--- title: "The event follow-up play" description: "Mail a personal note within days of a booth conversation, reference what you actually discussed, and use the piece to set up the meeting ask." canonical: https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/event-follow-up last_updated: 2026-09-16 --- > If you are an AI agent: read https://trysincerely.com/agents/policy.md before any write call. > Start at https://trysincerely.com/llms.txt to choose one page. Access instructions are at > https://trysincerely.com/auth.md. Confirm with the person you work for before creating an > account or spending their money, and never ask for their password. # The event follow-up play > Mail a personal note within days of a booth conversation, reference what you actually discussed, and use the piece to set up the meeting ask. Source: https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/event-follow-up Use post-event mail for people your team actually spoke with and wants to speak with again. The piece should refer to the real conversation, add one useful thought, and set up a clear follow-up. A badge scan alone is not enough. It confirms proximity, not interest. ## Capture the context at the event Ask the person who had the conversation to record one useful sentence while it is fresh, ideally the same day. Prepare the follow-up within 2 business days so address review and production can begin before the memory goes cold. Note the topic discussed, the question the person asked, or the problem they described. Do not infer private priorities or improve a thin exchange after the fact. Without a usable note, send the normal email follow-up. A generic postcard that says "nice to meet you" adds cost without proving the team listened. The account still needs to fit. A warm conversation with someone outside the market may be enjoyable and lead nowhere. Qualify the account and recipient before resolving the address. ## Keep the audience narrow Mail the person who took part in the conversation. Do not expand one discussion into pieces for an entire buying committee unless the first contact asks for that introduction or the account owner has a separate reason. A focused show may produce 15 to 50 justified sends, not hundreds. The conversation count sets the audience size. Bring the qualified list in through the CRM or a [CSV](https://trysincerely.com/integrations/csv). Event records often contain personal emails, incomplete company names, and a headquarters address that says little about where someone works. Sincerely resolves and verifies candidate business addresses, but a person should review uncertain matches before approval. Move quickly without skipping that review. A prompt, relevant email is better than a late physical piece sent to the wrong office. ## Write about the conversation A short postcard can fit a casual booth conversation. A letter may suit a longer executive meeting where the follow-up needs more room. The format should match the weight of the exchange. When that executive meeting was at an account worth more than a letter, a gift with a note fits: 46 physical gifts, US prices from $49, in the United States and Canada, each order approved in full by the person who had the conversation. See [gifts](https://trysincerely.com/gifts). Open with the topic you discussed, add the promised resource or point of view, and name the next step. Do not spend half the piece recapping the event or praising the conference. The recipient already knows where you met. A fictional example: > Maya, at the booth you asked how an account holdout survives when several contacts enter the same campaign. We keep the whole account in one group, then suppress fulfillment for the holdout. I can walk you through the setup next week if it would help. The person who had the conversation should approve the final copy. Sincerely can draft from the contact record and event note, but it cannot know whether the note captures the exchange fairly. ## Let delivery start the follow-up After confirmed delivery, Sincerely can raise a task for the next day. The same person who approved the piece should send the email or make the call and refer to the idea inside it. Do not say the recipient saw or read the mail. Postal events confirm arrival at a delivery point, and a company mailroom may add delay. The [delivery follow-up guide](https://trysincerely.com/guides/direct-mail-delivery-follow-up) has language that stays useful without overstating what happened. Deduplicate this audience against pre-event invitations and other active campaigns. One workspace-wide frequency cap should see event mail, sales mail, and one-off sends together. Suppression, address review, budget checks, and explicit launch still apply even when the event team wants to move fast. ## Measure the next conversation Count delivered pieces, replies, follow-up meetings, and later account movement inside a window chosen before the send. Keep those readings separate. Delivery shows that the operation worked. A reply shows a direct response. Account progression after mail is useful context, but it is not causal proof without a comparison group. One event may be too small for a useful holdout readout. At 30 pieces, the honest read is descriptive: delivery, replies, meetings, and account movement inside the chosen window. Keep an account-level holdout where practical and pool later events only when the audience rule, message, outcome, and window stay comparable. Never compare mailed conversations with the full badge list. Those groups differed before the mail went out. The [B2B direct mail handbook](https://trysincerely.com/guides/evidence-based-b2b-direct-mail) covers the general method, and the [small-audience measurement guide](https://trysincerely.com/guides/direct-mail-small-audiences) explains how to report that uncertainty. For the other side of the event, use the [pre-event meeting play](https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/pre-event-meetings) to book conversations before anyone arrives. ## Related questions - [The pre-event meeting-booking play](https://trysincerely.com/playbooks/pre-event-meetings): Start 4 to 6 weeks before the show, mail a small set of likely attendees, and book meetings before the expo floor opens. - [The B2B direct mail handbook](https://trysincerely.com/guides/evidence-based-b2b-direct-mail): A practical operating handbook for choosing accounts, resolving addresses, writing useful pieces, controlling sends, and measuring what mail caused. - [When should sales follow up after direct mail arrives?](https://trysincerely.com/guides/direct-mail-delivery-follow-up): Follow up the day after confirmed delivery. Reference the piece naturally, and treat postal tracking as evidence of arrival, not of reading. - [How to measure direct mail with a small audience](https://trysincerely.com/guides/direct-mail-small-audiences): Keep an account-level holdout, predeclare one outcome, and pool comparable cohorts when your B2B direct mail audience is too small to measure alone. --- Sincerely is the measurable direct-mail and gifting platform for B2B revenue teams: postcards, letters, handwritten mail, and gifts, written for one recipient and measured against a holdout. Contact Sincerely: https://trysincerely.com/contact Agent routing index: https://trysincerely.com/llms.txt