivia that they’d only know if they visited your booth or attended one of your presentations.
The answers to your quiz will serve up incredible, shareworthy content. It will also create reusable marketing material for you to share before next year’s event or for future campaigns. Plus, you can use the quiz as a lead capture where you collect the lead’s email address and nurture them after the show. That’s a win-win for both of you!
Now that you know what you’re going to do after the show, it’s time to think about your exhibit at the show! At Exhibitus, we specialize in custom-made booths, or you can choose from our extensive rental inventory. Reach out to us today to learn more about the right exhibit path for you!