Follow up your event

Whether you’re doing a free webinar to generate interest in your products or services or speaking at a business event or even exhibiting at a trade show, you’ll have a list of attendees.  (Most event organisers share their list of registrations with exhibitors and speakers).  So what do you do with this list?

As part of your event planning you should be thinking about follow up.  If you’ve got a series of autoresponder messages ready your follow up can happen the minute the event is over.

Building an autoresponder series

If you’re running your own event, people who register should be entered onto a list for that event as part of your registration process.

If you’re exhibiting or speaking at someone else’s event you need to know when you will receive the list of attendees.

Then you’ll need a series of messages to keep them engaged.  These need to reinforce what you originally delivered, but can also be seeded with opportunities for the receiver to get more from you.

For instance - and this is just an example:

Event + 1 day:  Thank you for attending, I hope you found it useful.  You can find a workbook/notes/more useful information here (link to somewhere on your website) P.S. Ask for feedback - ideally a simple online form with a link.

Event + 5 days:  Remind of a key point or two.  Ask them to take action so they use their learning/experience.  If it’s an exhibition then it might be a general reminder to sort out the mass of paper they’ve collected.

Event + 10 days: What have they done so far?  Remind them of the key points.  P.S. Offer an opportunity to attend something else/get a low-cost item/join your Facebook group/like your Facebook Page

Event + 15 days: Have they experienced a challenge in relation to putting their learning into practice?  Give some advice.  P.S. Remind them how to contact you and offer something (discounted price/free session/something useful - but different to the last PS)

Event + 30 days: How are things going?  Ask for feedback on their progress.  Ask if there is anything you can do to help them.

Autoresponder series can be short or long.  Certainly for events where you are sharing learning they can be long with reminders of individual key points in each one.

Clearly each message will need crafting to appeal to the reader and have an ‘open me’ subject line.  But once they’re all loaded into whatever online marketing system you use, they will just keep being delivered and leave you free to get on with running your business.

Picture perfect

A picture is worth a 1000 words!  But the picture has to be good enough to deliver the right message.

Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest feature images and some people have done very well from these and grown substantial businesses.  So what makes a great picture?

1. People - we like humans, especially when they’re doing something interesting or are particularly attractive - or unusual in some way.
2. Animals - why do you think so many people watch cat videos on Facebook?  However to work for your business it must be relevant!
3. Intriguing pictures - if there’s a picture that’s a great image, but needs a bit of help to ‘see’ what it really is that often works well.  That might be an unusual angle on a piece of equipment or an image that shows a part of something rather than the whole.  The secret is in a well-shot image.
4. Clarity - the picture needs to be sharp, not too ‘busy’ and look professional.
5. Information - presented in pictorial form.  This would include infographics, diagrams, charts and graphs - as long as the information is easy to process and they’re not stuffed with too much information.
6. Colour - bright colours attract attention - as long as the image isn’t overloaded with colour. A focal point that draws the eye is perfect.
7. Words - a quote or statement on a coloured background with a little decoration can be effective.
8. Aesthetically pleasing - we like looking at beautiful things so if your image includes something attractive, or is particularly well balanced, it will attract attention.  Look at décor images to get ideas of how ‘things’ can work well in particular juxtapositions.

Don’t just dump images into your feed, do some thinking and planning first.

Email magic

When you’re trying to generate sales, there are two things you need:

1. People who are interested in what you have to offer
2. Information that gets their attention

If you don’t already have a list with permission to contact them, you need to generate that first.  The most straightforward way is to create a lead magnet.

However, assuming you have a list, you should be able to tick number one.  Your list should include people who have already expressed an interest in what you sell, whether they’ve downloaded a free lead magnet, completed an enquiry form, attended a free event or may even be a former client.

Then you can concentrate on number two.

And there lies a challenge - what will get their attention?

The right headline

You probably have Clutter and Junk folders in your email that are bursting at the seams - and you will never have time to read all those trivial messages.  But if you skip through them before deleting them you’ll probably read the odd one - usually because the subject line makes you curious.

So you need to know what will attract people who already have an interest and just need pushing over the edge.  Your subject line is your headline and the number one place to concentrate your creative attention.

For instance:

Fantastic offer!  Don’t miss out

Or

Will you hate yourself tomorrow?

The first one may sound exciting - to you, but the second one creates curiosity.  People need to know what it’s about, it’s intriguing, there’s  a fear of missing out there too.

Planning pays off

One email doesn’t make a campaign.  If you send it on a Tuesday morning, what about all those people who are rushed off their feet on Tuesdays?  What about those who are out of the office?  What about the people who are on holiday this week?

Plan a campaign with at least three messages.  Each message should be different, but hold the same information.  Different headlines and approaches may connect better with those who didn’t open the first one.

Send them on different days of the week and at different times of day.

Work on short and succinct for business people, they appreciate not having to read miles of text.  Yes, there are long emails that work, but the art of writing these is another blog!

Think about whether you need to have a html email with images and sales material, or are you better off with just text and your professional signature?  This is where it’s important to see things from your customer’s perspective, what might connect with them - and what will turn them off and get your message deleted?

Test your message

If you have a strong network of business friends you might run a test mailing and ask for feedback.  Failing that try testing two different headlines (subject lines) for the same email and see which one gets most opens.

Review your opens and clicks data - and see if, over time, there are some common factors that perform better than others.

The more you learn, the better you will make subsequent campaigns.

Build a community

If your business has a Facebook Page, you’ll need to work at it for it to be successful.

Likes and Follows are important - and often others will judge you based on your numbers.  However, there’s much more to a successful Facebook Page than big numbers of likes/follows.

To really make your page work you need engagement.  That means people who see your posts and like them or comment.  The challenge for most Page owners is that, unless you pay for boosts or ads, few of your posts will appear in the home feed of those who’ve liked your Page or followed it.

In truth, even the posts of the people you’ve accepted as friends don’t appear in your home feed.  Facebook filters posts so you only see the posts from the 20-25 people you interact with the most.  When it comes to Pages the filter is virtually zero.

Let’s look at it from the user’s point-of-view.  If you use Facebook at all, as an individual, you’ve probably liked quite a few pages.  How many of these do you actively visit?  How many of their posts turn up in your home feed?

In order to get people to keep coming back your posts need to have a big engagement factor.  So your first task is to work out what your audience will be interested in.  This might include:

• Hints and tips around your area of expertise
• Short videos showing people a simple step-by-step process
• Interesting pictures
• Fun things

The sad truth is that people are more likely to watch something entertaining than something enabling on Facebook.  The secret is to find content that ticks both those boxes!

This is a challenge for most people and it takes time so here are a few ideas to build your content up.

1. Open your eyes,  When you’re online keep looking at the things you find as potential material.  Sharing other people’s content is fine as long as it’s clear that it’s shared.
2. Convert things to visual images, like infographics or diagrams.
3. Get comfortable talking to a camera.  Video is far more popular than text only or even images.  What could you create?  Videos need to be short, so it doesn’t have to be a painful process, the secret is prepare well and the actual video will come over effectively.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, just easy to watch.
4. Have a place where you keep useful links and material.  Sometimes you may find things that aren’t relevant today, but might be later.  Keep a OneNote or EverNote page with all these links to refer to when you need material.
5. Pinch other people’s ideas!  I don’t mean literally, but when you find something that really works, think about how you might do something similar about your own business.

When you start getting likes and comments you’ll find you’ve built a community.

When is a press release an article?

You’ve probably been told that sending press releases to your chosen press list is a good idea and will help your marketing.  But a press release is typically about something that is happening in your business that the readership of those publications will be interested in.

With the best will in the world, few companies - especially small ones - can come up with newsworthy material on a weekly, or even monthly, basis.  So, if you don’t have news, how can you get into print?

Be proactive

Take a look at your press list.  Are there any industry journals for your target audience on it?  If you help property investors, then what do they read?  If you offer services to engineers, what publications are on their desks?  If you specialist in fitness training, what do your ideal clients read?

When you’ve identified a handful of publications contact the editors.  You’ll often find that industry journals don’t have an office full of paid journalists and may welcome a regular article that will appeal to their readers.

Be ethical

You’ll need to provide examples of your articles for the editors to read and it’s wise to submit articles to ONLY ONE editor.  If you write well and find it reasonably easy, then you can submit different articles to different editors, but don’t duplicate.

Don’t use your articles as a sales platform.  This is the fastest way to alienate editors and get your articles ‘spiked’ (journalese for ‘binned’) or heavily edited.  Most editors are happy to have your byline and contact info at the end of the article.

Aim to write useful material that the reader can put into practice.

Get help

If you find writing hard work, but have plenty of ideas, outsource the article writing to a professional copywriter or freelance writer.  You can usually get your ideas over in a short phone conversation and then simply polish their draft to your requirements.

You can find a good writer through your network, recommendations or on freelance sites like elance, PeoplePerHour or Fiverr.  Always ask for examples before you choose; cheapest is not often best!  Your chosen writer should be able to capture your voice as well as your ideas.

If you’d like some help we’re always happy to help!  Give me a call on 01245 473296.