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  • Aug 09, 2023
  • Write by Author Name
  • Aug 09, 2023

Trade Show Follow Up

Get tips and advice on trade show follow up. Learn how long should you wait, the importance of, and what you should say.

Trade Show Follow Up: Tips & Advice

You probably don’t drive down the street too often throwing money out the window, do you? You certainly wouldn’t want your employees throwing your money out the window either. Oddly enough, however, this is exactly what many people do with the investment that they make in trade shows. Conventions can be expensive and time consuming. There is prep work to be undertaken, strategies to be accesses, time spent researching the right event, and much more. Yet, even with all of this time consuming work, many businesses will fail to properly pursue on their trade show endeavors. In short, do not overlook trade show follow up.

How Long Should You Wait?

You should do your expo follow up work soon after an event. In this way, your business and what you have to offer will still be fresh in the mind of the attendees that you met at a given trade show. If you wait weeks or months later, they may not remember you. Or they may feel that your waiting is paramount to a lack of interest in them or even worse unprofessional.

For this reason, don’t wait more than 2 weeks before conducting your trade show follow up. Waiting too long may very well open up a window of opportunity for your competitors. Now on the other side of the coin, following up one or two days after a convention may not always be the best move either, as people may be tired. This is especially true if they traveled for the event and may have work that they need to catch up on at the office.

The Importance of Good Lead Collection

Make sure you have a good system for collecting leads in place before you attend your trade shows. Also your staff should know the various categories of clients to seek out. For example, if you’ve spoken to Bob Jones from Company X, it shows attention to detail if other staff members are aware of this fact. If you had a conversation with someone, try to note down some of the specifics so that your staff will have this important information on hand.

You may want to sort through your contacts at the end of each day. Decide which are hot leads and which are cold leads. Additionally, be sure to figure out who you spoke with in a less formal setting and who just dropped off a card.

Personal Follow Up

You should consider personalizing a thank you, perhaps even a handwritten one. If this task is too large, you can consider hiring an outside company to organize and contact the leads. You can also consider putting your new leads on a list to receive enewsletters and other important updates regarding your business. This will help keep your business in their minds throughout the year.

The more contact your new leads have with you and the more you can demonstrate that you understand their business, the better off your chances of landing a new client will be. Of course, that is what attending a trade show is all about- new clients.

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