Spring is soon to end and that means trade show season is typically wrapping up for awhile. If you exhibited at a show recently, you most likely have a stack of business cards heaped up on your desk.
Thousands of business professionals exhibit at trade shows every year, but miss out on the biggest reward: keeping those connections. Most will do what you may have done…they’ll move that stack of business cards around their desk, trying to get to them or worse yet toss them into a drawer, never to be seen again. Maybe you took it one step further and added the task to an already exploding “to do” list…at the bottom.
Follow up is the number-one most important thing you should do after a trade show. Keep the connections you spent time and resources fostering by checking in after the show. Thank each person for visiting your booth, invite them to join your email newsletter list or follow your social media pages, and briefly describe your company’s products and services. By staying fresh in these contacts’ minds, you’re adding value to the connection and maximizing the benefit of exhibiting at a trade show.
Tip!
When visitors come to your booth, invite them to sign up for your email newsletter list right then. Then set up an autoresponder that will go out to people you add to a list called “Trade Show Connections.” The email would thank them for visiting the booth and signing up to receive your email newsletters, as well as invite them to visit your website and social media pages.
Part of followup is then taking all those business cards and literature and organizing them. You might want to use a CardScan machine to save them electronically in your marketing database, load them into your email program or save them as a spreadsheet on your computer. Then you can simply toss all that excess paper!
Need more tips on how to make exhibiting at a trade show even more worthwhile for your business? Contact us!
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