How are you following up post-event? Our guide to nurturing virtual event leads.

What is following up?

Following up is the process of contacting an attendee after an event to find out if they found the event valuable and if there’s any potential to build on the relationship further. This can be done in a number of ways such as over the phone, email and more.

Why is it important?

Following up is important as it gives you the opportunity to build a more meaningful relationship with your attendees even after your virtual event has finished. Following up should take a more personalised approach as you already have an introduction and understanding of your attendees. You want to provide further valuable information, especially those related to their interests as this can be key to converting your audience of attendees into customers. 

Keep reading to hear our guide on nurturing virtual events leads.

Linkedin

A go-to way to follow up with attendees after a virtual event is to connect with them on Linkedin. Once you’ve done this, it’s a good idea to include them and others in a post about the event to thank them for coming and for sharing their knowledge and expertise. This also means that you are connecting a number of people and adding further value to their experience. 

Additionally, sending a quick message to ask them how they found the event and if there’s anything extra you can help them with goes a long way. For example, you can ask if they found the event valuable and what their key takeaways from it were. You can also ask if they’d be interested in being a part of other events, as well as offering any further help for particular challenges they’ve previously spoken to you about. You can work on building your relationship with previous attendees through engaging and supporting any interesting content they post.

Email

Sending a thank-you email post event is a common practice, this is a way of showing your attendees that you appreciate their contribution to the event and that you want to stay connected going forward. 

In your thank-you email you can include a survey or questionnaire to find out about the attendees’ experience at your event and whether there’s anything extra you can do to improve in future. The purpose of surveys or questionnaires is to gather constructive feedback from attendees, stay in tune with sponsors, and monitor overall satisfaction. This will then give you talking points when you speak to your attendees again. 

Phone call

A simple phone call is a great way to follow up after a virtual event, this shows the attendee that you’re genuinely interested in their experience and whether they found the event valuable. 

However, these follow-ups should take a more personalized approach. Be sure to still provide valuable information to attendees particularly around what could be of interest to them and how you could tailor to their specific needs. It’s a good idea to have the same person call and communicate with the attendee throughout the whole process before, during and after the event. This can be valuable as it means they get to build a relationship and true understanding of who the attendee is, why they’re attending, and what more you can offer them. 

Social Media

You can make full use of your social media channels when following up after a virtual event. One way of doing this is to like/share/reply to any content posted about your event, through engaging with your attendees in this way you are keeping the line of communication open, showing them you appreciate their attendance, and nurturing the existing relationship.

By monitoring engagement and content about your event you will be able to see who found the event most useful and therefore who your hot leads are, this allows you to prioritise these people when implementing your follow-up strategy. 

However, you choose to follow up with attendees after an event, be sure to have a strong strategy in place so that they feel like there is still more value to be added to their experience. Choose one or two ways of following up that you believe are best for your business goals. This can be decided by looking at the relationship you have with the attendee and whether a more formal approach, such as an email or phone call, would be best or whether you can reach out on a more informal platform, such as Linkedin or other social media. Don’t forget, the main aim of following up is to nurture the existing relationship, choose the right strategy for you and share any insights with your wider team!