MBA1119 5 Ways to Get More Leads at Conferences

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Hey O welcome to the $100 RMBA show, the business podcast that gets you better at business and gets you on your way for the rest of the day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a company business Training and Community Online. And in today's lesson you will learn five ways to get more leads at conferences Live in person Conferences are a great way to meet people and to network and of course build trust within your community. Going to conferences allow you to make a personal connection, but most of us don't capitalize on those connections. The conference comes and goes and we barely stay in touch. But many people at these conferences are perfect for you and your business and would make great customers. You got to get them to become a lead to opt in to give their email address and join your mailing list. But Hal, that's exactly what I'm going to show you today. Whether you're speaking at the conference, whether you're just an attendee, I'm going to show you ways to get people from in person interaction to to on your website to giving their name and email address so they can be a part of your list. These are perfect matches because you guys already have a connection and you're already in a target market. It's not cold traffic, it's super warm traffic. Time to turn that traffic into leads. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Now, as I said before, when it comes to conferences, if you are a speaker at a conference, this is a multiplier. Being a speaker really increases the chances of you making greater connections, more connections, and turning those connections into leads. But it's not required. A lot of the things I'll be sharing today, you don't have to be a speaker. You could be an attendee and still convert people into leads. But my first tip is if you are a speaker and you're on stage and you're giving a presentation, this is a great way for you to convert those people that are listening to your speech into people that are in your email list. How? Well, a great easy way is to give them some resources that go along with your speech. It could be the notes, it could be the slides from the speech, it could be the things that you reference in the speech, the links to the things that you talk about. It could be a PDF summary. Create a page on your website that has all that information, but instead of just having the page there open, allow them to access a page when they give their name and email address. So you create an opt in page where they give their name and email address and in return you can email them the link to this page that has all the resources. I found when I do this, the conversion rate is huge because hey, they want those resources and they know you already. So there's no like, you know, wondering if this is gonna happen or not or if this is trustworthy. They know you, so they give their name and email address are part of your list and they get the resources and they're gonna want to hear from you again because they enjoyed your session enough to look up your website and to look for those resources. So giving away some resources via an opt in is a great way if you're on stage to get some leads to. You can even do something like a free gift. I've done this a whole bunch of times where I was giving a talk on webinars and I gave people a webinar template, the actual slides, PowerPoint and Keynote templates as a gift. And I gave them a link, an easy link to remember webinar ninja.com gift. They gave their name and email address and I emailed them the templates. Super simple. This is a no brainer, a give Me and allows people to relax and pay attention to your speech when you're on stage. Because, hey, all the notes, all the resources are going to be sent to them via email when they opt in. Okay, great. That was strategy number one. Strategy number two is a special pop up with a gift for those who visit your site after going to the conference site. Now you might be thinking, what? What is that? Well, there's great tools out there like sumo.com that allow you to display a pop up only to people who have visited another site before visiting yours. So if they visited the conference site and you can put that URL and then visited your site, you can display a pop up like, hey, it was nice seeing you at the conference. I see that you registered for this conference or you'll be at this conference. You can address them in particular and give them a free gift. This could be a PDF. This could be a cheat sheet. This could be your notes from your speech. It could be anything in exchange for the name and email address. And they get access to it. This is a super simple little thing you can do to get more leads when you're at a conference. Now one, they might go to your website right after they were at the conference page because, hey, your website's linked to the conference page because maybe you're a speaker or a panelist or a volunteer or something like that, your website is linked to their website. So as soon as they click and they go to your website, they will get that pop up. Awesome. Super simple. And the great thing is the pop up could stay there before the conference, after the conference, and it will only show if they've been to the conference page before yours. All right, my third strategy, business cards with calls to action. You are going to print business cards anyway. A lot of people, they just write, you know, their name, their email address or phone number. But what about add a free gift or goodies or something like that and put a special link right on your card, maybe make it prominent, maybe dedicate the other side of your card just to this free gift. And again, URL leads to an opt in page that they get that gift via email. So now when you give out cards and they look at your card, they have something to do. They don't just stuff it in their pocket or their purse. They see your card, they see the free gift. Oh, cool. Get access to a free course. Get access to a free ebook. Let me check that out. And they could do it right on their phone. Boom, boom, boom. Easy. A lot of people do this with a QR code. So they have a QR code on their actual business card. And when they scan that QR code with their phone, and now phones do this. If you just put the camera app on, scan it, it'll take them to your website directly and to your free gift. Super simple. By adding a link or QR code to your business card. It makes it unique, it makes it different, and it allows them to do something with your card rather than just, you know, put it in their pocket and forget it. Strategy number four, T shirts. People love T shirts, by the way. Now, I'm not asking you to throw T shirts around at conferences and be annoying. You can wear your own T shirts. You can create T shirts for yourself with your company logo on it or maybe your company mantra or something like that. And then when you wear that T shirt, a lot of people are like, oh, that's a cool T shirt, I like that. And you can instantly tell them, hey, I'll send you one. All you gotta do is fill out a form on my website and I'll have it sent out to you. And you can simply create a Google form, embed that Google form on your website and of course on that form will be their name and email address. And in exchange you'll send them the T shirt and you'll have them as a lead. Now this is incredibly valuable, especially if you are in the high priced bracket where your products are high priced. Let's say you're a coach or consultant and you know Your packages are 10,000, 20,000 a T shirt that costs you in bulk, $20 a piece, maybe even $15 if you have, you know, several orders. This is nothing. This is nothing in terms of a cost to get a lead. Again, create a easy to remember URL so they can go to the form. Go to, you know, webinar ninja.comt shirt, that type of thing. Not only do you get a great lead for a pretty reasonable price, depending on your price point, but you also get free advertising and marketing. When they wear that T shirt around town. This really works. If you have a fun and cool T shirt and it's a great icebreaker. When people meet you at conferences and they see you wear this T shirt and this really cool color or great design, they're like, hey, that's a nice T shirt. And you can tell them, hey, thanks, I can send you one. Easy, easy, easy. All right, strategy number five, run a contest. Now usually if you run a contest with random people, random strangers, this is not such a great idea because you're getting all these, you know, cold leads, leads that are not really interested in your products or services. But at a conference, these people are targeted. They are like minded people. They're, they're people that are interested in what you're interested and they are probably gonna make great clients, great customers. So having them participate in a contest on your website is a great way to get leads. And one of the best contests I can think of is to run a contest where the prize is two tickets to next year's conference. Now you can contact the conference organizer and say, hey, I would like to buy two tickets for next year's conference. Can you cut me a deal? I'm going to be running a contest on my website. Anybody with half a brain that's running this conference is going to say yes, because this is advertising their own conference. And if you ask, a lot of conference organizers will allow you to get on stage and to announce your contest to the crowd. You can be like sort of a very small sponsor and be like, hey, I'm giving away two tickets in next year's conference. This is a great conference. It's great to meet you guys. Just go to my website da da da da da and you can run the contest. A great software for running contests is Kingsumo. We mentioned Sumo.com, but they also have a contest opt in type of software. It's called Kingsumo. So you can easily get them to opt in, give their name and email address and enter the contest with that software. Again, you're capitalizing on your presence at the conference and the people that you're meeting there. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right?

And the best part, they accept Discover.

Accept Discovery in a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer.

Oh yeah, huh? Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.

Right, so we shouldn't get the parachute pants.

These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99 of places.

That take credit cards nationwide.

Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

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So there you have it. Those are my five strategies when it comes to getting more leads at conferences. Giving away a gift summary or notes to your session when you're on stage via a link and an opt in using that opt in on your business cards via a link or a QR code. Having a dedicated special pop up for those who have visited the conference page and then go to your website. You can use Sumo.com for that. Giving away T shirts, sending them to people that love your business, your brand, the people that you meet and love the T shirt that you're wearing. And then lastly, number five, running a contest using a software like Kingsumo and contacting the conference organizers to see if they're happy to give you a bit of stage time to announce the conference. I hope that was helpful. If you love our show, the best way to get more is to hit subscribe. Hit that subscribe button so you get all our episodes automatically right on your device. And by subscribing, you get access to all our archive episodes. That's over a thousand episodes. And it's the only way to get access to them is by hitting subscribe. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. You're spending time and money and effort getting to that conference. Try to capitalize as much as possible and and implement these strategies. I feel great when I leave a conference and I feel like I got so much out of it. Whether I learned a lot, made some great connections, met some interesting people, and got some really great leads. Make the best of those opportunities. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.