Making the Most of Speaking Engagements
Me speaking at an IABC conference. October 23, 2009.
The real value of a speaking engagement—for the speaker—comes at the end.
That’s where most speakers go wrong. Sharing expertise raises your profile, yet truly maximizing the opportunity for marketing purposes involves what comes at the end of and after your presentation.
Make Connections
The group knows all about you. The conference or association blasted out your name, credentials, and company profile to get attendees. You may have slides with your contact information, too.
But do you know anything at all about your audience? How can you market to them if you don’t?
At the close of your presentation, offer to send follow-up materials to anyone who gives you her business card or e-mail address. I favor sending information via e-mail over providing handouts. It’s a fair trade: Valuable information in exchange for contact details.
What do you send? Could be a copy of presentation slides, a white paper on the presentation topic, links to articles or references, or a promise of future useful information.
Follow Up
And then what?
Send everyone who requested it the information you’d promised with a note of thanks for attending and a wish to stay in touch.
Input their information into your contact database. For a memory jog later, I recommend noting when you met them, too. (e.g., “Met at my XYZ presentation to ABC group. November 2012.”)
Add them to your newsletter, research reports, or general update lists. (Shameless plug: To receive FrogDog’s research reports, sign up here. To get an e-mail with new articles on this site, register here.)
Find and connect with them on LinkedIn.
Stay Connected
If you have a newsletter or a similar regular communication and you’ve added them to the send-to list, you have one way to stay in touch. If you don’t have a newsletter, aim to check in periodically, even if it’s only a brief e-mailed hello.
In my case, FrogDog’s newsletter goes out bimonthly and my blog updates go out every other day. In addition, I block time each week to go through my contacts and connect with people to keep my relationships active.
After all, your network is one of your greatest assets. Done the right way, speaking engagements can help you build it.