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

BMHS wins Wowbii 2.2M Naira Worth Interactive Board at TOSSE-Edumark Webinar

With great joy, the Baptist Model High School (BMHS), Isolo received a 2.2 million naira 65-inch Wowbii Interactive touchscreen board from Wowbii Interactive for being punctual at a webinar recently organized by the Total School Support Seminar & Exhibition (TOSSE).

The webinar tagged “Technology in Schools: Our Fears! Our Pains! Our Desire” organized by TOSSE in partnership with Wowbii Interactive was held on Friday 12th of May, 2023.

The webinar started at 6pm, however, a staff of BMHS, Mrs. Rebecca Simeon-Charles had joined the program a few minutes before 6pm. At the end of the program, the CEO of Wowbii, Mrs. Olabisi Akinpelu asked who was the first person to join the webinar. Without prior knowledge of what was about to happen, the staff from BMHS, who was the first to join the Zoom program responded. And then, the prize for punctuality was announced. This came as a surprise to everyone present at the meeting.

Mrs Rebecca Simeon-Charles (the first person to join in on the webinar).
Mrs. Olabisi Akinpelu (CEO, Wowbii) congratulating Mrs Rebecca Simeon-Charles.
Mrs. Yinka Ogunde congratulating Mrs Rebecca Simeon-Charles.

The presentation of the Wowbii Interactive Board took place on the 16th of May, 2023 and present was the Convener of the Total School Support Seminar & Exhibition (TOSSE) Mrs. Yinka Ogunde & her team, The CEO of Wowbii Interactive, Mrs. Olabisi Akinpelu & her team and the Administrator and staff of Baptist Model High School, Reverend Omotosho (The Head of School), Mrs. Olamide Aasa (The Principal), Mrs. Rebecca Simeon-Charles, other staff members, and a few students.

Students of BMHS.

Mrs. Olabisi Akinpelu, while presenting the Wowbii Interactive Board says it comes with a 2-year standard warranty and the Teachers will be provided with support & training on its usage for the period of 2 years.
She commended Mrs. Yinka Ogunde for providing the platform to impact the education industry. She also extended her appreciation to her Boss, the Founder of Wowbii Interactive, Mr. Gbolahan Olayomi for his drive and will to contribute to the Education Sector and applauded the school representative, Mrs. Simeon-Charles for joining the meeting early and staying till the end.

Reverend Omotosho (The Head of the School) and Mrs. Aasa (The Principal) also praised Mrs. Simeon-Charles for representing the school well and winning the prize for the school. Stating that they are not surprised she made it early enough to the webinar, as she is dutiful and diligent in her assignments.

When asked to speak, Mrs. Simeon-Charles with so much excitement, expressed her gratitude to the school authorities and said she was faced with challenges that could have hindered her from connecting to the program. However, she saw it as an opportunity to make sacrifices for the school. She advised her fellow teachers to always make themselves available for any program they are sent to, and not to be carried away when they face challenges.

Don’t Just Be At Trade Show To Make Up The Numbers, Be There To Make A Business Impact.

Trade shows and exhibitions are not for everyone. Before deciding to invest in a trade show, you must answer certain questions to safe-guide your time and money investment.

Ensure that the Expo focus align with your target industry and you have developed the right service/product that is required by the audience. Review all activities to be in-line with your business niche.
Failure to thoroughly review the relevance of event to business niche, may lead investors into bad decision making. Getting clarity about your trade show investment would also make it easy for the sales team to chart a rewarding plan for their activities, generate leads and evaluating performance.

Team succeeds by setting SMART goals that would guide them through strategic sales outing; they need to be prepared and equipped with products knowledge and know what to present, where to present it and how to present it.

Don’t just be at a trade show or exhibition to make up the numbers, be there to make a business impact.

 

Ask about the objective of the trade show to check if it aligns with your business goal?  research before setting SMART goals. Why are you spending money, resources and valuable time to attend a show? The ROI must be realistic and measurable.

Define your objective and stick with it. Why is your organisation attending the event?:
For Publicity.
• To build awareness.
• To showcase or unveil new product.
• To generate lead from the trade show.
• To connect and network with other industry professionals or vendors in your business line.

 

Are you looking for a market to exhibit your product/service in 2020? Click here to learn more about The Total School Support Seminar/Exhibition (TOSSE 2020). Africa’s biggest Education trade show and conference. 

 

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.

REGISTER TO ATTEND

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