In our last two blogs, we discussed how to attract your prospect’s attention to the event you are hosting. In this blog, we answer the question–What next? You’ve got people in a room – digitally or physically – Now what?

It’s important to be “in the moment” while at an event, whether that’s in a virtual or physical space. You want to be attentive to the attendees and strive to understand their reasons for joining you. By uncovering their motivation for attendance, you can extrapolate business pain points they’re likely feeling, and naturally, transition into providing a viable solution that your business offers.

An online event such as a webinar or a virtual round table has the benefit of allowing you to look at attendee metrics without having to ask for them on the spot. Following best practices, you will have required them to sign up via a form to receive the login credentials. You’ll also have the benefit of being able to record the event to distribute to both attendees and those who signed up, but weren’t able to make it. Additionally, you can review the recording after the fact to gain insight into what points especially piqued interest in your attendees. Lastly, you can trigger a survey to be sent to those who were able to join, so that you can better prepare for your next online event venture.

While an online event has the perks of solid metrics and analytics, being face-to-face with a potential or current business associate creates a dynamic with far more layers than just online interaction. Even if your event is centered around a presentation, plan time for a meet and greet networking portion. This is your chance to really get to know your attendees and determine the potential success of a working relationship with their business.

Tailor your conversations to focus on the current business proceedings of your counterpart, and determine where they’re encountering roadblocks. Steer the conversation to what you can to do help ease the pain. During the course of this, you can exchange business cards, and encourage them to sign up for your email list to receive ongoing, informative and valuable information.

If the event is a trade show, it’s expected that you’ll run into a large number of people with whom you haven’t connected before. If this is the case, it’s a good idea to provide an easy way to sign up to stay connected with you and your business right then and there. You can offer a landing page on a laptop or tablet at your booth – When a new contact fills out the form, they’ll automatically be added to your list if you’re using marketing automation software such as the Mindmatrix portal.

Next week, we discuss how you can leverage existing and new relationships from your events. Stay tuned!

 Megan Cramer is a Marketing and Sales Enablement Consultant at Mindmatrix, providing strategic consultation on marketing and sales best practices, assisting with technical needs, and interfacing with leaders in our organization to help develop new processes and program additions to best serve our clients.