Wow – what a show it was this year, but the work doesn’t stop when you’ve come home from Business Vision Live. Our PR Partner Sarah Hawes from Izzy PR has some advice for both exhibitors and delegates on what to do after the show.
Exhibitors
You will have spent a considerable amount of time and money on your stand, getting it right, social media to promote yourself at the show, buying merchandise and of course, on the day too – a whole day out of your working week. You now need to capitalise on all of those new connections – and fast!
Ideally, you need to be getting back in touch with people within 48 hours of the show, but as long as they’ve heard from you in 7 days, you should be OK. The sooner you can contact them, the better!
Here are some tips on what to do:
Make contact with all the people you spoke to on your stand. They took the time to visit and chat, so follow that up to see if you can book to see or call them.
Call:
You could call them all individually – this is probably the best thing to do and will mean you are fresh in their mind. Others may not be so on the ball, so if they spoke to three people in your profession and you’re the only one that’s made personal contact, you’ll stand out.
Email:
You could email them if you feel a call is too direct, or if you don’t want to disturb them – but make sure you do it individually and do not send out a stock email to all. No-one feels special with a generic email, and it may put your prospects off.
Existing relationships:
Get in touch with everyone you saw at the show that you already know – thank them for popping to your stand to see you, ask them how they got on, what speakers they went to, what they got out of it and who they met. You never know when a referral or useful bit of info will pop into their head!
Find them on LinkedIn:
Find your new contacts on LinkedIn and send them a message with your connection request. It might be worth checking all your existing relationships are connections too.
Say it was nice to meet them, pop something in there that you spoke about that’s not business-related.
For example:
‘How did you enjoy the talk you were going to?
‘Have a great holiday – Italy’s lovely. Let me know when you’re back so I can pop over to see you and find out more about your business.’
‘Here are the details for the bookkeeper you wanted – let her know I put you in touch.’
Competition prizes:
If you ran a competition, draw it, ring the winners and get their prizes to them asap.
Email campaign:
Perhaps your latest newsletter or business news can be sent to them with an in introduction saying ‘glad to have met you at Business Vision LIVE’, here’s our newsletter, I thought it might be of interest.
Social media:
Log the event on your social media timelines – post your pictures, tag people in, use the event hashtag and social media handle and see who gets into a conversation with you.
Make sure you reply – don’t leave people hanging!
Show them:
If you have samples, send them.
If you have photos of you or your product, send them too.
Send them testimonials or point them in the direction of your testimonials on your website.
Be persistent but not a pest:
People are busy so they might not take your call, they might not call you back immediately, they might not reply to your emails but do reach out a second or third time, with something new, to see if there’s a relationship to nurture. And this is the important bit – don’t chase the sale. It will come after you’ve nurtured the relationship.
They might say to get in touch in two weeks, two months or next January – make a note and keep in touch when they ask, but in the meantime, perhaps you can share their socials, refer people to them, introduce people to them or see them at an event.
Some things aren’t meant to be though, so don’t become a pest because that’s counter-productive!
Delegates can also do some work after the show and make use of the contacts and information they gained:
Seminars/talks:
Go back through your notes, if you took any, and see what you can action for your business immediately, medium and longer term.
LinkedIn:
Find everyone you met on LinkedIn and connect with them. Remember to send that personal note.
Goody bags:
Go through your goody bags to see what you’ve got – businesses spend a lot of money on their merchandise and literature so have a look through to see what you’ve collected up and make contact if you can see a benefit to you both. Try to think of others you can connect to them as well – you never know where it will lead!
Contact from exhibitors:
Make sure you take the call or reply to the email or accept a connection from someone you spoke to at the show. They’ve gone to the effort to contact you and see if they can help, so do be courteous and reply.
They might not have what you need right now, but they might do in the future so it’s worth finding out more, building a relationship and perhaps you can refer someone else to them or you might be able to help them instead.
Social media:
Use your timelines to say you were at the show, tag in people you met and use the event hashtag too – you may find other people who want to connect with you now they know you were there.
Existing relationships:
You may have bumped into lots of different people at the show who you already know, so make sure you contact them to say high, let’s meet up again or ask them how you can help them with their business.
If you caught up with five people during the day, then make sure you follow-up. If you’d arranged coffees etc. with these five people, it would have taken a lot more time, so build on these quick catch-ups and see where it leads.
Whether you’re a delegate or an exhibitor, the main thing to remember is that you’ve spent time going to the show, so make the most out of it.
