How To Build Efficient Trade Show Follow Up Emails

During a major Exhibition event like TOSSE, optimism and motivation are through the roof. You talk with lots of people, receive valuable feedback and hear promises of future orders.

But as the trade show ends and you return to your office, what happens?

On an average, it takes 5 working days to follow up on potential customers. . In many cases, there is no follow up at all and the business cards end up in a folder somewhere.

Exhibitions are resources consuming hence, it’s important to maximize gains immediately.

Follow up emails must start with instant follow up – the best way to do this to send a “thank you” message. Just after your discussion, send a short email with basic background information, making sure that your potential customers remember you.

Continue with thorough follow up – send in personalized messages that remind them of your business and answer their business questions.

Make follow up emails Stand out – leverage on the conversation you had with your potential customers in the stand, make them know you care.

Record Customer data using the right business tools – this simplifies you email dispatch and helps you understand the chronology of your data. There are various online tools like “myfairtool”.

All this process will succeed in helping you transition efficiently from trade show setting to daily business schedule and activities.

https://tosse.ng/tosse-visitor-information/visitors-registration-form/

Related Post

Nov 14

Top Technological Innovations for Business Transformation

Innovation and Technology are key parts of business today. In fact, they both work hand in hand. Here are some technological innovations that made waves in recent times:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A lot has been said about Artificial intelligence and its impact on businesses. It has significantly affected and improved the way customers interact with businesses via intelligent websites and chatbots. According to Forbes, 80% of enterprises are now investing or planning to expand in AI platforms.

 

“The largest impacts across all industries—from retail to healthcare, hospitality to finance—are felt when AI improves data security, decision-making, employee output, trainings, speed and accuracy,”

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Maddy Martin, community vice chair and head of growth and education for Smith.AI, said. “With more capable staff, better-qualified sales leads, more efficient issue resolution, and systems that feed actual data back in for future process and product improvements, companies employing AI technologies can use resources with far greater efficiency. Best of all, as investment and competition increase in the AI realm, costs are reduced.”

Ultra-Fast Internet

There is an insatiable appetite for super-fast internet by most individual users of it. This need is even greater for businesses, either big or small. This helps improve business efficiency and provide reliable communication tools for companies that rely on remote workers. To satisfy this need, there has been the invention of 5G, which is exponentially faster than 4G. The effects of this technology, though, are up for debate with some quarters labelling it as dangerous.

Virtual Reality (VR)

While Virtual Reality might be seen as an innovation solely beneficial for gaming and entertainment, it has recently more widespread applications in businesses. According to Flatworld Solutions in an article on “Virtual Reality and Its Impact on Business”, the following are impacts of VR on business:

  • An all-new level of product prototyping
  • Reduced business travel & efficient business meetings
  • E-commerce advertising will see a new side
  • VR can provide competitive advantage to businesses
  • Interviewing candidates will be easier
  • The future of retail will be very different
  • Virtual conferences and meetings will be popular
  • VR will be an important tool in training
  • Affordable virtual designing of structures to visualize the project better
  • Offering virtual tours will be possible

Blockchain

A blockchain is, in the simplest of terms, a time-stamped series of immutable records of data that is managed by a cluster of computers not owned by any single entity. Each of these blocks of data (i.e. block) is secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles (i.e. chain). Originally devised for the digital currency (Bitcoin), the tech community has now found other uses for the technology. Blockchain technology can be used to create a permanent, public, transparent ledger system for compiling data on sales, tracking digital use and payments to content creators, such as wireless users or musicians. It has also found application in financial services and video games.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things, which is commonly called IoT, refers to the billions of devices around the world that are connected to the internet through sensors or Wi-Fi. It’s basically a giant network of objects that connect to the internet. Each device collects data, and this data, known collectively as big data, is exchanged and analyzed. IoT-connected smart devices can be an everyday item such as a phone, car, watch, washing machine, or refrigerator. IoT devices can also be components of machines and systems, such as on an oil rig or airplane engine.

A Forbes article explained the massive benefits of this innovation on businesses, and quite a number of businesses have jumped on board this fast-moving train.

 

 

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Mar 20

How to Attract The Media To Your Stand At Trade Shows

The main objective of exhibiting your business at trade shows is capturing leads to acquiring new business and brand awareness. However, attracting the media to your stand is certainly the best way to achieve such objective, but how do you achieve this?

Prepare Media Kit

To get the media to talk about your products, the first thing to do is to provide them with valuable contents. Unless your company is very famous or your news incredibly powerful, journalists won’t spend time searching for information and material to talk about you. You must provide them with everything, make it easy for them.

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What should my Media Kit contain?

A good Media Kit contains the following information:

  • Company introduction
  • Company factsheet (figures, facts, graphs – key elements about your business that make it worth talking about)
  • Company timeline (your historic, major dates and milestones)
  • Major products / services / innovations introduction
  • Bio of the founder / CEO / key employees
  • High-resolution Photos and Logos (a good article always comes with a photo, if you don’t provide it, you risk losing control over your content or losing the article altogether)

The strategy is to always provide something very short to give a quick overview with links to find out, make it easy to grasp your documents within seconds, don’t lose your reader in pages of text.

Build your story

Most companies have no story to tell, hence no PR coverage.

Unless you have some incredible innovation to share or an internationally famous brand, why would people talk about you?

You need to have a story that will captivate your audience.

The story can be about your company and what it stands for or about your CEO or founder on his own journey or unique personality.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Make use of PR (Press Release)

Write a Press Release announcing that you will be exhibiting at the show. Make it bold. Use your story as the backbone of your release and add some suspense into it. Talk about innovation, announcement, exclusive information, etc.

If your press release is boring, don’t even bother publishing it. It would have no impact and would only waste your time. Write something worth reading that makes people (and media) want to come pay you a visit.

Once written, publish your PR and relay it through your own networks (website, Social Media, blog, newsletter, etc.), send it to journalists within your network and invite your partners to help you spread it.

Prepare Question & Answer Forms

You did everything right and some journalists stop by your booth, well done!

Then what?

They start talking to your staff. Your team members have been trained for capturing leads and educating visitors, but do they have a clue on how to handle media? Most probably not.

You will certainly ask them to direct journalists to you, but what if you’re not here or the journalist has no time to wait?

Prepare a Q&A sheet for internal purpose. This sheet should contain the top 10 questions you expect journalists to ask about your business and the “correct” answers your staff should be giving.

Use this document to standardize your numbers (you don’t want a person to claim a number and another one say something different) and make sure everyone is on the same page. Distribute this Q&A document and tell your team to read it and memorize it carefully

YOU ARE READY FOR THE TRADESHOW

HIGHLIGHTS OF TOSSE2018

Finnpartnership
Aug 09

Finnpartnership: Business partnerships for a better world

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, Finland has the world’s best-developed education system in the world. Hence, any educational program from the country is one to be held in the highest regard.

Finnpartnership is a business partnership programme financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and managed by Finnfund. Finnpartnership aims to generate positive development impacts by promoting business between Finland and developing countries. 

Societal functionality and development ultimately depend on how citizens, companies and societal operators are able to make society function. Finnpartnership activities aim to accelerate this development.

In practice, Finnpartnership promotes business activities and partnerships with the aim of generating positive development impacts in the target country. As the business to be promoted must also be profitable and responsible, the activities ideally create a cycle that reinforces positive development.  

The main services are Business Partnership Support and Matchmaking

In many ways, developing countries are different operating environments from those Finnish companies are accustomed to. In addition, the conditions between countries and within them can vary greatly.

There are usually more questions than answers when visiting a foreign country for the first time. Finnpartnership offers funding, contacts and advisory services, which can be used to assess business opportunities in developing countries. 

Business Support Partnership is financial assistance for researching business opportunities. Match-making connects operators in Finland and developing countries with one another. The services are intended for companies, educational institutions, non-governmental organisations and other operators.  

Team Finland assembles all of Finland’s state-funded internationalisation services in a single place. Through Team Finland, you are able to obtain information on markets and their risks, funding for internationalisation, opportunities to participate in missions promoting exports, and contacts, information and advisory services.

Team Finland will be at the Total School Support Seminar/Exhibition (TOSSE) set to hold on the 1st and 2nd of September in Lagos, Nigeria, to help as many institutions as possible through its solutions to help develop their system. Click here to register for the event.