Many companies face similar challenges when managing trade show follow-up: Lots of resources are put into promoting the event and generating booth traffic. You send your top salespeople to work the booth, and they meet with scores of potential new clients and collect piles of business cards. But all too often, post-event follow-up falls short and the event fails to deliver the expected ROI.
So what goes wrong? Part of the problem is that the new leads acquired during the event never make it into the house list. Though your trade show representatives might do everything they can to collect data, they cannot follow through on their own. Sometimes there is confusion over whose responsibility it is, a matter of not having the time to do so, or the proper infrastructure isn’t in place. In any case, by not following up on a timely basis, the company is essentially leaving money on the trade show floor.
To carry on the conversation after the event, consider the following tips for maximizing your next trade show:
Get the information you need: The basic contact information found on a business card is no longer enough with today’s many avenues for getting in touch. Be sure to capture the information needed for reaching prospects through all marketing channels, whether email, direct mail or social networking.
Segment the leads: The information you collect won’t be worth the effort if new contacts are just amassed into one big database. It is crucial to segment leads as they come in, based on classifications such as geographical regions that map to sales territories or the specific products in which they’re most interested. This will help sales teams to fine-tune their efforts for each new prospect.
Engage your contacts: Optimize customer engagement with multichannel marketing efforts create an ongoing dialog and form relationships with busy prospects across multiple platforms. Customize outreach efforts for each lead with messages, images, calls to action, maps, and much more to appeal to their specific needs.
Without a proper strategy for following up on prospect data gleaned from trade shows, you are missing out on a wealth of potential new business. To make sure you get the best use of your prospective contacts, it pays to work with a trusted provider who can assist you in collecting, appending and classifying your business data list, helping to turn warm prospects into your newest customers.
With a full suite of data services, Redi-Data can help your identify new opportunities and enhance customer data with in-depth details and appended information for a robust client file.
Redi-Data…Turning the Best Data into Better Business