#36 Live Leads From Live Events

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:58 — 27.4MB) | Embed

Welcome to episode #36! We’re all about live events in this episode and what you should do to ensure that you capture those live leads. Many people spend a lot of money to set up at these events but forget the follow-up afterwards. What should you do with potential live leads that you meet at marketing events? We’re going to look at;

QR Codes
SMS Marketing
Capturing Leads

What did Andrew and Heather learn over the week?

Heather spoke at a large event in Melbourne about leveraging your brand. She got a great response from what she shared so just wanted to share here; if you currently have a blog, you can re-purpose your current content and look for other blog sites where you could post as a guest. It’s a great way to build your credibility through other authority websites. To find these blogs, use the search area in Google which looks for blogs using your keywords. Also try technorati.com. Remember to offer original (not duplicate!) content.

Andrew has been looking at different types of Facebook ads to see what would get a better response. He found that sponsored posts performed much better than the pay per click ads. Click through rate was much better. If you want to use this and ensure that your posts are very targeted, don’t do the sponsored post directly off your wall but click through to your ad manager. This means you can segment a target audience so that it appears to those who it may be most relevant for.

Capturing Live Leads

So, let’s look at a step by step process to capture live leads from events. For one thing, what should you do with all those business cards you collect? You could manually enter the details from the cards into your email system such as MailChimp etc., which would be a bit tedious but is better than doing nothing with them! Or you can use a scanning app such as Card Munch (details hooked up with LinkedIn) or Instant Customer (captures details and adds to your email program).

Remember, if you are at a live event, you already have a very targeted audience in front of you. They are already interested in the area for which the expo is targeted so it is up to you to ensure you effectively capture the leads. Here are some suggestions;

Don’t let people just walk past your booth without giving them something! Many booth-holders are seen sitting behind the desk on their phones etc looking disinterested. Engage with your audience!
Make sure you grab their details; use the ‘ethical bribe’ to get their name and email address. This could be a competition or free giveaway.
Capture their details either the old-fashioned way (pen and paper) or use technology. For example you could set up an SMS service to collect name, email and phone number. You could also put a QR code on your booth or cards which takes people to your opt-in page once they scan it. Bequrious.com is a good site to set this up.
If you are speaking on stage, you could get people to text to a number to get your slides or enter for a giveaway. This is a very fast way of capturing many leads.
Capture leads by directing them to a landing page on your website for a giveaway etc.
Have a fish-bowl to collect business cards. Use an app such as Card Munch to scan the card for you and process the information straight to your LinkedIn account. Instant Customer will also put the details into your email data base.

The key to successfully capturing as many leads as possible at these events is to make it as easy as possible for people to engage with you. Go prepared and have the technology set up in an easy-to-follow way. Another tip is if you are collecting info by having people fill out forms, get your staff to fill the forms out to ensure that they are legible!