What to do with your trade fair leads in the first 72 hours

You got 340 leads. It is Saturday night, everyone is tired, and the plan is to "start reaching out on Monday".

Monday becomes Wednesday. By Wednesday half of them have forgotten which booth you were, because they visited eleven others.

According to Trade Show PRO's 2026 statistics round-up, up to 80 per cent of trade show leads never receive any follow-up at all, and companies that contact leads within 24 hours are six to nine times more likely to convert than those who delay. That gap is larger than almost any improvement you could make to the booth itself.

Do the work before the fair, not after it

Follow-up slips because nobody wants to write four messages while exhausted. Write them in the week before the fair, when you are fresh, and keep them in a note on your phone.

You need four things: a hot message, a warm message, a cold message, and a decision about who sends them. If those exist before the doors open, the plan below runs itself.

The hour-by-hour plan

Hours are counted from the moment the fair closes on the day you collected the leads. At a ten-day fair, this cycle runs every evening rather than once at the end.

Two rules make this survivable. First, hot leads are messaged by the human who actually spoke to them, from a number that person owns. Second, nothing gets sent as a bulk broadcast to a mixed list.

A visitor who spoke to your rep on Thursday and hears from a nameless brand account on Tuesday has not been followed up. They have been added to a list.

Segment on what they told you, not on how they looked

Trade Show PRO reports that lead scoring at the point of capture improves conversion by 38 per cent. Point of capture is the operative phrase. The tag is worth almost nothing if you assign it three days later from a spreadsheet.

Give your reps one instruction: after every conversation, type one letter into their phone note. H, W or C. Three seconds. It converts an anonymous export into a work queue.

Be honest about cold. A list of 340 where 200 are cold is not a failure, it is information about your prize design. If nearly everyone is cold, the grand prize is attracting the wrong crowd, and prize wheel design is the fix.

The WhatsApp template

Short, first person, references something only the two of you know. Send from the rep's own WhatsApp, not a broadcast list.

Good evening Chidi, this is Ada from Beko Foods, we met at stand C24
at the fair today. You mentioned you supply two shops in Ikeja and
were looking at the 5kg packs. I have the trade price list and the
delivery terms here. Are you free for a ten-minute call tomorrow
between 11 and 1, or would Thursday morning be better?

The parts that matter: their name, your name and company, where you met, what they said, one specific offer, and two concrete time options. Under 60 words, no brochure attached.

For a warm lead, swap the last line for less pressure: "I will send the catalogue over. If it is useful, tell me and I will follow up next week."

The email template

Email is for cold leads and for anyone who gave an address but no phone number. Subject lines that reference the fair get opened; ones that reference your company do not.

Subject: The trade price list you asked about at the fair

Hi Tunde,

We met at the Beko Foods stand at the fair on Thursday. You spun the
wheel and won the ₦5,000 voucher, valid until the end of October,
code BK-4471.

You asked how our wholesale pricing works. The short version: orders
above 20 cartons ship free within Lagos, and payment terms open up
after the second order. Full price list attached.

If it is easier to talk, my line is 0806 xxx xxxx and I am usually
free before noon.

Ada Nwosu, Beko Foods

The voucher line is doing real work. It gives them a reason to keep the email, a deadline, and proof that you are who you say you are.

Two things that will get you ignored

Bulk broadcasts to a mixed list, and the phrase "thank you for visiting our booth" with no reference to anything the person said. Both signal that no human remembers the conversation.

There is also a legal edge. Nigeria's Data Protection Act 2023 gives people a strong right to object to direct marketing, and consent has to be specific to the purpose you collected it for. Honour opt-outs immediately and keep the record of consent. This is not legal advice, and the detail sits in our NDPA guide.

Frequently asked questions

Export tonight, not on Monday

Trade Shop gives you the lead records, spin outcomes and campaign history in one dashboard, so you can export the day's list before you leave the venue. Trade Shop does not send the messages for you: you export, then send from your own WhatsApp and mail tool, which is exactly what the plan above assumes.

Launch a campaign — from ₦10,000 for up to 3 days, plus ₦1,000 per extra day.

Related reading: How to get more leads at a trade fair in Nigeria · 80% of trade show leads never get a follow-up · Is your booth raffle legal?

Sources: Trade Show PRO — Trade Show Statistics 2026: 50+ Data Points Every Exhibitor Should Know · Nigeria Data Protection Commission