Whether it’s a sponsored event, product launch and demo, trade show booth or retail sampling, face-to-face interaction is the best way to engage consumers. If they love the brand, the experience and they want to hear more... that means it was an EVENT SUCCESS! Now it’s time for re-engagement or follow-up. This is where the breakdown occurs and leads are not optimized.
After the live experience, the attendee information is entered into a spread sheet or spread sheets that are combined, split up by retailer or sales rep or by geography, entered into a CRM system and then ready for follow-up. By now four days could have passed, your hot leads are back to their daily grind and a follow-up call or email loses out to: competitive volleyball, kids schedules, the stock market and gluten free cooking.
The chance of a lead responding to a call or email is indirectly proportional to the amount of time that could've passed after they have submitted their information. Therefore if anything is to be gained from the time and expense taken to engage your consumers in the first place, a timely follow-up is imperative.
Most brands currently set aside a good chunk of someone’s time immediately following the experience, which is a good idea but not always practical or an efficient use of resources. Luckily there are efficient technologies which can be leveraged to ensure an organized process, data integrity and a quick follow up takes place.
Follow-ups must be personal, timely, contextual and relevant. With the chaos that often follows a live experience, the use of triggered customized emails could be automated to keep your business top of mind. This may be part of the live marketing technology or could be integrated with your company’s customer relationship management (CRM) program and marketing automation software.
Using one of these solutions maximizes the time and budget spent toward generating new leads and ensures your hot leads stay engaged with your brand.