How to Follow Up on Trade Show Leads

You attended a trade show, demonstrated your products and services and have packed up your booth to go home. Now you have to figure out what to do with all of the leads you received while showing off your company. Let's look at a few easy steps to make sure you get a return on your investment by following up on your trade show leads.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Contact management system or electronic spreadsheet
• Funds and labor for marketing material design, production and distribution

1. Enter your leads and the customer contact information into a contact management system. If you do not have such a system, simply enter the information into a spreadsheet program.
2. Organize your leads by product or service category. This will assist you in following up and ensure you follow up with the correct information.
3. Create a marketing communications plan to follow up with each customer. Educate your sales personnel on this plan and engage their participation in making the plan a success. Your plan should include a series of contact opportunities such as direct mail, phone calls using sample scripts, a face-to-face meeting with presentation or a product demonstration.
4. Create the necessary marketing materials such as a direct mail postcard or email campaign. Include targeted messaging, your company branding, contact information and a call to action for the customer to learn more.
5. Implement your plan over a predetermined period of time. Keep in mind you may need to alter your implementation based on customers with specific product or service interest versus those with general interests.
6. Track the success of your implemented plan according to the number of generated business opportunities such as proposal requests and sales made.

Tips & Warnings

• Follow up on leads while they are still hot. Give the customer enough time to return from the trade show and then follow up immediately.
• If your contact management system reflects prior interaction or interest with a specific customer, you may want to avoid mass mailings to this customer and continue on your existing sales cycle.