Streamline Your Workflows with Automated Lead Nurturing for Enterprises

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[Music] welcome to the Blue Atlas trade show marketing [Music] podcast hey everybody welcome back to the trade show marketing podcast and today we're talking about automated follow-up techniques to nurture your trade show leads post show I've got a few key points for you of how you can really increase your effectiveness of following up after the show and I've got some action items for you that you can start putting into action right now so let's get started first let's talk about setting up an automated follow-up system system a lot of B2B companies don't have these type of things in place they have a CRM in place but they don't have a way to automatically follow up there are tools that can be built into your CRM say if you have Salesforce there things like par do and and things that Salesforce can integrate with there's tools I like to recommend active campaign because it has a very robust marketing automation interface um and a fairly simplistic CRM if you don't need anything too Overkill but there's a whole lot of marketing automation tools out there there's some simple ones there's some more advanced ones but ultimately you want a tool that will allow you to set up tracks of automation um that basically have logic in it like if this happens do these two things because you don't want you don't want to just inundate people with a series of emails there's a lot of autoresponders for instance that if you just dump them in and say run my autoresponder it sends them seven emails over you know whatever period you set it up I want you to have automation that can do something based on how that the user and the email reader responds you know if somebody opens it and makes and clicks a link maybe you provide different emails and different information after that so if they don't do anything at all you don't need to share that information because they still haven't open the first one and then maybe you're tracking the people that do open increase a lead score and after so many clicks through your automation their lead score is high enough that that now is what your salespeople are going to focus on so finding your automation tool there's lots of tools you probably have something in place already they can integrate with it if not find something like active campaign something that has robust automation opportunity and in you know systems in place that allow you to be robust in your automation um and primarily something that gives you the logic where you can say if this happens do this if that doesn't happen do something different now how do you use that automated follow-up system once you have that system in place you want to start building out sequences that allow you to send those emails automatically more times than not you're going to have some type of interface where you maybe you have a pile of business cards they're going to be manually entered you probably dump them into say a spreadsheet and you're going to put them into this interface and you're going to have a trigger at that point other things if they're integrated better let's say you have a lead magnet with a form on it somebody's downloading something from your website for instance that form is going to feed them right into the system and that automated sequence is going to start immediately so as you build out these sequences do think about how you're going to get them in and what flow that you want that to happen in um if you're going to be dumping in business cards you might want to wait a few days afterwards but you know that that's the what the process is going to be so make sure the emails actually follow and make sense to how you're going to get them in when they're getting in and what you're communicating with them these email sequences they can be as long or short as you want them to be I would recommend at least a 5 to seven email sequence a lot of people that you get from a contact standpoint if it is a business card unless you you know it's a really really hot lead if it is it's probably not going into this your salespeople already taken that you already have say a follow-up meeting scheduled they're probably going into that the people that are going into these automation sequences have seen a lot of booths they did probably a lot of drinks a lot of happy hours a lot of food a lot of promo items a lot of hotel and a lot of traveling there's a whole lot for them to forget about you so you kind of have to ramp them back up with your followup especially if you know this list is is very there wasn't a lot of connection at the show you know they you said they just came by you scann their business card or their their badge you got their information but you didn't really most of these people just kind of came by and grabbed a promo item and and went on you want to ramp them back up with this automation sequence that you have so consider that in the emails as you get started with the sequence those emails need to remind them who you are you saw them at the trade show this is what we you know if you can maybe this is what we talked about at least the product and service that you were showing at the trade show give them something to remind them who you are if you are going to Brand these make sure they're branded consistent with what they saw at the trade show um so they can continue to connect the dots of oh yeah yeah I remember that Booth I talked to soand so or yeah I did pick up a brochure from them it might be sitting on their desk remind them who who you that you are all right that takes us to number two personalizing the follow-up messages there's a couple of ways that you can do some personalization there's obviously the one to one you know where you just put it in even with the automated sequences that you're putting together you can send out emails very specific using their name company name URL you know those kind of things you can get very very personal with it but that might be hard for you to build out emails that get personal enough to make that worth it but what you can do is at least start segmenting your contacts for various things maybe they talked about say you have three products or services that you're really promoting at the trade show you might divide that up into the three um that you know what did y'all really talk about maybe that's on the back of the business card maybe that's there's the landing page is segmented that way so your leads that are coming in from that you know they scan the QR code they filled out a form maybe there's something on that that can help segment and you can do that with your form then maybe there's a checkbox products interested in and that would allow you to segment those but segmented based on something that's very unique to them um that way your messaging can be more personalized it doesn't just sound hey saw you at the trade show can we talk about what saw you at the trade show you picked up a brochure on so and so or you filled out our form you you know worked with our calculator for instance and we're looking at some estimates for this would love to help you with that estimate here's some additional resources that go along with that that starts to feel a little bit more personal than just a hey so you the trade show can we try to sell you something you know kind of email so find ways to personalize and craft messages that are going to resonate with the different audience segments so you might you very likely will have multiple automation tracks you'll have maybe one for each product and service maybe it's a different day maybe it's a speaking event that you did maybe you gathered some information for everybody that showed up at you know at a speaking opportunity you had maybe it's a happy hour or a sponsored event that you hosted or sponsored and were able to get that contact information there's lots of ways to segment it and ultimately what you're just trying to do here is remind people that you did have some type of connection with them there's a reason why you're reaching out to them not just you picked up their business card laying on the ground remind them how they connected with you in some kind of way even if you were just the sponsor remind them you were the sponsor and you look forward to working with people at the trade show that kind of thing but some way use things that you know about them or interactions that you had to create specific segments so that your automation is more personal all right now number three evaluating your follow-up Effectiveness there's all kinds of ways that you can measure and have put metrics in place to see what's working best you know the most obvious are open rates and click rates and ultimately conversions from it um you know those I always recommend being some of those metrics that you utilize because you want to know are the emails that you're sending are they getting opened are people actually clicking and doing thing with it is it leading to business and you might have to connect the dots with some of your other interfaces so maybe your different CRM if you're using automation platform that's separate from that but definitely utilize a way to track all of that all the way from trade show to conversion so you can see how effective it was your email open rates are going to be very useful figuring out you know are the subject lines right your clickthrough rates are going to be use to see well they opened it but did they do anything with it did they forward it to anybody you know what did they do to be able to with that email what kind of Engagement you had basically that's an engagement rate um that you can also measure how many phone calls did you book you really at the end of the day metrics that are important to you in your sales process I would think that you already have some type of metric or you know system for tracking your results in place for General marketing purposes your trade showell doesn't have to be anything different make sure the that you're tracking fit in with that but also be aware that the metrics for this are going to be related to the trade show and trade show activities you know which the whole process of getting leads from a trade show is first they need to know that you exist maybe see you at the booth know that you're something for them and now they become a prospect so use some of those type of things for your metrics so that you can see from one piece to the next maybe where the fallof was like Hey you know we we had a bunch of people open our email but no one actually clicked on anything at least you know that you're reaching people you just need to optimize the email to get them to click more or hey everybody's clicking so people were interested in it but whatever we said next we're not getting any calls we're not getting any conversions where's the drop off from there if you don't track any of this you'll just kind of end up at the end of the trade show and go man we did a whole bunch of stuff we did all of this pre-show marketing we all this stuff at the show we did all these Automation and we didn't get anything from it all this was a flop that may not be the case there may be a breakdown somewhere in the process and that's why tracking and analyzing all data with some type of metrics will help you identify where the issue is then once you have all that data and those metrics in place tweak it and improve it do it as you go following this show but also keep in mind that a lot of things that happen at trade shows especially for B2B SE seor sectors a lot of that happens from year to year you know there may be a long sales process and they see you one year and go man maybe I'll talk to them have a little bit of a conversation but there's no movement or even if there is it still takes maybe 12 months before you actually really see anything happen at the trade show the next year is when it actually become a real qualified Prospect and somebody really ready to make a move with you so track everything that you're doing this year for improvement for the following year but a lot of times you can improve those automation sequences from one email to the next in your first email no one opened it all right let's see what happens on email number two nothing happened there you know immediately you probably should jump in and make some adjustments for emails 3 4 5 6 and 7 so try to make adjustments because you have metrics and tracking things in place make those adjustments as soon as you possibly can but also keep them in mind for the following year so let's recap about automated follow-up techniques to help nurture leads post show first set up the automated followup system email sequences that provide the right type of Engagement and the right type of followup to the audience based on the fact that they were at the trade show try to be more specific than General so that you get people's attention everyone that saw everyone that got their business card is following up with them so you're having to fight through a lot more clutter than just normal email and probably a lot of emails that were piling up from them going to the trade show so you do have a lot of competition to get it opened but establish these automated follow-ups and extend them out pretty far so that you've got a lot of emails that continue to go you know one or two emails after the fact is usually what most companies do especially sales teams go all right I sent two emails they didn't respond that were bad leads let's move on they may just be inated with everything so maybe ex extend that automated follow-up sequence number two personalize the follow-up messages try to segment your audience so that you can talk about things that are very specific to them so when they do open an email they go oh yeah they're talking about me they're not just talking about everybody they met now they remember this conversation or they know about that I was at that particular event they're thanking me for coming to the happy hour that they sponsored those kind of things to personalize and create a quick relationship and in those messages is you want to remind them who you are so they can get rent back up to why they're even listening and opening your emails in the first place and then number three make sure you're evaluating the follow-up Effectiveness so you can make adjustments as quickly as possible and make this as most effective as possible from one year to the next all of the things all of these things contribute to positive Roi for a trade show so many B2B companies really drop the ball on a lot of just doing this altogether I'm trying to give you techniques to help improve it as you do it but just doing this is a much better First Step than so many companies that visit trade shows and exhibited trade shows they feel like that's the step that's just the vehicle for your pre-show marketing your during show marketing and your postshow marketing so Implement these three things you'll be a thousand times ahead of your competition and you'll start seeing much more positive results in Roi from your trade show marketing all right here's your action items for today one research and select an automation tool that will work with your current system so it's not too new for you um and set up a basic follow-up sequence get in get it ready have your marketing team or you if you're the marketing team that's going to be setting these things up get in and play with the automation sequence you might find that you're really happy with this tool and start integrating those automation sequences in other forms of marketing or just general followup but definitely get in and play with it and get comfortable with it so you can start planning a basic sequence for your trade show next segment all of your trade show leads based on their interest and behaviors f look if it's a show that you've already been to look back at the previous show how can we segment these users everybody came by can we segment by day can we segment by product or service they were interested in can we segment by what they look like maybe there big company small company certain industry certain job roles there are lots of ways that you can segment this to make your followup personal which is why you're doing this step and lastly to find those key performance indicators those kpis to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your follow-up efforts what is going to tell you what's working and what's not what do you want to know there's the obvious one of did we get business everyone should be tracking that and that you want to know but you can start tracking that backwards of well how many calls did we get how many s proposals did we put out how many people were engaged from the how many were engaged how many leads do we actually create in the first place establish your kpis long before you start getting to the show so that you know what you're targeting that's going to help you with your automation sequences thank than for joining us today as we talked about automated automated follow-up techniques here on the trade show marketing podcast my name is Nate stalker and I'll see you next time [Music]