Organizing leads and following up on those leads is a vital part of tradeshow success. Therule of the sales game is simple enough too: the more leads you follow-up on, the better your chances are of capturing new clients. Having a lead organization plan in place pre-show is the best way to effectively follow-up on any leads generated – here’s how to do it.
Create a System
Image courtesy of Kyle Van Horn VIA FLICKRYour team has to have a way of organizing every lead gathered at a show according to specific criteria. These criteria can fluctuate (and should) based on your company’s goals, but here’s an example to derive some notes from:
A Leads: your team has met with a decision-maker; the budget is known; the problem that you will be solving is clear; and that person has asked your team to follow-up.
B Leads: your team has gathered some intelligence; a decision maker either provided your team with the information or gave your team the name of a person that could provide the information; you have contact details.
C Leads: these are the leads gathered simply because you gave something away. C leads put their card in a box or added a name to a sign-up list only to get the toy that you gave to people for free (or t-shirt, or other item).
Make sure that your entire show team understands the categories created prior to the show, and put one person in charge of arranging leads during the show. This way, all cards and email addresses can be organized before your team heads back to the office, or begins another day at a show.
Start the Follow-Up Quickly
There are two schools of thought when it comes to following up with potential leads.
Group A: wait 3-5 days to send out an email, literature, or make a phone call.
Group B: strike while the iron is hot by sending out literature right away, or by calling leads directly after a show.
Whether you choose to follow-up right away or days later is up to you, but it makes sense to remind people about you and your trade show exhibits while the show is still fresh in the minds of attendees. Will someone really remember talking to you a week after a show?
It’s also important that you don’t allow too much time to pass between the show and the follow-up call or email. Why? Because the more time that passes, the more you may be forgotten or that lead may reach out to another company.
Preparing Everything in Advance
Don’t leave it up to the team that’s been selling and sorting leads at a two-day show to create great email templates. Prepare follow-up templates, scripts, and other literature in advance, so all your team members have to do is click “send” or follow a script during a call.
If you prepare everything from how to sort leads to when to follow-up and the words to use during a follow up for your team, you’ll have a lot better luck when it comes to turning leads into clients.
It really works best to delegate a task to each team member during a show too, so that you have a few people gathering leads; someone demonstrating your product (if necessary); a person to sort and separate leads; and someone to create follow-up materials or make calls. This way, your team won’t be overwhelmed, and every task can be completed easily.
Once the lead situation has been worked out, you can concentrate on other tasks like making sure your exhibit booth looks amazing.
Blazer Exhibit Services
You have enough to worry about when it comes to making sure that your show team is ready to roll – don’t give them the added stress of setting up an exhibit booth! At Blazer Exhibits, we design and create customized trade show exhibits, but we also provide on-site services such as setting up your booth to your specifications, making sure that any last minute problem is solved, and getting your trade show exhibits ready to go – it helps to have a specialist on hand.
Call us today for pricing and other details, or take a look at our Facebook page for updates and to ask us any questions that you might have.