Post-Trade Show Musts
Your trade show is over! You and your team successfully planned and executed a great show complete with networking, selling and generating leads. Though exhausted when you return to the office, your trade show is far from over. There are post-show activities that you and your team need to complete to bring the show full circle.
After Action Meeting:
You and your team should sit down within two days of the commencement of the show to discuss wins, areas of improvement and to parse out post show tasks. A quick Power Point presentation is helpful with visuals of your booth and your competitor’s booths. Are their changes that can be made to your booth for the next show? Was your raffle successful? Did you bring enough collateral and merchandise, or did you bring too much? Were the attendees the right audience for your company? Will this show be on next year’s calendar? Keep the notes from the meeting in the trade show folder as a reference for next year.
Social Media
While you undoubtedly posted live Tweets and Instagram pictures during the show, post-show social media recapping the success and sharing the enthusiasm with your followers is extremely important. Keeping your social network involved with your company’s activities will gain even more interest and possible sales. Highlight fun and interesting moments on Twitter. Create Face Book albums of all the shows you attend. Take video at your shows of your speakers and post them on your You Tube channel for maximum exposure.
Lead Generation follow up:
From your LRS you will receive a list of names from the badges you scanned. Your sales team may have made notes about delineating the leads as hot, warm, or cold, or about what product they showed an interest. From these notes, give the hot leads to your sales team for immediate follow-up. Also, send an email blast to them within five days. Warm leads should receive a different email that contains a resource, such as a white paper or useful tips about your industry. Cold leads should receive yet another email and be placed on a “nurture” list that you revisit every few months. From the clicks on the links in your emails, you will be able to adjust those leads into different categories. Make sure your sales team reports any sales to you, so you can monitor the ROI of the show.
Snail Mail Still Exists
A hand written note sent via snail mail thanking a lead goes a long way, as it shows a level of personalization that an email does not convey. If a contact requested more information (flyers, brochures, sample products) send those within a week of the end of the show. Was your raffle winner not present for the drawing? Get their prize out to them as soon as possible with a congratulatory note.
It’s easy to forget about post show activities, but they assist in monitoring if a show was successful or not. They also generate team momentum that can be channeled into the planning of your next show.
