Send your trade show follow-up within two business days, mention the exact place or moment you met, and choose one of three emails depending on how well you actually spoke: a real conversation, a badge scan, or no contact at all. Sorting your list by that test, before you write anything, matters more than any wording.
A show gives you hundreds of names and almost no memory of them. Everyone who walked the floor also comes home to a full inbox, and some of that inbox is other exhibitors who met the same people and are writing the same message. The only way to stand out is to be specific about what happened at the show. This page has three templates for three kinds of contact, with subject lines, what to attach, and a timeline for the weeks after. If you did not exhibit and went around the floor as a visitor, getting customers from trade shows without a booth covers the work before and during the show; this page is about the emails afterward.
Three kinds of show contact, three different emails
Before writing, take your scans, business cards and notes, and put every name in one of three piles. Pile A: you talked for more than two minutes and learned something about their business. Pile B: they let you scan their badge, or took a brochure, and you exchanged a few words. Pile C: you got the company from the exhibitor list and never met anyone from it. The three piles get three different emails. Sending the pile A email to pile C reads as false familiarity, and sending the pile C email to pile A wastes a warm contact.
Do this sorting at the show if you can. At the end of each day, spend ten minutes writing one line on each pile A card: what they said they need. At a show with 300 conversations you will remember none of it by Friday.
The booth in this example
Imani Brooks sells commercial-grade label printers and runs a three-person company. She had a booth at a packaging trade show in Chicago. Say she talked with Jorge Alvarez, a plant manager at a frozen foods maker, for about six minutes, and he said his current printer jams on cold, damp labels. Say a second visitor, Tess Moreau, had her badge scanned and picked up a brochure. A third person, Ed Larkin, runs operations at a frozen-food co-packer that exhibited in another hall; Imani never got there. These people and companies are invented.
Template A: the conversation at the booth
Send: the next business day. Why it works: it refers to a thing he said, so it cannot be mistaken for a mass mailing, and it offers something small and specific instead of a meeting.
Subject: The cold, damp labels you mentioned at the Chicago show
Hi Jorge,
Good to meet you at the packaging show on Wednesday. You mentioned your current printer jams on labels in the freezer room. We tested one of our units against that exact problem last year, and I wrote up the result on one page: [link].
If it looks relevant, I can ship a sample roll and a loaner printer for two weeks. Would you want that, or is a 15-minute call easier first?
Imani Brooks, Brooks Label Systems, 555-0166
Notice that there is no price, no catalog, and no "it was great to connect". The email offers a one-page result and a choice of two next steps.
Template B: a badge scan and a few words
Send: within two business days. Why it works: it is honest about the shallow contact, it gives one useful thing, and it asks a question that is easy to answer even if the answer is "not me".
Subject: Packaging show: the brochure you picked up
Hi Tess,
You stopped by our booth at the Chicago packaging show and took the label printer brochure. I did not get a real chance to talk with you, so I will not guess what you need.
Who handles labeling at your plant? If that is you, I can send a short comparison of the three jobs our printers are used for. If it is someone else, a name would help, and I will leave you alone.
Imani Brooks, Brooks Label Systems
Every email on this page is commercial email under U.S. law, including the ones to people you met in person. The Federal Trade Commission's CAN-SPAM compliance guide says the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. Among its requirements: your valid physical postal address in the message, and a clear way to opt out that you honor within 10 business days. The guide accepts a reply email as the opt-out route, so your address and a line like "Reply STOP and I will not write again" under your signature cover both. Our page on whether cold email is legal has the rest. This is general information, not legal advice.
Template C: an exhibitor you never met
Send: within a week. Why it works: the show gives you a true, neutral reason to write, and you frame it as a short note about something that happened to both of you.
Subject: Your booth at the Chicago packaging show, and freezer labels
Hi Ed,
I had a booth at the Chicago packaging show last week and saw your company on the exhibitor list, but never made it to your hall. I make label printers that keep working in freezer rooms, and co-packers running frozen lines are the people I most want to talk to.
Who handles labeling at your plant? If it is you, I can send a one-page result from a freezer-room test. If not, a name would help.
Imani Brooks, Brooks Label Systems
Do not claim you met someone you did not. "Great meeting you" to a stranger gets caught, and it is the quickest way to lose trust before the first reply.
Attachments: one page for warm contacts, nothing for the rest
Attach nothing to Templates B and C. A file from someone they barely remember looks risky to open, and the offer of a one-page result does the same job without it. For Template A, link a one-page result, a photo you took at the booth, or the quote you promised. Do not send the full catalog. If you promised something at the show, such as a price, send it with the email, and say you are doing so in the first line.
The three weeks after the show, day by day
- Day 1: Template A to pile A.
- Day 2: Template B to pile B.
- Days 5 to 7: Template C to pile C.
- Days 8 to 10: one short nudge to pile A, for example "Did the sample offer make sense? Happy to keep it simple."
- Days 12 to 14: one nudge to anyone in piles B and C who has not replied, then stop writing to them.
- Days 14 to 21: phone your best six pile A contacts who are still quiet.
If a person replies at any point, stop the sequence for that person and answer them yourself. Our guide to following up after a networking event uses a similar sorting idea for a smaller room.
Subject lines that name the show
- Pile A: The cold, damp labels you mentioned at the Chicago show
- Pile B: Packaging show: the brochure you picked up
- Pile C: Your booth at the Chicago packaging show, and freezer labels
- Nudge: Sample roll for the freezer room?
Put the show's city or name in every subject. It is the one detail the reader recognizes in a week when dozens of exhibitors are writing to them, and a plain "Great to connect!" disappears among the rest.
When a phone call beats another email
Phone a pile A contact who asked for a price, a sample or a quote and then went quiet, and phone sooner if they mentioned a date, such as a line changeover next month. Open with the show: "Jorge, it is Imani from the label booth in Chicago. Did the freezer test result reach you?" One question, then listen. Piles B and C do not get calls unless they write back first. If a call is the better first move for a lead you are unsure about, our page on whether to call or email a lead first helps you decide.
Work out what each next step cost
One month after the show, count how many contacts from all three piles took a next step: a call, a sample request, a quote. Divide the booth and travel cost by that number to get the cost per next step. Say the show cost $9,000. Four sample requests means $2,250 each; thirty means $300 each. Those lead to very different decisions about next year's booth, so keep the figure beside the next show's budget.
Rocketship can take your badge scans as a list (importing them is free), read each company's website, and send follow-ups like these from your own Gmail, stopping when someone replies. If a pile of scans is waiting, a 7-day trial is a low-effort way to see them worked, and the plans are on the pricing page.