Connecting with new leads at live networking events has been around for a good long time. Even before the digital revolution, the idea of meeting people and following up with them was something that businesses did all the time. Old school network marketers know that the name of the game is going to various events and meeting with people. This was back when pretty much all you had was the relationship and maybe a phone number or mailing address.
These days, the notion of “networking” has been further refined. Live event networking, as the name lends, is designed around going to a live event, expanding your network, and learning from others (Source).
People do business with people 🚶♀️
Where Does “Networking” Connect To The Sales Cycle?
Philosophically, your business’ Marketing journey has the job of taking someone from nothing and turning them into a “face with a name”, a Lead. Live events such as conferences, tradeshows, and even the common “networking” event are great places to connnect with people and add them into your Marketing cadance. Or maybe even directly into your Sales process.
When you make a new friend at a live event, there are few things that can happen in terms of follow up:
- Get them to visit your website to learn more about your Offer(s). Ideally, you are pointing to a specific page rather than merely the homepage (like our linktree).
- Get them to connect with you social media such as LinkedIn or whever you have a solid presence.
- And if it makes sense, formally push them into your Sales process to guide them towards being a customer.
Why Should I Use Automation For Live Event Networking?
Back in the day, when you met people you would come back to the office with a bunch of businesscards. Which meant you need to sit down and DO something with those new connections sooner than later; strike while the iron is hot.
Sales professionals understand this and are excellent at follow up with those business cards as soon as they get back from a conference or tradeshow. However, even the best sales pros aren’t always 100% impeccable about this immediate follow up.
When you use automation for live event networking, the entire process becomes super streamlined and reliable. Plus, it is really simple! All you have to do is ensure you’ve got your networking form bookmarked on your phone and then make sure to submit that form when you meet new connections in that exact moment. Even if someone hands you a businesscard, you can grab it for a moment and enter them into your networking form, then hand it back to them so they can recycle it with someone else.
When you develop the Habit of putting every new connection you meet into your networking form immediately nobody will ever slip through the cracks again 😎
Free Campaign Of The Month – Live Event Networking
We have packaged up a free one-click install of our Live Event Networking for Keap users.
When you install this into your account, you will get a pre-configured automation model that is 95%+ ready-to-publish which contains:
- 2 automated Emails.
- 1 automated follow up Task
- 1 Setup Play with the publishing steps below (Keap Pro/Max only, for now).
Automation Overview
First, watch this quick video to understand the strategy being used for this automation, including when and where you want to use it in your business. If you’d like to learn more about the ball-and-stick diagram and planning framework, please register for the mini-course here.
👇 Request Your One-Click Install Now 👇
Live Event Networking Launch Steps
Getting the Live Event Networking going on your Keap CRM database is literally as easy as 1, 2, 3! After you have done the one-click install…
Step 1 – Configure Automation Merge Field & Links
This automation has one merge field for live event name for which you are networking, and two links for your website & LinkedIn profile. All you need to do is quickly update these and the campaign is ready to publish!
Step 2 – Connect To Pipeline (Optional)
This automation is pre-configured to create a simple follow up Task. However, if you use the Opportunity or Pipeline feature of Keap, you want to modify the automation so that these new leads go into those buckets.
Step 3 – Publish The Automation
Verify all objects and the sequence is marked as Ready, then publish the campaign. Congratulations! You did it 🥳
Step 4 – Bookmark The Live Event Form
The last thing to do is to bookmark the live event form so that you can quickly & easily access it from your phone while networking at the event itself.