When do you start planning your follow up for an exhibition?
When do you start planning how you’re going to follow up on an exhibition? For many businesses it’s not till you have the shoebox of leads in front of you that you think “What on earth am I going to say to these people?”. However, I’m going to suggest that you actually start planning your follow ups BEFORE the exhibition.
At my Exhibitor Secrets workshop this morning we discussed the downsides of waiting till after the exhibition to write your email or sales letter. You become overwhelmed with the amount of work you have to do, you waste valuable time writing a letter you could have written before the event, instead of chasing hot leads! And you miss opportunities.
Make your life easier, and your marketing more effective by planning your follow ups at least two weeks before your exhibition. Try to think about:
How many leads do you expect to obtain? How much time do you need to block out to follow them up by telephone? Cancel all non-urgent meetings and block out that time so that you focus on maximising the potential from the leads you have.
How quickly can you get these leads onto your database? Do you need support to help you do that – is your time better spent on the phone or on data entry?
Is there an email that you can send out immediately or within a couple of days to touch base?
Will you send a follow up pack with a letter? Can you put in a timebound offer?
All of this can be done before the event. It sounds so obvious, and yet many of us wait until we have a pile of leads before tackling this.
