Why most event follow-up fails
Three reasons, all fixable.
It arrives too late. By day three the prospect has been back at their desk, cleared 200 emails, and the conference is gone. The window is the day after, ideally while they are still in the airport.
It is generic. “Great to connect at SaaStock!” could have been sent to 400 people, and probably was. It gives the recipient nothing to respond to.
It pretends. Messaging someone from the attendee list as though you had a conversation is a small lie that gets found out immediately, and it costs you the relationship you were trying to build.
For people you actually met
Hi {first name}, good to meet you at {event} yesterday, the bit about {specific thing they said} stuck with me. Would be good to stay connected.
Then, a day later, a voice note picking up the actual conversation. Your voice is the fastest way to remind someone who you were in a room of 500 people.
For people you met briefly and half remember
Hi {first name}, we spoke very briefly at {event}, by the {location} if that helps place me. I meant to follow up properly. Good to be connected either way.
Honesty about the brevity is better than a confident claim they cannot verify.
For the attendee list, people you did not meet
Hi {first name}, we did not meet at {event}, which is a shame because {reason they were relevant}. Saw you were there from the {list or session}. Would be good to connect anyway.
Why it works: naming the fact that you did not meet removes the awkwardness entirely, and the reason-they-were-relevant line does the qualifying work.
For people who attended a session you also attended
Hi {first name}, we were both in {session name} at {event}. I have been thinking about {specific point the speaker made} since, mostly because I think they were half wrong. Curious whether you took it the same way.
Why it works: a shared experience plus a mild opinion. Opinions get replies; observations do not.
Building the list
Attendee lists come from the event app, LinkedIn’s event page attendee list, the speaker and sponsor lists, or people who posted with the event hashtag. That last group is the best one: they were engaged enough to post.
Run whatever you gather through the ICP filter before sending, because an attendee list is a list of people who went to a conference, not a list of people who might buy from you. The overlap is usually smaller than it looks.
The window
Two weeks. After that the event stops being a reason and starts being an excuse, and you are better off finding a different opener.