Learn how using video mail will elevate your post-conference outreach!
Imagine this: You are a tradeshow attendee – not an exhibitor.
You just returned home from a long conference filled with a lot of interesting booths and exhibits. You sit down to check your email and you see dozens of emails from sales reps from the show all touting the same message - “schedule a demo now!” Some of these messages could be from sales reps you spoke to at the conference; however, these emails might be from individuals you’ve never spoken to before. And odds are, you’d ignore most of these messages.
Now ask yourself: are you doing the same thing as an exhibitor? i.e., Sending impersonal, text-based emails to conference attendees, some of whom you’ve met and others you haven’t?
When crafting content for post-conference follow-ups, you should be thinking about what kind of messaging you’d like to receive. Tradeshow follow-up emails can be very effective in setting up a conversation with a lead. But they’re also easy to get wrong.
Keep reading to learn how you can stand out from the crowd with great follow-ups using video mail!
Before we delve into some post-tradeshow tips, let’s define video mail:
Video mail is the term for sending videos via email. This is different from a video attachment or a hyperlink out to a video elsewhere on the internet because the video’s contents appear directly in the body of the email.
As it pertains to post-tradeshow communications, video mail is one of your best bets to stand out in your recipient’s inbox amongst the sea of black-and-white emails from everyone else at the show.
During the tradeshow, you should be taking notes about each conversation that you have. Doing so will allow you to send more personalized follow-ups. Even if you have the most dazzling personality and appearance, prospects are talking to A LOT of vendors. Therefore, having specific references to your conversation in your post-conference outreach will allow for your prospect to better remember you and your conversation.
Take it to the next level!
Send them a message during the show! Using video mail, you can send personalized messages right from the tradeshow floor. Just talked about something interesting? Send them a video message addressing that topic from your booth space with the call-to-action to schedule a follow-up meeting. The reinforcement of your face, branding, and the conversation will allow you to stand out in their memory and the video in their inbox will allow you to stand out there as well!
When you are creating your post-conference outreach, your first thought should be “will the recipient remember who I am based on this information?” If the answer is no, then the recipient will feel like the message is just another cold pitch from the dozens of other vendors. This is where notetaking during the conference will help you shine. Look at those notes, find something specific you spoke about and make that the key focus of your message. Jogging your lead’s memory will help them connect this email to your conversation during the show.
Take it to the next level!
Even better than dropping some information into the text of an email, send a video mail message instead. If your lead can see your face, hear your voice, and be reminded of a previous conversation all in one message, they will feel a much more personal connection. That personal connection will do wonders for inspiring a response.
When you’re sending an email, the subject line is the first, and when crafted poorly, the last thing your recipient reads. So, when creating your tradeshow follow-up emails, crafting your subject lines should be more than an afterthought! In fact, you should strategically word your subject lines to bolster the content in the body of your email. You should write something specific to the show, who you are, who they are, what you talked about, etc. Essentially, you want to write a subject line that will make them click on your message.
Take it to the next level!
For more information on crafting compelling subject lines, check out this article on our blog! There are tons of tips and tricks there for maximizing the prime real estate that is an email subject line!
It can be tempting to dump everything you want to say into one message – who you are, your product pitch, schedule a meeting, etc. However, you should resist that temptation. If your lead opens the message and sees a wall of text, they might hit Delete without reading it. And that doesn’t do you any good. Therefore, you should stick to just making an introduction with a call-back to a previous conversation, then leave the ball in their court. Make the email easy to respond to instead of another chore for your recipient.
Take it to the next level!
Take the load off your prospect altogether by sending a video message. You won’t have to worry about a wall of text if there isn’t much text to read. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video, compared to 10% when reading it in a text (Insivia). You have more room to provide information to a prospect when you tell them personally via video rather than attempting to type it out in an engaging way.
There are few better ways to grab a reader's attention than offering something for free. Drop a free guide, eBook, or something of the like. And while your freebie shouldn’t just be information about your company, it should give your lead an easy path to your website. If the resource also has a link to a page where your lead can request information or set up a call, even better. Just try to be casual about asking them to download it – the last thing you want to do is be pushy.
Take it to the next level!
It’s harder to say no to an offer when you are saying it to someone’s face than when you are just reading something! Make your offers with video mail to add a personal touch to the process. Got a freebie for them to download?
With SalesMail, you can link out to those little giveaways using the call-to-action (CTA) functionality.
To learn more about this feature, check out this article on our blog.
Most of our discussion pertains to prospects that you or a colleague may have spoken to at the conference. So, what about those that you didn’t speak to? Maybe the tradeshow organizers provided a contact list from all attendees; should you reach out to them post-show with a cold, text-based email? The short answer? Probably not. It’s hard to send a post-show email that stands out to someone you’ve never held a conversation with. If you cannot be personal with your recipient, it might be a waste of your time and theirs.
Take it to the next level!
We suggest using a video mail tool like SalesMail because it allows you to make what would be an impersonal introduction more personal. You can introduce yourself, let the recipient know how you acquired their information, and how you stand to benefit them or their business. Essentially, you can give your on-floor sales pitch in video form right to their email. This will likely be much more successful than sending a generic plain text or HTML message you’d send to everyone else.
The moral of the story is to compose an email that you would like to receive after a conference. If you review your email (or watch your video mail message) and find that it is simply “checking a box” rather than serving an intentional purpose, you probably shouldn’t send it. Tradeshow follow-ups should be direct, intentional, and personal for each recipient if you want to stand out. The best way to do all of those things is to use video mail for your post-conference outreach! Click the CTA below to get started today!