Most companies exhibit at tradeshows and conferences for one or more of the following general reasons:
1. Create awareness about their brand, products and services
2. Generate interest in a new product or service
3. Build credibility within their target audience
4. Generate viable sales leads with the goal of customer acquisition

Tradeshows are an investment and need to be treated that way. So no matter what your company's reasons for exhibiting at a tradeshow may be, follow-up communication is a critical step to achieving your goals for exhibiting in the first place.

Here are a few follow-up communication techniques that I've tried myself and have had success with:

You've collected names (and maybe even some qualifying information) from interested prospects at the tradeshow - now what?

• Don't wait until after the show to develop a follow-up plan. Have a plan well before the show begins, promote some type of special offer before the show to drive more traffic to your booth, and then create a follow-up plan that acts, in part, as fulfillment of that offer.

• Use a branded email as a standard way of thanking people for stopping by your booth. In the email message you can provide a fulfillment link to the special offer as well as information about your products and services, and future events. This creates a courteous touch point, builds product/service knowledge and loyalty, and creates further understanding about what your company has to offer. Don't forget...people stop by your tradeshow booth for a reason: they're looking for information about something you have to offer.

• Have the right person contact the prospects after the show - and coordinate this follow-up with the ‘thank you' email you're sending. In most cases, one of your sales representatives will call the tradeshow prospects. Include the sales rep's name in the thank you email to give it a personal touch. Then in the follow-up call, your sales rep can refer to the email that your company sent a few days prior, and maybe even comment on something in particular that each person wanted to know more about.

Use data to create increasingly relevant touchpoints with your booth visitors.

Use your email and Web analytics to understand the preferences and behaviors of your booth visitors so that you can send them relevant content and offers going forward. The statistics you get back can help you target your product/ service messaging to their needs more accurately. Data such as email open rates, click-through rates on links or pictures, and the destinations URLs of where they traveled to on your Web site can tell you a lot about people's interests. For instance, if a link has a high click-through rate, the odds are that the topic or offer associated with that link is what most interests people.

Don't forget -- your trade show follow-up doesn't start & end with a sales call.

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