At the other end of the spectrum from draw leads is the person who has come to your booth and is HIGHLY interested in your product or service. Somehow you need to capture these leads separately and tag them in importance to ensure that you follow up with them quickly. To encourage them to leave their details, think of a special show promotion you can offer if they schedule a meeting today.
For those in between leads or ones that may visit the booth when your reps are all busy, have a sign up sheet for your monthly promotions, a free report, or monthly ezine. People that usually sign up for these are luke warm to hot and can add up in a hurry. Remember to train the people that man your booth on all the ways to capture leads, and encourage them to rank each lead with the appropriate level of interest.
Following up after the Show
Congratulations, your booth has been a success and now you have hundreds of new leads! Now what? Sadly I have heard so many people confess this is the area where they have dropped the ball. A pre-planned automated communication system developed before the show can make follow up a snap!
One of my favourite tools to use for this is an autoresponder like aWeber. With a cost of only $20 per month this magical tool will automatically communicate with your leads, until you or your sales reps get a chance to contact them personally. Here’s how it works.
Prior to a show, you can develop a series of emails to go out to your leads. The first one may simply thank them for showing up at your booth and let them know that you will be in contact with them shortly with more information. It can even invite them to call you (this helps identify any HOT leads that might have been missed). The second email may include more information or it may even give leads some appointment times to choose from to meet or receive a visit, estimate, etc from a representative. The third one might say that by now they should have received a call from a representative and if not, to please contact you as you may not have the correct number. You can build as many of these emails as you like. You can then schedule the autoresponder to send the first email out 1 day after a lead’s contact details are entered in, the second a week later, the third 2 weeks later, etc.
You can also build different follow up systems for HOT leads, lukewarm leads and cold leads
When you are at the event, keep a laptop handy and enter contact names as they come in, scan business cards with a card scanner or pay someone to enter them the very next day.
If you don’t have emails, consider hiring a phone specialist to phone them right after the event.
Remember, the longer you leave the lead without communicating with them the less qualified they become! So make sure to develop a follow up system!
Of course, Strategies for Success can always help you build these communication systems and determine what your messaging can be!
Trade shows can be a make or break strategy for a business. I know some businesses that have absolutely thrived on them and others it would never work for. To determine if it’s right for your company, crunch your numbers (as discussed in Part One) and look at what your key competitors are doing. Like any strategy, consistency is the key. Your first show will no doubt have lumps and bumps. Learn from it, revise your approach and give it another try. Trade show specialists will tell you that you need to be in the same show a minimum of 3 times to REALLY start seeing the results. Knock em dead!
Source: Hubspot
