After the Expo; Follow-Up General Leads | Exhibitor training 32 of 36

In addition to having hot, warm and interested prospects, you will have general data made up of other visitors who came to your stand. So, what do you do with this data? The aim is to stay connected and to keep the door open to them. How do you do that? Use the acronym TAG.

'Thank them, Add value, Gain consent.'

Before we look at these actions, we need to think about consent and legal obligations. We discussed permission in the last tutorial, and this applies to everyone who has passed you their business card or business details. Sending the first courtesy email to thank them for visiting your stand is normal. Any subsequent contact via a newsletter or email campaign will require permission. Make sure you gain consent before sending anything more. You need to take great care with e-privacy laws, data protection and GDPR guidelines. Before adding any data on spreadsheets, make sure it’s GDPR complaint. Most CRM systems are but it’s worth double checking before adding any data on there.

But now let's return to the actions we can take to stay connected.

Thank Them

Thank your visitors for coming to your stand. Creating an email template before the expo will enable you to act promptly when you return to your desk. Filtering the data by industry or location or by another classification may help you customise your content more appropriately and possibly create a better impact.

Add Value

Consider what value you can add to encourage visitors to subscribe to your blog, newsletter or email campaigns in order to stay connected. You might offer tips or advise on a certain topic or offer reductions on certain products. You may even connect with them on LinkedIn. By staying connected you will remain on their radar; this can sometimes result in useful introductions to their networks.

Gain Consent

As noted earlier, always gain consent by asking them to subscribe; don’t just assume because they visited your stand you now have permission to add them automatically. Consider all relevant e-Privacy and GDPR requirements and act accordingly.

Summary

It’s important to have a strategy to follow up on everyone who visits, whether they are a prospect or not. It shows that you have taken time out to make contact. However, you must respect their privacy and gain their permission to stay in touch. You never know, sometimes even general leads can turn into valuable prospects due to a change in their role or business requirements.

Next: Analyse And Debrief

In our next tutorial, we will look at the second letter of FAB: A - for Analyse and Debrief. This is about reviewing all the key aspects of the expo and deciding how you might do things better in the future.

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