Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

One of the presentations at SoMeT 2010 (Social Media Tourism Symposium) was from MMG Worldwide and covered a variety of ways that tourism organizations can engage visitors through their mobile devices.

As a travel enthusiast who is beginning to really rely on her own smartphone, I particularly liked the idea of providing location-specific ringtone and wallpaper downloads.

This got me thinking about what I’d like to see, since I have conferences and speaking gigs coming up this fall in:

**  Hutchinson, Kansas – 140 Conference Small Town – some great shots from the Cosmosphere space museum, or Third Thursday in downtown Hutch or the Underground Salt Museum, plus maybe John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” or something from these five songs for Kansas.

**  Tulsa, Oklahoma – AWC National Conference (Association for Women in Communications) – there’s terrific Art Deco architecture in downtown Tulsa, perhaps played to the tune of “Tulsa Time” (did you know that there’s an Eric Clapton version of the song?)

**  Los Angeles, California – BlogWorld and New Media Expo’s Tourism track, yay! – wow, where to start for the wallpaper; the swoopy silver Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood sign, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Capitol Records building that looks like a stack of vinyl records (yes, I remember those.) Good ringtone music is tougher – not sure the Doors’ “LA Woman” works, 10,000 Maniacs’ “City of Angels” is better with the lyrics, not many remember Sinatra’s “LA is My Lady.”  I’m kinda stuck on this one; will hum “California Dreamin’” until someone helps me out down in the comments.

**  Tunica, Mississippi and the Delta - SoMeT 2011 – I’ll land up the road in Memphis and then drive south down historic Highway 61 to Tunica. This area lends itself to poignant closeups rather than panoramic shots (unless it’s an aerial photo of the river) but you could include the Crossroads in nearby Clarksdale, where one legend says that bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar skills. The whole region is stuffed with music, but I’d go for John Hiatt’s “Memphis in the Meantime,” Paul Simon’s “Graceland” or Chuck Berry’s “Memphis,” then anything by James Cotton, or “Traveling Riverside Blues” or ”Got My Mojo Workin’.”

Travelers like to really experience the essence of places when they visit, so why not use visuals and audio on that phone that they’re never without these days, to make them feel at home in your town?

Bonus idea, although not specifically mobile: put a few destination-related badges or widget downloads on your website, for your supporters to grab and put on their blogs.

What other digital trinkets can you think of that your visitors might enjoy?

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)

Welcome to the Carnival of Cities blog carnival, where we tour the world in a single post, via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one, single city (or fair-sized town.)

Thanks to Best Family Travel Advice for hosting the previous edition, and we look forward to the next one on April 6, hosted by Travel with Teens and Tweens.

If you would like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (May 18 and June 1 are still open) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in the Americas

Savannah, Georgia, USA Kerry Dexter presents World comes to Savannah: Savannah Music Festival posted at Perceptive Travel Blog, saying, “17 days of concerts at the Savannah music festival reflect the city’s heritage as a musical crossroads.”

Cleveland, Ohio, USA Joe Vargo presents Ethnic Eats in Cleveland posted at DiscoveringOhio.  [a tourism blog; yay!]

Purcellville, Virginia, USA Jeremy Harvey presents A Wall at Sunset Hills Vineyard posted at VisitLoudounBlog.com, saying, “Thanks for considering using my post. Keep up the great work Sheila. I love reading your blog! Cheers.”   [a tourism blog; yay! And thanks, Jeremy.]

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Lindsay Dianne presents West Coast Awakening and Granville Island Market posted at The Urban Momtographer, saying, “Granville Island Public Market, Vancouver, BC, Canada.”

Brasilia, Brazil Carolyne Hall presents Brasilia, Brasil: Uma cidade moderna posted at Lady on a Roof, saying, “My trip to Brasilia, Brazil. ”

Seattle, Washington, USA Abi King presents Street Art In Seattle | The Best Cultural Travel & Adventure posted at Inside the Travel Lab, saying, “A funky look at Seattle’s less well-known street art.”

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Kayla presents Whitehern Historic House Highlights posted at Adventures in Heritage, saying, “Review of going to a local historical museum in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.”

Atlanta, Georgia, USA Nichole presents Four fun places in Atlanta to visit with your kids posted at Butterscotch Sundae.

Tampa, Florida, USA Nicole presents The Bricks of Ybor in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida posted at Arrows Sent Forth, saying, “The Bricks of Ybor is a great choice for dining with kids while visiting Tampa.”

(more…)

Welcome to the Carnival of Cities blog carnival, where we tour the world in a single post, via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one, single city (or fair-sized town.)

The previous edition was here on Sheila’s Guide and the next edition will be hosted on the Perceptive Travel blog on Wednesday, February 23.

Any posts from blogs by tourism organizations (CVB, DMO, Tourist Board,) hospitality or economic development organizations are particularly welcome, as long as they’re about something in one city or town!

If yo would like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (March 9 and March 23 are still open, and I could certainly use the help because March is crazy for me) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in the Americas

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA Nicole presents Experiencing Egypt at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis posted at Arrows Sent Forth, saying, “The ‘Take Me There: Egypt’ exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis allows kids to experience life in an Egyptian village through hands-on play.”

Nashville, Tennessee, USA Alethea Hutchison presents Viva Nashvegas! posted at I’m Domestic…not Dead!, saying, “The way Nashville views celebrity.”

New York, New York, USA Madeleine Begun Kane presents Snow Job (A Limerick Duet) posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

(A CVB blog – Yay!)—> Spokane, Washington, USA Teresa Ide presents My New Neighborhood Bar posted at Spokane Insiders’ Blog.

Seattle, Washington, USA Byteful Travel presents The Radical Act of Kindness that Floored Me when I visited a Seattle Farmer’s Market posted at Byteful Travel, saying, “What would you do if someone you’d never met walked up to you and gave you a gift, completely unexpectedly? I had to face this amazing reality one sunny day after I’d just stumbled into the Queen Anne farmer’s market (where I discovered an amazing new fruit, a ‘pluot’). And the entire experience reinforced in me how magical travel can truly be.”

Orlando, Florida, USA Jennifer Miner presents Spring Break Vacation in Orlando – 5 Tips to Save Time posted at The Vacation Gals, saying, “Spring break in Orlando’s big theme parks can be frustrating, what with all the crowds and long lines. Here are 5 tips to help save time at Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando.”

Ojai, California, USA Andy Hayes presents California’s Secret Sunshine Valley: Ojai posted at Sharing Travel Experiences, saying, “Want to know the secrets of the Ojai Valley?”

Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA Apryl Chapman Thomas presents Spotting Winter Wildlife (and Possibly Whales) in Virginia Beach, Virginia posted at Southern Hospitality Magazine Traveler.

Kualoa, Oahu, Hawaii, USA Jennifer presents Kualoa Ranch – Oahu, Hawaii posted at Two Kids and a Map.

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Sarah V. presents Beignets! posted at Wandering Off.

(more…)

Welcome to the Carnival of Cities blog carnival, where we tour the world in a single post, via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one, single city (or fair-sized town.)

The previous host was the Perceptive Travel blog and the next edition will again be hosted here on Sheila’s Guide on Wednesday, February 9.

If you’d like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (February 23 and March 9 are open) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in Europe

Orta San Giulio, Italy Donna Hull presents Baby Boomer Tips for Visiting Orta San Giulio, Italy posted at My Itchy Travel Feet, saying, “Outdoor cafes facing a lake that hosts a medieval island, walks through a park-like setting where chapels depict the life of St. Francis of Assisi through painted frescoes – you’ll find an un-touristy Italian paradise in Orta San Giulio.”

Istanbul, Turkey Nicole Elena Robertson presents Istanbul posted at Nicole Elena Robertson, saying, “Istanbul is a beautiful city, rich in history, and often overlooked by Western travelers. While researching my upcoming trip, I’ve gathered some stunning photos of Istanbul.”

Oslo, Norway Anne-Sophie Redisch presents Oslo – 10 Great Free Cultural Attractions posted at Sophie’s World, saying, “Oslo’s premier attraction is nature, and there are many, many ways to enjoy the great outdoors, free of charge. But it’s cold out these days. And not absolutely everyone loves skiing in sub-zero temperatures. So here are 10 favourite cultural attractions, less strenuous and completely free of charge.”

Leeds, Yorkshire, England Keith Kellett presents Winter at Roundhay Park posted at Travelrat’s Travels.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands r0dman presents Backpacking in Amsterdam posted at on the way to somewhere, saying, “We would just walk for a bit, then sit down and watch the thousands of people ride past on bicycles, families playing on the grass, dogs playing until they fight each other and then playing again, and all of the other things that happen when you take the time to sit and watch. It was relaxing, but it was interesting too.”

Rome, Italy Tim Freeman presents Weekend in Rome posted at Madrileño Americano, saying, “This blog post outlines my trip to Rome, Italy.”

Paris, France Robin Locker presents Go Organic in Paris posted at My Melange.

Cities in the Americas

Miami, Florida, USA Anna presents Meet my favourite city in the world posted at Anna’s Life and Mistakes, saying, “Miami…the unregrettable addiction”

Nashville, Tennessee, USA Nicole presents Finding my bliss at Blissdom in Nashville posted at Arrows Sent Forth, saying, “My memories of the atrium at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville and why I’m excited to visit again during the Blissdom conference.”

(more…)

For me, content is either preplanned or is triggered by something that bothers me and I simply HAVE to blast out a post.

I often ask myself, “What is driving me nuts right now, or what makes me happy just thinking about it?” and that becomes fresh content.

Several ways to keep feeding the beast….

1)  Use a monthly or weekly editorial calendar, particularly to help you write seasonal, holiday-related or event-specific blog/Facebook posts or tweets.

Why do you think that “get organized” articles come up every January, and “get ready for bikini season” stuff arrives in women’s magazines like clockwork in April or May? Soup recipes in November, fruit tart recipes in July and August….all of it is evergreen content, re-done every year. Same with those “how to get the most out of XYZ Conference” posts you see before events, followed by link-heavy “Here’s what I learned at XYZ Conference” afterward.

In our very first Tourism Currents newsletter, we talked about editorial calendars for content planning, because it’s that important to have a strategy for what you publish.

2)  Have some way to track the random insights that pop into your head; they often become popular posts if you move fast to articulate your unique point of view on a topical issue. Some people use electronic services like Evernote to record them; I use a notepad and pen (which always boot up.)

Also keep some notetaking device near your bed, because it’s amazing how many ideas will occur to you as you’re falling asleep.  No, you will not remember them in the morning. Trust me.

3)  Which key words and phrases are people using to discover answers in your industry? What are they asking about on LinkedIn Answers, on Quora, on Twitter, in person at conferences, etc? Your answers to those questions are all potential blog posts. Include the keywords in your headline; that’s great SEO because you are using exactly the same “How do I….?” words that people are typing into search engine boxes, and bots like to bring back results that exactly match queries.

That’s what I did for this post – I did a quick analysis of the phrases people use when they do a search about how to blog, then wrote my title.

4)  Sometimes the best posts are images or video, with just a little text.

Always have a camera with you, and periodically scroll your archives for photos or videos that were buried and never edited. I wrote a post about a simple integrated marketing communication example based on a photo that I’d forgotten I’d taken till I did an archive review.

5)  Never waste content. I took my answer to a blogging question on Quora and it became this blog post.

There’s one more piece of content in the can for me, my thoughts kill two birds, and the gaping maw is pacified for one more day. 

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)

Many tourism organizations that are not member-based have told me they’re reluctant to mention specific businesses or events in their towns for fear of offending someone.

They say things like….

** “If I RT (retweet) something on Twitter from that particular restaurant, the other restaurants will fuss that I didn’t mention them, too.”

** “If I create suggested itineraries to help visitors, the ones who aren’t on the itineraries will complain.”

** “If I show a photo from that hotel on my Facebook Page, the other hotels will be mad.”

** “If I group restaurants on my website a certain way, rather than listing them alphabetically, some of them will be upset.”

** “If I plug that festival on our blog, the other festival organizers will get huffy.”

All of this may be true, but what it means is that you are not giving visitors the best possible information about how to enjoy their stay in your town. You’re giving them a laundry list – a data dump – and expecting them to figure it out on their own.

This is especially true of my pet peeve: tourism websites that list restaurants alphabetically under Where To Eat, from Applebee’s to Z Pizza.  Gee, then visitors have the joy of wading through that crapola and picking one….without even the courtesy of having them laid out on a mobile-friendly map, to ease the pain of confusion as they drive around an unfamiliar town (probably with hungry kids squawking in the back seat.)

No wonder they go for your safe, known chain places and leave uninspired by anything unique that you offer. Meh.

Rather than using a tweet or Facebook photo to show them, for example, only-in-our-town highlights like that amazing lemon meringue pie at a local bakery, you pump out no-impact, inoffensive, rah-rah vanilla content like “Eat, Stay, Play” without any interesting specifics on where and how to eat, stay and play.

On conversational social media sites, such brochure-speak is a yawner for everyone (you’re bored writing it and they’re bored reading it) so visitors may turn to random searches on Google or Yelp or “where do locals go?” Facebook shouts or tweets to their networks, all in an effort to get past unhelpful data dumps and onto useful information that works for them and their travel companions.

Why not try to figure out a workable, equitable system to spotlight worthy places when it makes sense to do so?

There’s no perfect solution, but at least sit down, think about it and consider offering some options….

**  A rotating tweet or retweet from each restaurant on your website listing. They aren’t on Twitter? Fine; support those who are.  The others can figure it out at their leisure.

**  A variety of Facebook photos, one per day or week, of a special dish from each restaurant in town. If the restaurant doesn’t provide a photo, then they aren’t mentioned. Tough cookies, you know?

**  Offer a short guest post on your blog to the manager of each hotel in town, talking about his or her favorite thing to suggest to visitors as a “must-see.”  Those who provide a good post get on your blog. Those who are “too busy” won’t get one. It’s not as though you aren’t offering the option to everyone.

**  Tell your local restaurants, shops and lodging that you’re setting up some suggested itineraries (family-friendly, history buff, foodie, craft enthusiast, etc.) on your website. Have some brainstorming sessions with them. Publish the first 3-4 that you create. Invite further input from those not yet included. Make them show you where they might best fit with a visitor’s interests.

**  Follow the lead of Visit Virginia and put a This Month tab on your Facebook Page for Events This Month (event calendars are consistently one of the most-trafficked pages on tourism websites, too) and be open to musical entertainment, festivals, dances, specials, etc. Those who don’t submit their data, don’t get on your calendar.

Think of yourself as both the best source of local information, and also as an online publisher who is capable of getting that quality information out on any channel you choose – text, photo, video, audio.

Either you act as the expert, reliable source, or a lone blogger like me or Kate Canterbury (who writes Columbia, Missouri’s Capturing CoMo) will do it….because we can and you didn’t.

We are not constrained by this pervasive avoidance of offending anyone, and with a little creativity and some teamwork around town, you really don’t have to be constrained that much, either.

Have you found any successful ways to deal with this issue? Please let us know down in the comments.

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)

Welcome to the December 15, 2010 edition of the Carnival of Cities, where we tour the world in a single blog post via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one city (or fair-sized town.)

I hosted the previous edition on BootsnAll Family Travel, and the next host is the Trekaroo Blog on Wednesday, December 29.

If you’d like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (January 12 and 26 plus February 9 are open) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in Europe

Copenhagen, Denmark Katie Sorene presents 6 Reasons Why I Love Copenhagen posted at Travel Blog – Tripbase, saying, “After a trip to TBEX Europe I fell in love with Copenhagen! Find out about the city’s penchant for cakes, fairy tales and things that work!”

Munich, Germany Elmer Boutin presents Bavarian Dream Vacation – Day 1, Munich posted at Musings of Řehoř.

Vienna, Austria Happy Hotelier presents 5 Tips for Visiting Vienna in Luxury posted at Happy Hotelier, saying, “For me Vienna is the Number 0ne destination in Europe: Old World Chic in a relaxed romantic environment”

Cities in the Americas

Detroit, Michigan, USA Dominique King presents Fill your shopping basket with regional goodies at Detroit’s Eastern Market posted at Midwest Guest, saying, “Detroit’s Eastern Market lays claim to being the largest historic public market district in the United States, and this huge open-air farmers market has a history dating back more than 160 years.”

Austin, Texas, USA My reasons why Austin Rocks: Shop the world at Tesoros Trading Company posted at Perceptive Travel Blog, saying, “I’ve shopped here for decades; great stuff at reasonable prices, and they’re online, too.”

Rancho Cucamonga, California, USA Sharlene Earnshaw presents Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga with kids posted at Suite Trip.

Linden, New Jersey, USA Khaleef @ KNS Financial presents NJ City Collects Over $1Million in 3 Months From Red Light Cameras posted at Faithful With A Few, saying, “By installing 3 red light (traffic) cameras, a New Jersey city has collected over $1 Million in only 3 months! How did they pull it off? Was it about money or safety? Read the full story and chime in!”

(more…)

Although our Tourism Currents online learning community is a pretty new startup, we decided this month to sponsor an event for the first time.

Now we’re in the “big leagues,” right?  :)

It’s the Get Smart professional development conference run by the very active Austin, Texas AWC (Association for Women in Communications) chapter.

I’ve been an AWC member since 2006 (my journalist Mom is an Member Emeritus, ever since it was an honors journalism sorority in the 1950′s) and it is chock-full of a lot of very networked communicators, many of whom are involved in some aspect of tourism or hospitality.

One benefit of our sponsorship is the chance to provide “collateral” – some swag, a printed handout or something – to be distributed to conference attendees.

Now, I was as clueless about this as I was about how to run a trade show booth on a budget, but after some thought I realized that no one wants yet another brochure or piece of paper with pretty pictures.  They want useful information.

So, I rejiggered a simple Word document handout that I’d done for the Texas Travel Summit on social media resources for CVBs to attract conferences, and made it a more general “Tourism Currents favorite resources and tips for social networking.”

Our favorites for finding blogs?  Alltop.com (here’s the Alltop Tourism Industry channel) and Google’s blog search engine.

Our favorite parts of LinkedIn?  The Groups and Answers sections.

Our best tip for Twitter?  Follow one or more of the many regularly scheduled industry-specific hashtagged Twitter chats.

Why are videos and images important?  Because they are great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if fully titled, tagged and described.  There is less competition for them than for text in universal search.

None of these are blinding revelations, but if every person who gets one of our handouts learns some tidbit they didn’t already know, then we’ve succeeded in not killing trees simply to get our name out there.  If they contact us for more training….well, so much the better!

Tourism Currents logo, URL, Twitter names and email address at top, helpful info, all on one page  –  BOOM.  We’re done.

What sort of ideas do you have for printed collateral that best benefits your event sponsorship? I’d love to hear from you down in the comments.

Connect the offline and the online, and you have yourself a more effective means of communicating with your customers.

Many of this sandwich/coffee shop’s clients sit in front of these napkin holders with either a laptop or a smartphone, or both.  Why not show them where to go with that WiFi?

Props to Star Co. Coffee for this idea (and for supporting the weekly gathering of entrepreneurs, geeks and freelancers known as Jelly Coworking Round Rock.)

At the recent TACVB (Texas Association of CVBs) annual conference in Lubbock, my business partner Becky McCray and I negotiated a trade show booth for our Tourism Currents online course in social media for tourism as part of our speaker fee.

The only problem was that we had never put anything in our marketing budget for booth decorations or signs. We’ve never planned on doing trade shows; such events are probably one of the most expensive ways to market (booths often cost $500 and up) and our network seems to be building pretty well via word-of-mouth, social networking, current customers and our speaking engagements.

How could we put together something engaging without looking, well, cheap and pathetic? We’re a startup, but we have some pride! We decided to shop my stash of personal possessions for decorations, and not sweat the small stuff.

I was the only person at the trade show because Becky wasn’t able to arrive from Oklahoma until the conference opening reception.  I’ve never done a trade show in my life; it was homework time.

First, I read an old article that I’d torn out of Inc. magazine and saved just in case I ever needed it – How to make the most of trade shows.  A quick trip through the article archives of the TSEA (Trade Show Exhibitors Association) was also helpful (update 12 Nov 2010: TSEA just put those articles behind their membership wall,) and I like Make Your Booth Stand Out at a Trade Show from The Entreprenette.

Based on that research and my own experience as a trade show attendee, I could see that we didn’t need to get too fancy with the booth, but it did need to be eye-catching. We needed something to fill physical booth space since our main product is online training.  I looked around my house for things to use – as a globe-trotter, I’ve done a lot of shopping over the years and have figured out how to find travel souvenirs when you’re on a budget.

Here’s what we did:

***  Assess the amenities already provided. We would have a skirted 8 foot long table, head sign with our company name, two chairs and a waste paper basket.  There was power available.  We also ended up with a terrific location, right by the trade show entrance.

***  The table was pulled back into the booth about 2 feet so that I could stand in front of it. I never used the chairs because it’s best to stand up to chat and engage with your visitors. Wear comfortable shoes and a perpetual smile when you’re the “booth babe.”  :)

***  Pick a color scheme.  Our Tourism Currents website designed by Kim Fenolio has a lot of blue in it, so I brought my blue-and-white patterned table runner (originally purchased at Pier One) and two blue tablecloths – one from Kenya, one from Egypt to fit the conference travel/tourism theme – to drape over one of the chairs and over one side of the side drapes. There are a few touches of orange on our website, so I wore an orange jacket.

***  Fill empty space.  I brought a large, tall blue-and-gold cloth umbrella that I’d bought years before on a Navy port visit to Bali, Indonesia. When opened, it looked festive, matched the color scheme, fit the travel/tourism theme and drew a lot of interest. Driving my little Hyundai sedan to Lubbock with a pole running up the middle seemed a small price to pay (I can fold down part of the back seat to accommodate long items. I’ve even gotten a Christmas tree into that car.) I was also going to buy and blow up a bunch of blue balloons at a local grocery store to fill space, but the umbrella did enough.

***  Give people something to fiddle with.  I used what I had – my bag full of tech accessories became a “Geek Gear” display. Many people picked up items, looked at them and asked questions about my external webcam, pocket video camera, tripod, Skype headset, etc. I had to trust that the gear wouldn’t walk off, and none did, but you have to know your audience. I also set out a bowl of Werther’s hard candies brought from home, guarded by a small plastic Japanese Godzilla doll just for fun.

***  Nice colorful flyers (mostly blue) run off at a Lubbock FedEx/Kinko’s were our only out-of-pocket expense:  US$38.32 for 60 of them, which was about 30-40 too many. Becky designed the flyer to include course information and a discount code for the TACVB event, plus some info and another code for our upcoming tourism workshop at BlogWorld and New Media Expo on October 14.

***  Stack of business cards.  I already had plenty, made by moo.com, which lets you do a lot of customizing and use many different photos on the backs. I use the regular business card-sized ones, not the mini ones that fall out of card decks too easily and annoy me.

***  My laptop, with tabs already open to our Tourism Currents course details page, our Facebook Page and our Twitter stream.

***  A clear plastic glass brought from home, about half full of water with a light up party reusable “ice cube” in blue floating in it (originally from our family trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida awhile back, because, why not?) It was colorful and and caught the eye.

That was it.

The most important thing I did – besides chat with people who came by the booth that day – was to follow up the next week via email with everyone who had left me a business card.

And yes;  it resulted in new paying customers for our business.

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)