5 Ways to Turn Leads into Sales After Fresh Summit

CoreBanner_LeadsIntoSales.pngAs marketers, your #1 goal is to help your sales team tee up, nurture and close sales. Yet much of your success hinges on your team’s effort after the show.  And unfortunately, statistics show that 80% of trade show exhibitors don’t follow up on their show leads. We’ve put together 5 tips to help you avoid becoming that statistic and turn leads into sales.

 

Leads Into Sales

1. Qualify Your Leads

Following Fresh Summit 2016, your first course of action should be to collaborate with your sales team to qualify leads based on any prior business they’ve done with your company, their level of decision making and ultimately their level of interest based on most recent discussions.

Don’t be surprised if customized marketing tools and resources are needed from sales to help them close the deal.  Be prepared to use the qualification process to help you customize your approach for hooking leads with relevant marketing tactics.

2. Report Up

Once you’ve coordinated with your sales team, host an all hands on deck meeting to communicate sales opportunities, deliverables, a follow-up timeline and expected outcomes to management.  The goal is to facilitate a comfort level that a plan has been established, roles have been identified and action items are in motion to generate real ROI for your trade show investment.  This also allows the management team to leverage key relationships and knowledge to improve the follow-up process.

3. Follow Up with Prospects

Make it a goal to contact your prospects, or encourage your sales team to follow-up with leads, within 2 weeks following the show. Follow-up for hot leads should come in the form of a personal email or phone call while leads that are a little farther down the sales funnel might be a more general brand communication or invitation to learn something relevant about your company.

4. Quantify your Success

While it’s challenging to calculate a literal ROI for your trade show participation, you can periodically reference your sales system and track revenue associated with the contacts in your leads list.   This documentation will help you quantify your trade show success as you report back to your team and can also be instrumental in evaluating and improving your trade show strategies for the next year.

5. Measure over Time 

Keep your eye on web visits post-Fresh Summit, and make sure to measure email opens/clicks. Using Google Analytics or a robust website/CRM tool like HubSpot, will help you track leads as they seek to find more information about your company, products or services after the show.  Connect and stay engaged with leads on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter and keep your company top of mind with advertisements and public relations activities that reinforce your brand presence within the industry.

Once Fresh Summit follow-up is complete, use your company’s leads list to help shape your marketing and communications plan for 2017!  Seeking to collaborate with a creative marketing company to help you get started?  DMA Solutions is hosting free marketing consultations during Fresh Summit.  Book a meeting with us and let’s talk about your sales and marketing approach in 2017.

Have something to add? Leave us a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter @TheCoreBlog!

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