How soon should I follow up after a Dynamics event?
Within days. After Directions EMEA, BC TechDays or any other Dynamics event, a message that lands while the conversation's still recent reads as a continuation. A month later it reads as a new cold email.
Block the first days back in your diary now. If the follow-up waits for a quiet week, it'll slip.
What should I do before the event to make follow-up easier?
Decide which companies you want to meet. Take the attendee and exhibitor lists and mark the resellers that fit your app.
For each one, write a single sentence on why you want the conversation: a vertical they serve, say, or a gap in the ISVs they carry. If you do meet, that sentence becomes the first line of your follow-up. Book meetings before you travel instead of waiting for stand traffic.
What should I capture at the stand?
Write down the person's role, the customer problem they mentioned and what you agreed to do next. Do it straight after the conversation, for every real one. A badge scan only gives you a name and a company, so your notes are what you'll write from.
Mark the cards from people you didn't speak to as exactly that. They get a lighter message than the people who stayed ten minutes.
Who should I follow up first?
Rank them by fit, in place of the order of the scan list. In Partner Pipeline, our reseller recruitment service, every partner is scored on three dimensions before outreach: capability fit, growth state and portfolio gap. You can ask the same questions by hand:
- Capability fit: which verticals they serve, which modules they implement, which ISVs they already partner with, and how the team's put together.
- Growth state: headcount change, recent business development and alliance hires, new office openings, and private equity or venture capital backing.
- Portfolio gap: their current ISV partner stack, whether they already carry a competing solution, category gaps in the portfolio, and whether they were at events.
A reseller that serves your verticals, has just hired for alliances and has nothing in your category goes to the top. One that already carries a direct competitor goes lower.
You'll find most of the evidence in public places: job ads, LinkedIn posts, AppSource, event pages, headcount changes, funding news and the reseller's own partner page. Start with Microsoft AppSource and Microsoft's partner directory, then look at the reseller's website and LinkedIn page.
Who should I write to inside the reseller?
Product managers, presales or customer account managers. They're the people who see new intakes or manage customers with problems. That's our view, and it's why we think ISVs tend to aim at the wrong desk: they write to sales.
If your stand conversation was with a salesperson, keep that thread going and send a separate message to a presales or account-management colleague.
What should the message say to someone who visited my stand?
Open with a problem in their customer base. Our view is that a good first message triggers the reseller by telling them which problems in their customer base you can solve that their current options don't, or not really. In a reseller's own words: "tell me what issues you might resolve at my customer base that my competitor doesn't."
Keep the structure short:
- 1One line on where you met and what they said, taken from your stand notes.
- 2The problem, and what your app does about it.
- 3One low-effort ask, such as a short call.
Then plan a sequence. If there's no reply after a few days, send a second message that starts from something different: a new hire, an AppSource listing, a new office. Every message should come from that company's own situation, so don't send one template to the whole list.
Did following up after an event work better than cold outreach in one real case?
In one pair of Exsion365 campaigns, yes: the one that followed an event performed better.
Peter de Bruin, our Partner and CRO, is also CRO at Exsion365, which builds Excel-based reporting for Business Central.
In an Exsion365 campaign that followed up after an event, 83% of connection requests were accepted and 84% of accepts moved into conversation. In a cold Exsion365 campaign with no event beforehand, 46% were accepted and 50% of accepts moved into conversation. The figures are from early August 2026.
It's one pair of campaigns and a past result, so don't expect the same numbers.
Can someone run event follow-up for me?
Yes, that's what our Event Follow-Up product does. Before an event, we read the attendee and exhibitor lists against our platform, say which partners are worth your time and book meetings into your diary. Afterwards, every badge scan and business card is enriched, ranked and followed up within days, in your name.
The platform holds more than 6,000 VARs and implementers, each individually classified. If you'd like to see how it would work for your next event, you can book a call with us at xandiq.com/demo.
FAQ
What should a follow-up email after a trade show say?
Put the event and your stand conversation in the subject line, so the reseller recognises you before they open it. Keep the email to a few short lines, skip the attachments and make one ask.
How many times should I follow up after an event?
Keep going, spaced over a few weeks, until you get a clear yes or no. Silence isn't a no: your message may have landed in a busy week.
Should I follow up by email or on LinkedIn?
Both can work together. A short LinkedIn connection note that mentions the event sits well alongside an email to the same person. Don't paste identical text into both.
Can I follow up with resellers I never met at the event?
Yes, if you're straight about it. Say you saw them on the attendee list, and don't claim a conversation that didn't happen.