The final installment in our series on trade show marketing mistakes is Mistake #6:
No post-show marketing
I’m constantly amazed at the number of companies that spend $10,000 or more on a show, do several – sometimes dozens – of shows per year, and never, ever follow up.
Just as common are the companies that send out a boilerplate email or company brochure after each show, and that’s it. Only one contact attempt, no distinction between hot and cold prospects, and no information responding to the specific needs of the recipient.
Following up well depends on doing a good job of collecting and qualifying leads. Once you do that, develop a standard follow-up sequence appropriate for each group.
• Reserve your boilerplate followup for the cool or cold leads. Develop longer sequences — including phone, mail and email — for the warm and hot leads.
• Personalize your followup with information that prospects gave you at the show about their product interests, objections, questions, timelines and budgets.
• Add prospects’ names to your list of companies to contact in advance of the same show next year.
Spending thousands of dollars on trade show advertising without proper followup systems is a colossal waste. To get your money’s worth out of every trade show, close the loop and develop strong followup systems to work every lead.
