You might from time to time choose to take a stand at some events – they’re a great way of raising your profile. Don’t make the mistake of just turning up and setting up a stand though, remember you’re looking to make contact with people and collect data, so always try and have some sort of competition, even something as simple as asking people to fill out the form to enter a draw. Have more recent guides or white papers you can give away, but again actually send them a pack and capture all of their details.
There may even be an opportunity to do some more detailed targeting. I heard about a business recently who was going to be at trade event and did something quite clever. They contacted the organisers and asked them for a list of contact details for the booked attendees, and while the organisers wouldn’t give them out, they did share the names of the firms that were going there. It was a little more work, but the business contacted each of the firms to ask who was going to the trade event, then – having gotten the name – rang the person and asked them what their favourite chocolate bar was. They promised that, no matter how bizarre the request, this would be waiting for them on their stand at the trade event so to come along to collect it.
They actually upgraded the packages to include a nice bottle of wine in a presentation box, and on the first day of the event so many people crowded round the businesses stand to pick up their chocolate (and their wine) that it created a huge buzz (as well as lots of goodwill). The result of this work? They made £tens of thousands worth of sales at and soon after the event, and developed some string relationships for future sales too. It’s examples like this that just go to show it’s the hard work upfront that makes the selling easy.
You could do something similar in an offer for people attending the event you were at, get them to fill something out prior to attending and then make sure they have something to pick up from your stand, there’s always a way of getting in front of your ideal clients, even if it’s using Facebook.
