You’ve exhibited at a major trade show and have arrived back at your desk with a spreadsheet of prospects you met at the show. Now it’s time to follow-up. Problem is, you have mountains for paperwork, your expense report, and a presentation for a current client that has requested meeting you in 2 days. What do you do? If you’ve planned ahead of time, you already have a strategy in place and won’t have to worry about the timeliness of the leads. You’ve got it covered.
Trade show follow-up should begin within seven days of a show. The people you met with are eager to find solutions to their problems and your busy inbox is not their concern. They want answers and are fired up about meeting the people who can help them. This increased level of interest will provide you with a higher chance of receiving a positive reception when you do reach out.
Trade shows attract serious buyers.
Ninety percent of attendees use exhibitions as their number one source of purchasing information. They come to shows for a reason. In fact, 76% of them have a pre-set agenda. They know what they want and whom they want to see. From the exhibitor’s point of view, these leads cost half as much as a traditional field sales call.
Most attendees only need to hear from an exhibitor once to make a purchasing decision because they have already seen the products and services and know what is being offered before the follow-up call. Because trade shows offer one-stop shopping, they have checked out your competition. So you don’t want that competition following up before you do. In fact, fifty-seven percent of B2B attendees make a purchasing decision in the next twelve months after a trade show.
When you return from a show, organize your leads by creating three or four categories (immediate needs, long term potential, decision influencers, tire kickers). Next, determine an effective way of acknowledging each visitor that you met with in the booth. A simple thank you for visiting or mention that their name is being passed along to a field rep who will be in touch with them shortly can go a long way.
Assign the duty of following up to someone else. Temporary help or an intern work well in this area. Investing a few hundred dollars for temporary clerical help will more than pay for itself in the additional business generated. Once the first contact is made via letter or email, your standard staff can take it from there.
Your company has been hit by a disaster, either a natural or a man-made one -how you respond to it could make or break your business. According to the disaster recovery firm Agility Recovery a shocking 90% of businesses will fail within 1 year if they have not resumed operations within 5 days of a disaster! While the type of devastation recently seen in Texas is rare; man-made disasters are far more common.
The best-case scenario, would be that you planned for such an event. You and your company spent time to look at possible disasters, put a marketing plan in place and can quickly implement it. However, if this was always on your “To Do” list, but never really got it off the ground, now what?
Your first plan of attack should be to take a look at your near-term plans. Look at what you already have in the pipeline scheduled to be released in the next few days and few weeks. If you had a blog scheduled about the wonderful management of your CEO and it was just discovered that he was misappropriating company funds, you will need to cancel it. Elementary, right? However, with everything that is happening, sometimes it is easy to forget about items you scheduled months ago; as example Air BNB sent an email1 out just 2 days after the devastating floods in Texas promoting a Floating World vacation. Look at what advertising is already scheduled with national and local outlets and will you need to pull back an ad?
Make sure to stay flexible in your messaging. After making sure that there is nothing scheduled that may appear inappropriate, next look at your marketing plan as a whole. Will the messaging still be appropriate? How will the public perceive the message? If your warehouse was devastated by a fire, your marketing plan focusing on a product that was stored in the now burned out warehouse might need to be adjusted. Can your current marketing plan shift focus to a different product or service?
Communication is key. Your customers will want to know if their orders will be shipped, far more then they want to know about a success story your company had recently. Write a blog about the company recovery efforts, use social media to keep customers updated on current happenings – make sure to keep communicating. Let customers know how long full recovery may take and the efforts that are being made in returning to business as usual.
Communication internally is important as well. Your employees need to be kept in the loop on what is happening, so that rumor does not become (false) fact. Make sure that there is one central point of contact that messaging is coming from. You do not want employee speculation to become front-page news! Let employees know who to contact if the media calls, how long recovery may take, and how they can help. Depending on the scope of the disaster, employees will be concerned about their jobs and future of the company; keep communication as transparent as possible – let them know that there may be issues that cannot be discussed with them, especially if litigation is involved.
Take time to look at the full scope of the disaster. Is this a long term or short-term problem? If your company has been hacked -the hack maybe a short-term issue, but what about the long-term effects? What information might have been stolen and how will you be able to deal with it. Start by making a list of all the possible ramifications, then narrow it down to the most likely issues. Using this list prepare your messaging and keep updating the message as new information becomes available.
The keys to disaster recovery are flexibility and communication. Keep your current marketing plan in place if possible, but be flexible to add, delete or update your message as needed. Make sure that the message that was on target yesterday is still on track in light of this disaster, if not update or change it wherever possible. Make sure to keep your stakeholders – customers and employees updated on events. Keep your communications as transparent as possible, do not over or under promise. Trust can be a key to your recovery, pretending as if nothing has happened, will not instill trust in you or your company, make sure to keep communications lines open and let the storm pass.
For more information on recovering from a marketing disaster, check out these posts:
- Communicating in a Crisis: Creating a Disaster Response Marketing Plan (BizFilings.com)
- How to Create a Disaster Plan for Your Business (Entrepreneur)
- Disaster Recovery Plan vs. Business Continuity Plan (Cron.com)
- Email Marketing Daily, August 29, 2017. “Airbnb Sends ‘Floating World’ Email Amidst Harvey Destruction”.
Sometimes people are surprised to hear that JMS doesn’t put its name on client work. But once in awhile, JMS is brought to the spotlight due to great clients and campaigns that keep us always pushing to achieve more.
Pictured: (L) Jamie Maravich-BMP Harris Bank (C) Jean Marie Saidler (R) Jim Ringness – Northwest Herald
Our Very Own Woman of Distinction
Each year with support from Shaw Media, McHenry County Magazine, presents the Women of Distinction Awards to individuals in the County who are role models and leaders in their fields and communities. These women come from many different backgrounds and work in a variety of industries, but they all share a common goal of paving the way for young women and giving back to the communities in which they live.
President and founder Jean Marie Saidler, was selected as one of this year’s winners; she joins an amazing group of other women who have made a clear impact on others. The JMS team joined Jean Marie at the awards luncheon on May 10, where she and the other winners had a chance to reflect on their journeys. Each recipient had wonderful advice to share. Jean Marie expressed her gratitude for being selected, recognized the staff and her family as her support system, and reminded the audience that young women should be assured that they really can do anything they set their minds to.
Designing for Quality and Precision
JMS often works with clients to develop new websites and to keep their websites updated as technology changes. For client K&L Anodizing, that time to update had come. K&L has been a leader in the highly technical metal finishing industry for more than 65 years. Their clients represent some of the largest industries in medical, aerospace, military and commercial manufacturing. JMS Senior Graphic Designer Brad Norlin took on the challenge, with the client’s goals and optimum functionality in mind. K&L wanted to refresh content, update pages and add new information in an industry where regulations change frequently but processes carry over through time.
Brad worked with JMS account managers and the client to develop a user-friendly design and layout that would present information quickly and succinctly. And this efficient design recently earned JMS an American Web Design Award from Graphic Design USA.
Take a peek at the updated website and let us know if you’re ready for a refresh.
Congratulations to Jean Marie and Brad on their recent achievements, showcasing how JMS goes beyond the expected for client success!