How to Follow Up After a Networking Event
How to Follow Up After a Networking Event
Networking events are a great opportunity to meet new people and explore potential collaborations. However, the real value doesn’t always come from the event itself but rather from what you do in the days that follow. Whether you have just attended a local business networking session or one of our own NEEB events, we have collated a list of straightforward steps to help you make the most of the connections formed.
1. Follow up while it’s still fresh
Try to get in touch with the people you meet within 48 hours of the event while the conversation is still fresh. Any longer and you risk becoming a vague memory of “someone from that event last week”. A short email or a LinkedIn request works fine for an opener, but try to mention something specific from your conversation rather than a generic greeting. If they spoke about a project they’re working on or a problem they’re trying to solve, refer back to it directly. That one detail tells them you were listening, not just working the room and collecting business cards. It also gives them something concrete to reply to, which makes it far more likely you’ll get a response instead of silence.
2. Get your contacts out of your pockets and into a system
Business cards and scribbled notes have a habit of disappearing into a coat pocket forever, only to resurface three months later when you’re searching for something else entirely. Spend ten minutes after the event logging your new contacts. This can be in a spreadsheet or a CRM if you already use one for everything else; just ensure you are following GDPR and that personal data is stored safely and only accessible by those who need it. Note down who they are and what they do, but don’t stop there – also write down what you may have agreed to because that’s the detail you’re most likely to forget.
3. Offer something before you ask for anything
Good business relationships are built on mutual benefit. Before you think about what you need from someone, think about what you could send their way first. That might be an introduction to someone in your network, a useful article, or just a piece of advice relevant to something they mentioned. It doesn’t need to be a grand gesture. It costs you very little time to think of it, and it’s usually the thing people remember long after the small talk has faded. People are far more inclined to help someone who has already shown up for them in some small way.
4. Don’t let it go cold
One follow-up message is a start, not a relationship. Comment on something they’ve posted. Send a quick message when an article or opportunity reminds you of your conversation. Check in every so often just to see how things are going. None of this needs to be a big production, and small, occasional touchpoints do far more for a relationship over six months than one perfectly worded follow-up message ever will.
5. Be honest with yourself about how it went
Spend some time after each event to think about how it actually went. Which conversations felt genuinely valuable, and which ones were just polite noise? Was there a moment when you struggled to explain what your business does? It’s worth admitting if there was. Were there questions you didn’t have a confident answer to? That’s worth writing down too. It can feel a little uncomfortable to pick apart your own performance like this, but it’s also the fastest way to improve. Next time, you’ll walk in knowing exactly what to tighten up.
6. Do what you said you’d do
If you made a promise to send something over or make an introduction, make sure you go through with it. This sounds obvious written down, but it’s also where most follow-up quietly falls apart in practice: good intentions that never turn into an actual email because something else got busy that week. Following through on even the smallest promises builds trust faster than almost anything else you can do. It’s also what separates people who are worth doing business with from people who are good at small talk in the moment.
7. Keep coming back
A single event won’t build a network on its own. Making a habit of attending regularly means you’re not starting from zero each time. You’re deepening relationships you’ve already begun instead of just collecting more names to add to the pile. Over time, the people you keep bumping into at these events stop being contacts and start being people you’d actually call up if you needed advice or a recommendation. Networking isn’t really about the events themselves but rather the slow build of a community around your business, one conversation and follow-up at a time.