Internet can help you get more from leads generated at events.

With many companies operating under limited marketing budgets -- especially for user groups, conferences and trade shows in general -- the Web presents a perfect opportunity for marketers to maximize the power of events and help to quantify the value and returns that they provide. While not always the best medium for developing one-on-one relationships on its own, the interactive and direct nature of the Web can help marketers to better foster, manage and qualify and follow-up on interested leads from company and industry trade shows and seminars.

Getting face-to-face

Getting face-to-face with your prospect -- making eye contact, shaking hands and building relationships -- is key to cultivating your sales pipeline and promoting your company. For this reason, it is essential that all marketing efforts, throughout the event planning process, be targeted toward getting the right people to attend and, more importantly, getting them to come to you.

While the Internet is often not conducive to cultivating a strong and personal one-on-one sales relationship, it is a great way to develop leads, inform prospects and drive traffic to events at which you can develop business. As with anything, it helps to be prepared. Start promoting the event to your customers and prospects directly and early, especially if it is likely to require travel.

Use your email

Get the word out on your own Web site. Many companies keep an updated calendar of events online, which is a simple and effective way for visitors aching to attend your most recent sales event to find out more. Make sure you arm these individuals with everything they need. Provide the particulars of where, when and why prospects should attend. And ensure that registration information is available, as well as links to hotels and accommodations, when applicable.

Ever get a Yahoo! email from someone and notice the promotional string from the portal at the end of the message? Marketers should take a tip from Yahoo! and others and use this effective, yet often neglected, piece of real estate for promoting events. List a short string of details on an upcoming conference or meeting that recipients may be interested in or can pass along.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society effectively used this space to promote its black tie Super Bowl gala held just before the big game in San Diego this year. While the email footers were only one element of a complete campaign to promote the gala, they were helpful in getting quick, interactive responses from recipients personally asking for more information. Many requests for information about tickets came from casual, unrelated email communications.

"Save the date" emails are another good way to tease an event. One thing to keep in mind, even on these early email messages -- never waste an opportunity to make it easy for people to register. Be sure to provide instructions to your prospects on how to sign up in all of your communications or link to places where they can.

Throughout your campaign, email communications will likely be a pivotal element of marketing the event -- as it likely should be, given its cost-effective and timely nature. However, there are important elements to keep in mind that companies often neglect. In particular, marketers should be careful not to annoy people who have already registered for an event with additional requests to sign up. To make this communication easier, marketers and sales professionals can segment the email lists into groups that have responded and those that have not. Additionally, marketers should always make it easy for people to opt-out of mailing lists at any time.

Branch out

Getting the word out should not begin and end solely with your own company. Sales and marketing professionals should leverage direct communication and outside sources to generate a crowd. If partners are involved, make it easy for them to reciprocate and gather attendees. Offer branded creative materials -- such as banner ads and brochures -- they can use to garner additional support for the event.

Periodically make sure your top prospects are receiving materials, partners are using the creative appropriately, and that details are clear to the prospect. It is easy to make a few phone calls to judge the level of success on your pre-event performance. Do this early enough and you can make repairs to critical elements.

Keep in touch

Finally, you have your list of RSVPs, but keep in mind that it does not mean the people on your list will necessarily attend. People miss events for a variety of reasons. Marketers and sales professionals should look for opportunities to minimize "outs" where possible by providing organized information and reminders prospects need in a timely and consistent manner. One out that marketing and sales can minimize easily is the "I got lost" excuse by ensuring that maps, directions and parking instructions are listed on communications such as thank you pages, emails, tickets and fliers.

At the event

The big day has arrived, and the goal is to get in front of the prospect and move in for the sale. Keep in mind that specs and materials may not be handy in all situations -- nor should you be fumbling for them or relying on them too heavily. One way for sales professionals to avoid having to provide a complete download on the fly is to prepare prospects with previous knowledge from which to ask questions.

Send links or small files such as PDFs, or a packet of information via mail, to top prospects about what you will present before the event. Your contacts may also appreciate the fact that they can look at the information at their leisure and maximize their time at the event by being prepared with questions and not having to carry bulky brochureware home.

At the event, do not rely on trinkets and badge-swiping to streamline the lead-gathering process. The badge will give you general information, which is not necessarily specific to your prospects’ needs or your company’s product and will not equip you with enough information to help these individuals in the future. Instead, develop "buckets" or classify needs by categories such as purchasing timeframe, job responsibilities, purchasing criteria, problem areas, etc. The information that you capture in your booth now will help you to address the individual’s direct needs later.

Casual, interactive workstations that allow prospects to self-educate and identify themselves are a good way to introduce people to your company and obtain more information about their needs as they wait to talk to an engineer or sales professionals. Interactive games and demos can be developed in advance and used by booth personnel to walk prospects through your organization, show some of the rich features and knowledge banks on your site and educate prospects with streaming videos and/or interactive demos and games.

In this way, interactive tools can be used to inform prospects while making it fun and informative. Games that build on what your company does -- not just random arcade games that monopolize booth space -- and surveys can be used to grab additional data about your prospects by requiring them to enter information online to proceed to the next level and win a prize. Make booth games quick, simple and digestible by a dizzied guest. Your goal should be to get to know who they are and two to three top benefits you can provide, as well as obtain more information on them.

Also, be sure to load demos and games locally as opposed to relying strictly on the convention center’s Internet connection. You can work with your company’s IT department to set up a Web server, or a simple desktop partitioned with the information, to take with you so that you can use Interactive games and demos even if the Internet connection goes down. This will also allow local information to load more quickly.

Closing the loop

After the event, you can return to online tactics in addition to direct phone calls. Use email to immediately follow-up and provide useful points or tidbits of information tailored to what you know about your prospects.

Classifying people into a few messaging "buckets" for follow-up at the event and using software to segment your targets when you return can greatly simplify this process. An email blast can still be very personal if you have segmented people appropriately and use some of the tricks of email applications, such as automatically inserting a person’s first name into the body of the email. Then track open and response rates to your email. This will ultimately determine the success of your event.

If your open and response rates are high, then you have been successful in building a pipeline on which to follow up and build a beneficial relationship that you can leverage for future online efforts and seminars or conferences.

A case study

More than 600 highly qualified prospects attended a Toshiba NPD/Texas Instruments Broadband Plus Party recently, where the company introduced the latest innovation in personal, all-in-one cable modems. The event more than doubled its goals in both attendance and results, at least partly due to promotional and event strategies aimed at capitalizing on attendance and show returns through the Web.

Toshiba NPD was persistent in email and online communication to potential attendees, yet very conscious of not being intrusive. By continually trimming the prospect list into groups, such as "interested" "not interested," and "registered," Toshiba NPD was able to communicate with each more appropriately. Those that had not responded were enticed with messages of greater urgency and new points about the event, and those that had received messages that reinforced the importance of attending as well as the many benefits they were about to receive, making them feel good about their decision.

Since the event was also sponsored by Texas Instruments, similarly branded materials were leveraged by both parties to use in promotion. The materials helped to ensure consistency and provided sales, marketing and other members of both companies with a complete kit of materials for communication and an easy way to provide details to prospects without requiring individuals to re-invent the wheel with each correspondence.

The companies made critical contact information and details available throughout communications mediums to prospects. Maps, driving directions and emergency phone numbers were available on the Web site, the thank you page of the registration, the confirmation email and any follow-ups.

Ensuring consistency in messaging and themes, and enticing potential attendees with a "sneak peak," Toshiba sent a link to the Flash demo of the new product via email beforehand to begin to develop knowledge about the latest device. The same demo was looped at the tradeshow and at the subsequent party to allow the messages and key takeaways to sink in.

As you plan your next event, consider the ultimate goal of getting and maintaining face time with current and potential customers. It will be your responsibility to follow up with booth visitors. Your level of effectiveness at establishing a relationship throughout this process will determine whether or not prospects will take your call after the event is over. By leveraging the power of the Web before, during and after the event to follow-up, you can maintain closer contact with potential customers throughout the process and into the future.

Reid Carr is the president and strategy director for Red Door Interactive in charge of helping organizations such as Sharp Systems of America, The National Brain Tumor Foundation, The Eastridge Group of Staffing Companies, SkinMedica and others to lay out strategies for their online Web presence and interactive marketing activities.