It’s been a couple of weeks since you came back from the show. You have completed your after the show tasks. You’ve priced your new goods and displayed them in their own feature showcase. You had a private showing for your best customers. Pictures from your trip are uploaded to your website and posted on your social media page. If you have your own blog, your travel story and new items are already mentioned and promoted. So what is left? Is that all there is to do? Not at all, here is one more very important task.
This venue is easy to navigate, consisting of two long side by side exhibition halls and two other halls in a different part of the building. All of the exhibition spaces are on the lower level of the building and the upper level held support services such as food, information and security.
Pull out all of the business cards you collected at the show. Hopefully you made notes on why you kept them and what that person or company has to offer. Sort them into three piles. The first pile contains things really interest you and you want to start on immediately. The second stack is for things that you may want to think about in the near future. The third stack is the “why do I have this card” stack.
Send a detailed e-mail to everyone in your first stack. Outline your interest in their product or service and request further information. They just met thousands of buyers and probably need a bit of help to know who you are so if you can, try to include something about your interaction with them to help them remember you. This could be the start of a good long term relationship so put some effort into these contacts.
The second stack can have a boiler plate message. You just want to establish a basic contact. It can be something as simple as “Hi, this is Dave from XYZ corp. I have a jewellery store located in ABC city. It was a pleasure to meet you at the show. I may be interested in what you have to offer in the near future so please include me in any of your mailings or email lists. If you have a catalogue, please send it to my address.” Just be sure to copy and paste each one in an individual e-mail rather than just listing all the email addresses in one message. That is a sure way to end up in their spam filter.
The third stack can be handled a few different ways. If you know you took a card just to be polite, dispose of it now. If you are unsure why you took the card, you send a quick email asking for more information. It might be something you really want but it totally slipped your mind. If they have a web address on the card, look it up. It may remind you of why you have their card.
Communicating with your new contacts is important. After all, that is one of the reasons to went to the show so don’t forget this important task.