What is the best way to follow up with event attendees after the event?

1 Why follow up matters

Following up with event attendees is not only a courtesy, but also a strategic opportunity. You can thank them for their participation and feedback, reinforce your brand message and value proposition, provide relevant content or offers, nurture them closer to a purchase decision, ask for referrals or reviews, and collect data to improve future events. However, when following up with attendees it is important to plan and execute carefully. You don't want to spam or annoy them with too many or irrelevant messages, nor miss the window of opportunity when they are still engaged in your brand.

2 How to plan your follow-up strategy

To ensure a successful follow-up strategy, it is essential to set clear goals and metrics for your event marketing campaign. Establishing what you want to achieve with your event, and how you will measure it, is key. For example, do you want to generate leads, increase sales, boost brand awareness, or build loyalty? You should also define the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you track and evaluate your results, such as the number of attendees and registrations, attendance rate and drop-off rate, engagement rate and feedback score, conversion rate and revenue, and cost per lead and return on investment. When planning your follow-up strategy, consider who to follow up with (segmenting attendees based on their profile, behavior, and interests), what to follow up with (creating relevant content or offers that match their needs), when to follow up (determining the optimal timing and frequency of your follow-up communications according to event type, audience, and industry), and how to follow up (choosing the best channels and tools to deliver your messages).

4 How to optimize your follow-up performance

Once you've launched your follow-up campaign, it's crucial to monitor and analyze your performance, and adjust your strategy as needed. To measure the effectiveness of your follow-up messages, and identify areas of improvement or opportunity, you can test different variations of your messages, such as subject lines, content, offers, or timing. Additionally, you should use analytics tools to track and measure your KPIs, such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, or revenue. Finally, feedback tools can be used to collect and analyze attendees' responses, such as surveys, polls, or reviews; this data can be used to inform improvements to future events and follow-up campaigns.