Get your mailer opened by using the best teaser copy for any envelope or mailer: "Gift Certificate Enclosed." Gift certificates make for ideal letter opening teaser copy, plus they're inexpensive to print and light to ship.  Redemption value can be revealed inside the package, or at the show booth. This is a great line to get any of your mail opened, and it's copyrighted by me, Jeff Dobkin: send me ten bucks every time you use it or I'll sue.

     The objective of your letter or post card should be to drive people to your booth the first day or two - or... or... remember paragraph 6 about the third day?  Make an nice offer - give something away.  Don't make the same mistake I did - I tried to give away my wife.  Not only didn't people come to my booth, I kept the entire isle of 40 booths clear.  Eventually on the way home I got a bottle of wine for her. It was a pretty good trade.

     At one show a client of mine gave away Cross Pens, and it was a pretty successful promotion for both of us.  The Cross Pens drove even the most elusive upscale prospects to his booth - so it was successful for him. I charged him three grand for the campaign, so it was successful for me.  We were both happy.

     To give the pen out I wrote in the Johnson box of our pre-show letter (upper right corner of the sheet, above the salutation) "If your award number: JD-122446" (typed on its own line in a rubber-stamp-looking font,) "matches the winning number: 'JD-122446,' then Congratulations!  You have won a beautiful new CROSS PEN!  Please bring this letter with you to our booth and pick up your new Cross Pen during show hours!"  No one knew that everyone won, not even our exhibit staff.

     Unfortunately we ran out of a thousand dollars worth of Cross pens the first hour.  So, we bought the entire stock of Cross Pens at the local office supply stores - and gave them out during the second hour...  Then we finally gave up on the instant gratification we had hoped to provide along with our sales pitch, and gave out rain checks -- and mailed pens a few days later to the other few hundred letter-waving tradeshow booth visitors clinging to our promotional piece in their sweaty little hands.

     Other pre-show ideas: Mail something bulky to get prospects' attention. Mail a golf ball to each attendee - and have them try to shoot 3 holes in 1, and win $100.  Send a Frisbee, have them toss it into a round hole cut into a basketball backboard about 20 feet away - three times in a row for $1,000.  Cut the hole 1" too small.  Ha, ha ha. Oops, just kidding.  Cut the hole 2" larger in the center to accept the Frisbee.  It looks easy because of the big round hole, but the Frisbee will only fit in the exact center.  People who miss get to keep a Frisbee.  Now they're walking around with your ad.

     Post show mailings:  Mail your trade literature on the last day of the show to the people who stopped at your booth. "This shows attendees you're on the ball, and you'll be a responsive team to work with."  says Francine Carb, CEO of the Bryn Mawr, PA based Markitects marketing firm (610-526-2006; www.markitects.com) who was actually kind enough to let me use her quote in an article.  I agree: don't give expensive literature out during the show: what a waste, it just gets sandwiched in a plastic bag between everyone else's literature - to be looked at sometime between later and never and it usually getting the briefest glance or more likely: just winds up being thrown out.

     Personalize the letter you send with your literature because you met the person.  Act civil - like you had a meaningful relationship with them in the 7 minutes or so you took to speak with them at your booth.  Don't write to the woman who you took to dinner and ahemmm...  In fact, don't even give her your business card: give her someone else's card you picked up at the show.  For this reason I always get a few cards from my competitors...

     "We send our literature - along with a personal letter - to arrive 2 days after the show closes. It lands on their desk without lots of competing literature while the show is still fresh in their minds."  Says Carb.

     "I instruct my clients to do the same," says Jeff Dobkin, author of this article. "But in reality, who knows when they send it out, if they ever do."  I hope your marketing team is run in a more timely fashion.

     The sales team gets the hot leads for immediate follow-up, and the soft leads are placed in a prospect or suspect database for subsequent mailings.  I recommend you send several letters to  attendees over the period of a few months.  Our post-show mailing pattern is package #1-immediate, #2-two weeks, #3-four weeks, #4-eight weeks.  All contain personal letters, usually with but sometimes without a brochure, for a more personal feel.  The tone is always personal - if you really do it right, no one will suspect you are sending the same personal letter to the other 2,000 people who stopped at your booth.

     Remember, one overbearingly long follow-up letter is usually tossed out, but the same three or four pages of material make three or four great one-page letters. For two dollars and four cents in postage you can send a series of six letters to a highly qualified prospect.  And I recommend it.

     Sounds like a good pre- and post-show program.  Hey, if this works for you - send me a bottle of Champagne, will you?  And quit walking your dog in front of my house - it would be pretty easy to shift my site up a few inches and a little to the left.
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     Jeffrey Dobkin, author of the incredible 400-page marketing manual, How To Market A Product for Under $500 ($29.95), now has a second book, Uncommon Marketing Techniques ($17.95) - 33 of his latest columns on small business marketing, exactly like the one you just read. Both books are available directly from the publisher - 800-234-IDEA. These books are completely filled with tips and techniques to make your marketing faster, cheaper, more effective - and fun. You never learned this stuff in college! Mr. Dobkin cuts right through the theoretical crap and demonstrates a wealth of practical how-to direct marketing techniques.  He is also a speaker, a direct mail copywriter, and a marketing consultant.  To place an order, or to speak with Mr. Dobkin call 610/642-1000.  Fax 610/642-6832. Phone orders welcome - Visa, M/C, AMEX. From The Danielle Adams Publishing Company, Box 100, Merion Station, PA 19066. Or visit him at www.dobkin.com. Satisfaction Always Guaranteed.