At the start of the year, I heard from one of my marketing clients that she was attending a series of Dive Travel Shows and that she put in a lot of work each year uploading email addresses she gathered from the shows.
It was a LOT of effort, and sometimes, it took her months to upload them, causing her to miss out on the enthusiasm generated when meeting her in person at the Adventure Travel Shows.
Build Your Email Lists
I used Canva and Constant Contact to not only streamline her sign-up process but also to make those lists do the work for her! Building email lists with segmentation can be a game-changer when growing your customer base online. It allows you to send more targeted email campaigns and so much more. When you combine it with landing pages designed for the subscriber to choose the lists they are interested in, it becomes an insight tool into what your customers actually want.
Case Study: Dive Tour Operator
My client smartly encourages list sign-ups at trade shows by offering a contest: drop your business card or sign up on the piece of paper to enter your email address. After each show, she prints the list and draws a winner for a day of scuba diving for two on St Croix. In the past, she rarely followed up with email campaigns, and the lists went cold. Let’s face it, like all of us, she’s a busy small business owner, and finding the time to sit down and create campaigns after traveling can end up being the last thing on the list.
I like to think of my superpower as identifying ways to streamline processes with the right tech, which saves my clients (and myself) time. And I knew that Constant Contact was the solution!
So, here’s what we did:
- I created Segmented Lists for each of the Travel Shows that she was attending, titled by Date & Location. Example: “26 Feb 21 ORD” This internal naming strategy makes them easily identifiable to her later on and places them in order.
- I created a Sign Up Landing Page with the basic information about the Giveaway offer (it’s the same for each show). Prior to each show, I change the list that the sign-ups go to so we keep track of who signs up at each show. This data gives my client an idea of which shows make the most connections.
- In Canva, I created a branded flier for her booth with contest info & a QR code that directs them to the landing page.
- I created a Welcome Automation Series for “List Sign Up” and added all of the Travel Show lists.
- The trigger is being added to any of the trade show lists. They get the first email 1 minute after signing up on the landing page. It’s a warm, personal welcome from my client that includes time-sensitive discounts available only to show attendees. It also includes a button to go to a special Travel Show page, driving traffic to her website, where they can explore more.
- Three days later, they get a follow-up email reminding them of the travel discount deadline and offering a little more information about St Croix and the services offered by my client’s company.
- A week later, they get an email asking them to join targeted lists to segment themselves.
- In another week, they get an email about the thrills of diving or snorkeling on St Croix. I use click segmentation in this email to put them on more segmented lists based on my client’s service offerings
- All the emails are evergreen and applicable to each show, so we just have to set it up once!
Not only does this system now save my client hours and hours of tedious work, but it continues the excitement and enthusiasm generated at the in-person Travel Shows.
My client stands out from other businesses because many exhibitors aren’t taking the time to nurture those attendees in this way. And that means she now has more revenue generation and a much higher ROI from attending trade shows!
Interested in trying out Constant Contact’s tools to grow your business? Sign up for a no risk, free trial
Need more help getting started with Email Marketing – Contact Me