Maximise Your Exhibition Leads

As the first Franchise Exhibition season ends, many franchisors will go back to the office with a handful of quality leads. But how can you increase the chances of converting these leads into franchisees?

Categorising Leads Early On
While the exhibition is still fresh in your mind, it is important to categorise your leads. We have found it very beneficial to rate the leads on their level of interest at the show, along with any key questions they asked or particular areas they expressed an interest in. This information will be vital to the person following up.

Following up Leads Effectively
It is often the case that prospective franchisees are very difficult to contact during the day by telephone. If someone is looking for a franchise, they will most probably still have a daily commitment to a current job that prevents them from answering their home or mobile phone.

Be prepared to follow up leads in the evening and call several times before reaching the person. However refrain from leaving multiple messages.

Use That Database!
It astonishes me how few people make proper use of the exhibition database that is provided after the exhibition. Franchisors have technically already paid for the privilege of accessing this data and further enquiries can be achieved through using it.

This database will contain prospective franchisees that did not reach your stand on the day. This database gives you a second chance to get your message out about your franchise!

E-Campaign – cheap, measurable and effective!

• There are many cheap and simple tools to use to help you set up an e-campaign such as http://www.verticalresponse.com which allows you to set up a template and input your own details to form a professional looking e-campaign. The advantage of making contact with the database in this way is that you can measure the response and keep costs down.
  
• If you do use template tools to set up your campaign, ensure it is branded correctly with your logo, colours and images
  
• Keep the email short and to the point.
  
• The most important consideration is what to have in your subject line. This is the first thing your recipient will see when your email hits their inbox – it needs to be short, catchy and entice them to open the email such as ‘New Low Cost Entry’ or ‘Book onto Our Discovery Day’.

A New Reason to Talk Again
It is always a good idea to give your prospects a new reason to make contact with you, or even better, visit you. By organising a Discovery Day, you allow prospects to meet your head office team, speak to current franchisees and find out more about the franchise opportunity.

Discover Discovery Days…
Next time I’ll be talking about Discovery Days.....