Leads. It’s what 95% of exhibitors want.
Unfortunately, not all these exhibitors are getting their leads. To get the most qualified prospects, it requires a strategic plan and framework.
81% of trade show attendees are individuals who have authority at their organization to make purchases; therefore, most attendees are key decision makers.
As you build out your lead generation strategy, be sure to engage your brand activation company. We have lead generation conversations with our clients often and here are eight conversations to have.
1. Set lead goals
Start by establishing goals for lead generation.
- What does a successful, qualified lead look like?
- How many leads are we aiming for?
- Are there specific companies or individuals that are on our prospect list that we must get in front of?
2. Captivate attention
Let’s be honest and agree that competition on the show floor is fierce; therefore, creating an experience that draws a qualified lead in, captivates their attention, and moves them through the sales funnel is important. Each of our clients requires a different approach to find success. Some execute through innovative technology approaches like augmented reality, virtual reality, projection mapping, flip disks, and more. Other clients engage through a nontraditional exhibit structure that draws attendees in from across the room. Our point here is that the exhibit’s presence must appeal to prospects.
3. Qualify lead
Badge scanning is not a new technology but is one that should not be overlooked. It can help exhibitors better understand visitors and their level of engagement. The badge scanning we offer at nParallel ensures our customers are getting the most out of their exhibiting by tracking their conversations and metrics.
4. Discover pain-points
Understanding a prospect’s pain-point is crucial, no matter the brand activation. To get to the root issue and not an ailment of the problem, surveys can be instrumental. We help our customers discover their prospective customer’s challenge by using technology such as real-time exhibit surveys. A quick survey helps to qualify leads better, understand what products might be best for them, and drive them through the sales funnel by having a better understanding of how your solutions can help. If your team doesn’t want to execute a survey on the show floor, these surveys can be sent in pre-show marketing materials or post-show.
5. eLiterature
Another obvious one that has benefits that are often overlooked is electronic literature. It’s a common practice now to forgo bringing printed sales material to the show and simply send the material via email to prospective clients. What’s overlooked is the opportunity to measure and further learn about your business lead through electronic literature. The technology that our team uses allows our customers to learn more about who they are sending the sales material to, what areas of the documents they’re interested in based upon clicks, forwards, read times, etc. The metrics derived from electronic literature is instrumental to understanding leads.
6. Lead Management
If lead management is new to you, we can help. Our software integration allows our customers to capture leads on the show floor and easily merge into a CRM tool. If a client currently isn’t doing this, we can send a lead management expert with our client on the show floor to make sure leads are captured correctly. The last thing an exhibitor wants is to go to a show and not be able to reconnect with leads. Oh, and if we can say anything, please do not do the fishbowl lead capture!
7. Merge to CRM
No one likes redundancies; therefore, no one should capture leads and then manually add them into their CRM tool. Technology these days should help, not create more work. If a software solution does not allow a company to automatically capture leads on the show floor and merge into their CRM tool, it might be time to reevaluate the solution.
8. Evaluate
And speaking of evaluating, after a show, companies should be sure to evaluate their leads. Find out if lead goals were met and determine how to improve for the next show. All leads should be categorized and followed-up to close deals that began on the show floor.
Want to lead with leads on the show floor? We’d love to help.