Follow Up & Results: Have a Detailed Follow Up Plan and Track Your ROI

Once the show is over and the trade show booth is put away, the real business begins — follow up on all the leads and filling the visitor requests. According to trade show research, over 82% of leads gathered at shows are not followed up. Why? The number one gripe salespeople have is that they leads lack quality. You can capture customers interests from trade show exhibits but it is important that you must keep the customers interest by following up with those leads after the show.

The biggest mistake exhibitors make is not having a plan of action to follow up on their leads. They are usually just handed out to the sales force and left to take care of themselves. Your action plan needs to have a way to measure the return your people get on every after-show sales call. Classify customers according to their current stage of sale — and quantify the cost and return on each subsequent sales effort. By monitoring every step in the sales process, you will easily learn which leads should eventually be cut from the call list, database, and target marketing when the return no longer justifies the expense.