A Different Lead System at Every Trade Show

Every trade show you exhibit at seems to have a different trade show lead collection system. How are you supposed to bring any consistency to the leads if the capabilities of the trade show lead scanner and demographic information you collect at each show is different? This is a good quesiton and the honest answer is without some extra effort, you can't.

One way to avoid this problem altogether is to buy your own lead collection software system that you can use at all of your shows. However, these systems are expensive and require an equal amount of effort to maintain and setup at each event. So if you don't have the man power and money to manage one of these systems, or the budget to hire someone to do it for you, then you are left with the only other option: the rental trade show lead retrieval system.

The good news is that you can create an effective follow up system with some preparation and a bit of effort. Using the custom qualifying option available at most of the shows to allow the onsite reps to categorize each lead with a few simple quesitons, you can leave the show a list of qualified leads.  The next step is to assign one of your staff to follow through with the sales lead distribution to the reps and to determine which leads the sales reps should look at and which are not worth their time.  You will find that this will greatly increase your trade show ROI.

Of course if you don't have time to think about this because your staff is already short handed, you can hire a vendor like Event Technologies (shameless plug) to manage this process for you for a fraction of what you are spending to exhibit. If you have the man power, please read our White Paper on how to get a handle on this process. In addition, continue reading through the blog for other ideas that will improve your trade show sales efforts.

Small Changes to Trade Show Follow Up Leads to Big Success

The recent Exhibitor magazine article “The Myths of Lead Management” confirms what most everyone knows – 98% of exhibitors collect trade show leads. And while 70% have a follow-up plan in place, almost as many are less than enthusiastic with their results. Overall, the survey seems to say that exhibitors focused on trade show leads follow-up in greater numbers than was previously thought and most understand that trade show success is dependent on how well it is done.

In most cases, trade show management is tasked with the collection of the leads and it’s under their watch that the leads are qualified. The follow up, however, is the mission of sales and marketing in 88% of the companies surveyed. Analysis of this process shows that a disconnect is created when sales and marketing are not involved with the process until after the show. The sales department must take part in the creation of the qualifying questions and help define the prioritization rules, while the marketing department needs to create and manage the follow up process.

In addition, there are a number of other problems that can affect the trade show follow-up process:

• leads from trade shows come in large batches, and processing these large amounts of info can be tedious and time consuming

• qualification data is not collected and / or a lead prioritization process does not exist

• trade show leads get lost when merged in with other leads generated by the marketing department

• trade shows don’t happen every day so the required systems and procedures are not always in place or get “rusty”

• sales reps don’t want to leave their pipeline of qualified leads to cold call into a bunch of unqualified contacts

• the data from each show is different and not everyone is equipped to handle the various formats

To address these problems consider formulating a plan. Focus your resources on the problem by either:

• Establishing a separate trade show response function to address the leads immediately after the show rather than dumping them on the marketing department. Successful marketing executives agree that trade show leads seem to get lost when merged in with other leads.

• Outsourcing all or parts of the process to an organization or an individual specializing in trade show lead collection and follow-up.

Prioritize the leads:

• To get the most out of your trade show investment you must get to the “hot” prospects before your competitors, who all emerge from the event with the same list of leads.

• Being first requires an exhibitor to collect consistent qualification data to use with a prioritization methodology or rating system that points their follow-up efforts to the high priority leads.

• Without a prioritization approach every lead looks the same.

Insure the leads going to sales are High Priority by implementing a multiple-touch approach:

• Trade show follow-up probably should include an email, a personal validation call, and a direct mail piece to the high priority leads before ever sending them to sales.

• Contacting your leads with more than one method can increase the effectiveness of your trade show follow up and help insure that when the sales force is engaged they are focused on converting prospects to customers rather than cold calling into another list of names.

Trade shows are too expensive to not have a detailed follow up process with automated components that insure you are fulfilling every request and calling the leads that are ready to buy your products. With trade show operations responsible for lead data collection and follow-up falling to sales and marketing, it is extremely important that a well thought out follow-up plan be in place to overcome the natural communication issues. Add to this the sense of urgency generated by the competition having the same set of leads exiting the show and it becomes clear that a focused rapid response effort is required to make the most of the trade show investment. There are plenty of success stories that are the result of simply having a plan.

Trade Show Follow Up - Email

by: Kevin Ehlers

One of the easiest and cheapest trade show lead follow up methods is email. While some industries don't prefer to communicate via email (doctors, for example), almost everyone has embraced email as a primary form of business communication.

When constructing the copy for your post show email, you need to keep a few things in mind. Here are a few trade show strategies for email follow up:

1. Stand Out - Because email is such a standard form of communication, we all receive a lot of messages every day. If you send a long winded email people will just delete it and move on. Use graphics that catch their eye and try to keep the best parts of the message at the top so they show up in the preview pane.

2. From/Subject - Use the From and Subject lines to brand your company. This way even if they don't read the whole message your company still "registers" with the prospect.

3. Timing - Sending the email directly after the show is imperative while your company is still fresh in your prospects' minds. Keeping your name in front of them will help increase trade show sales.

4. Use a Call to Action - Present an offer or entice them to contact you in some way.

5. Send a relevant message - If you use a lead scoring system, send a different message to the hot, warm and cold leads. If you use lead retrieval software, send them product specific messages based on their interest on the show floor. Including their local sales rep's contact information is a nice touch, too.

Quantity vs. Quality

“So how many leads did we get?” This is normally the first question everyone asks when gauging the success of a trade show. Unfortunately, if you are looking to increase trade show sales this is the wrong question. The question should be, “how many leads did we get that are ready to buy something?”

If you are giving away a trip to Hawaii, you will collect a ton of trade show leads. But how many of your 1,000 leads are interested in your company vs. interested in going to Hawaii? Unless you have a good trade show lead qualification process, you may never know.

Regardless of your promotion, it is imperative to qualify the leads onsite. There are a few different ways to accomplish this. One way is using the show provided exhibitor lead retrieval system. Most of the systems out there offer 20 custom qualifiers. For some companies, this is more than enough to determine which leads are good and which are looking for a freebie. If your needs are more robust, you can use third party trade show lead retrieval software. There are a few third party companies out there. Most of them are very reliable and offer just about everything you could want to qualify leads.

Once you qualify the leads you can implement a lead scoring system for lead rating and employ a good trade show lead management program. Then you should be able to answer the more important question of how many good leads you collected at the show.

Exhibitors Lose Out

I've noticed lately that trade shows are including less and less contact information on the attendee badges. Shows in the corporate sector are listening to their outspoken attendees and removing email addresses and phone numbers from the attendee badge. For other reasons, I can only guess at, contact info has become less complete, leaving out zip codes, and even company names at some shows.

At the show, companies that scan the badge with trade show lead retrieval system typically will have no way to add this info to the data file. This lack of contact info is often not noticed during the trade show lead generation process.

The main effect of this is during the trade show follow up process, this missing information is noticed by sales, and often causes them to think the lead is cold. Why wouldn't sales just use Google to find the phone number, or email address? The answer to this is that a lead that has a name and address with no qualifying information is exactly the same as a cold call. Obviously I'm making the assumption that the leads aren't qualified, but I see a lot of leads that are collected by the show system, and 99% of them contain no qualifying info, if you don't customize the qualifying questions.

How can you avoid this problem at your shows? Using lead retrieval software that allows you to add contact info would be a good start. But either way, you need to find out how much info will be on the badge before the show starts. Notify your staff that the HOT leads should be asked for email and phone number information, and while they are at it, add qualifying info for the HOT leads. One last idea is to contact the show and ask them to start including the info you need to justify exhibiting at their show.

The Secret to Trade Show Lead Collection and Follow Up

I was recently reminded that there is a "secret" to a successful trade show lead management program. Last week, one of our customers exhibited at a show in Las Vegas. At this show, they had a huge booth, and typically collect between 300 and 400 leads. They are a multinational corporation, and just like every other exhibitor, they expect to collect a certain number of hot trade show leads, and to have those leads turn into sales after the event.

Dealing with the large amount of data that was generated at this show reminded me how such a simple goal can be very difficult to execute. As you can read about in the other blog entries, we have strategies for trade show lead collection and trade show lead management, so I won't go into that here. What I will say, (here is the secret) is that without someone to push the leads through the process after the show, you are not going to get the results you expect.  My advice is either hire someone to guide you through this process, or assign someone in your organization to accomplish this task.

Most companies that we talk to have trouble with all facets of the trade show lead generation and management process, and this is mainly due to a lack of planning and follow through. Bottom line is that if nobody is put in charge of this process, then the leads are not going to turn into sales on their own.

Focus Your Resources

by: Fred Tremblay

I have seen a number of discussion groups and blogs lately centered on the topics of lead retrieval and follow-up. When the subject includes lead retrieval I immediately assume the audience is trade show managers. Trade show managers execute the lead collection (by ordering the lead scanner), but this is where their responsibility typically stops. They are usually not missioned with lead follow-up. In most organizations marketing and sales have this responsibility and there are a number of reasons why it does not get done in a timely manner including the following:

• Trade shows don’t happen every day so the required systems and procedures are not always in place or get “rusty”
• Sales reps don’t want to leave their pipeline of qualified leads to cold call into a bunch of unqualified contacts
• The data from each show is different and not everyone is equipped to handle the various formats

One solution is to establish a separate response function to address the leads immediately after the show rather than dumping them on the marketing department. I have interviewed a number of successful marketing executives who agree that trade show leads seem to get lost when merged in with other leads.

To get the most out of your trade show investment you must get to the “hot” prospects before your competitors, who all emerge from the event with the same list of leads. Being first requires an exhibitor to collect consistent qualification data to use with a prioritization methodology or rating system that points their follow-up efforts to the high priority leads. Without a rating on every lead, they all look the same.

Trade show follow-up probably should include an email, a personal validation call, and a direct mail piece to the high priority leads before ever sending them to sales. Contacting your leads with more than one method can increase the effectiveness of your trade show follow up and help insure that when the sales force is engaged they are focused on converting prospects to customers rather than cold calling into another list of names.

The Sales Reps Don't Follow Up on the Trade Show Leads

Marketing says that the sales reps don't follow-up on the trade show leads. The sales reps say that the leads from the trade shows are unqualified, and their time is better spent on the leads they get from other sources. Probably, both marketing and sales are right.

I think we can all agree that trade show leads are valuable. At any trade show, a certain percentage of the leads collected are "Sales Ready". Unfortunately, most exhibitors never take the time to figure what their sales people think is a "hot" lead. Most exhibitors assume that since the sales people are in the booth, they will qualify the leads. In the booth, this does not usually happen. Sales people do what they do best, SELL. When the badge is swiped, there is often little or no qualifying information collected.

After the show is over, these unqualified leads are handed off to the sales reps who see them as a waste of time. Some companies actually dump all these leads into the "Sales Database" and then complain when these leads don't turn into sales.

A growing trend for corporate marketing is to employ advanced lead management systems to implement a nurturing program for the leads that are not sales ready. Trade show leads that are "hot" can be sent directly to sales, but the other 70% to 90% of the leads should be emailed the monthly newsletter, invited to webinars, and informed of your new capabilities until they declare themselves to be ready to buy. If you take the time to develop this nurturing program, you will find that the leads you hand to sales will be much more appreciated than the list of names that is exported out of the show scanner.

Calculating Trade Show ROI

I talk to a lot of marketing people that are trying to figure out how much money their tradeshows are actually bringing in. A trade show manager that I spoke with the other day, was tasked with figuring out her companies trade shows’ Return on Investment (ROI). If she sent us the leads from her show, could we give her a number? She wanted a “Yes or No” answer. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. It is a tough number to calculate when you’re talking about trade shows, especially if you have a long sales cycle.


The obvious idea is to set up a lead management program that will reference the accounting database and match that against the leads that were collected at the trade shows. Before you run off to your accounting department, let’s think about how effective this reporting will be. What if your sales cycle is 6 months to 2 years, which is often the case. Analysis of the trade show leads may not be complete until 2 years after the event. Along the way, you will be generating a running tally that makes your show lead management look ineffective. And when you finally collect all the trade show sales data, 2 years later, is this information useful?

A different, more immediate, way of reporting on your shows is available if you are accurately qualifying your leads, and generating a lead rating for each lead. Immediately after the show, you should know the quality, or lead rating of each lead collected. Based on this lead scoring, you will know which leads should turn into trade show sales, that is, if the sales reps do their job with the trade show follow up.

The next step after the trade show lead capture and lead rating, is to assign a percentage to each group of leads based on the chance a deal will close. This number doesn’t have to be perfect, just an educated guess (you can fine tune this as you go). If you know a deal will close, assign it 100%, hot leads may be 75%, warm leads 30%, and cold 0%. Then you take the average size of a deal for your company (in dollars), and multiply it with these percentages and the number of leads for each rating group. This will allow you to generate an estimated dollar figure that will tell you how effective your trade show sales effort was.

This will take some effort, but it will be worth it the next time you have a meeting to talk about budget. Not to mention that you will have the info needed to focus the attention back onto sales if management is asking what happened with the tradeshow leads, because at the very least, you will have a list of tradeshow leads that should have turned into sales.

Every company is different, if your company has a short sales cycle, and accounting is willing to work with you, then you should be able to put together a report that details the hard dollars that your show generated. However, if your sales cycle is longer, then a lead management program like the one above will allow you to generate a trade show ROI number.

Trade Show Internet Connection for $299

Do you use an Internet connection at your trade shows? If you are paying more than $299, then EventConnect can save you money.

Typically the internet connection that you can rent for a trade show costs between $1000 and $3000. Event Technologies has put together a package that allows our customers to use the Verizon Broadband Wireless Network to provide internet access in your trade show booth. This service was originally created to help our customers with their trade show lead retrieval and lead management programs, but is now available for use on it's own. Most trade show strategies these days are focused around saving money, and here is a product that can save you thousands of dollars.

The two most asked questions we have heard since releasing this product are:

(1) How is this different than plugging a Verizon or Sprint Modem into my computer?

The Answer: Our system allows you to network (wireless or wired) four (4) computers in your booth. In addition, we include a Wilson Electronics antenna that improves your signal strength and the speed of the service.

(2) Are we allowed to use a service for internet access that is not provided by the trade show.

The Answer: Yes. 100%. The show can't stop you from accessing the internet on your phone, or with a wireless modem on your computer, and this is no different. Here is one of the many laws that guarantee that you can not be told how to access the internet at your trade shows: Telecommunications Act of 1996:

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 explicitly prohibits telecommunications carriers from entering into exclusive contracts with commercial building owners or their agents for the provision of interstate telephony and internet services. The FCC ruling explains that exclusive contracts prove detrimental to the consumer, provide an unfair monopoly to the telecommunications carrier, and stifle innovation and choice with respect to communications technologies and providers. Additionally, the Act grants tenants in multiple tenant environments (including temporary leaseholders) the ability to place antennas one meter or less in diameter used to receive or transmit any fixed wireless service.

Additionally, it is illegal to block the cell signal in the exhibit hall and punishable by up to a year in prison and/or an $11,000 fine.  You can imagine how angry attendees and exhibitors would be if their cell coverage was interfered with. Also, it would be extremely irresponsible of the trade show management to interfere with potential 9-1-1 calls that may need to be placed during the show.

For more information, or to place an order CLICK HERE.

Trade Show Lead Collection on a Budget

We get a lot of calls from people asking if we have a replacement for the lead retrieval scanner they rent at the shows. Usually the goal is to reduce the cost of this rental at every show. I definitely understand this because $350 is a hefty charge for 3 to 5 day rental of a simple electronic device. Unfortunately, there is no direct replacement for the lead retrieval box that will work at every show.

Obviously you can find software products that can read all the trade show badges, but that is going to be a little more expensive than $350 per trade show. More like $1000 per show to rent a lead retrieval software system that is customized and managed by a company like ours, or between $2500 and $8500 to buy one and manage it yourself.

So what can you do if you want to get better leads for your sales people and don't want to spend thousands improving the system. There is no easy answer to this question. Without an internal or external person to drive the trade show lead capture and follow-up process, you are not going to get the results that you want.
However, one idea is to use the show's rental lead collection box and program it with a BANT lead form. BANT stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline.

In my opinion, there is not enough importance put on the lead collection/qualification and processing of the leads after the trade show. At a trade show where a company will spend more than 10K to exhibit, with the goal of collecting some sales ready leads, why is $350 too much when it is the only direct expenditure that is helping to collect and qualify the trade show leads.

Don't Sell in the Booth

I spend a good amount of time helping companies with trade show lead collection and trade show lead follow up. When I'm onsite, I sometimes ask a booth rep, "How was that lead?" and the answer is usually something like, "pretty good, she was interested in the XXX Widget." If you ask that rep, "Was she the decision maker, or does she have budget," they typically have no idea, because they never asked. Most booth reps view each attendee as a "Buyer", so why would the need to qualify them?

Most companies staff their booths with sales people. The inherent problem with this is that sales people sell, that is what they do, and unless you can sell your product on the show floor, you need more than selling, you also need listening. A typical sales person loves to talk about their product(s). Your typical attendee wants to listen and find out about your product. The only problem is, after the trade show, you want a list of qualified leads, not a list of names and addresses.



If you don't train your sales people to collect this information, then after the show, you are going to be looking at a list of names, and have no idea who your sales people should call first. Unless you want your sales people to have to re-qualify each lead after the show, then you should think about developing a simple lead form and make sure the reps ask these questions while they talk about the product. Lastly, make sure that they record the qualifying information on the trade show lead capture device, or you'll be the proud owner of a list of unqualified trade show leads.

Getting Your Sales Reps to Follow-up on the Trade Show Leads

If the sales people are not following up on the trade show leads, is there anything that the marketing department can do?

Yes. The bottom line that sales people will call on a lead that they think will turn into a sale. Trade shows obviously generate sales ready leads, but they also generate a large quantity of leads that are not buyers yet. Marketing's job is to consistently deliver only the leads that have a significant probability of being ready to buy.

In this economy, it is no longer OK to take the lead file from the trade show lead capture system and hand all the leads to the sales people. And if you are dumping lead lists from your trade shows into the sales database, and expecting the sales reps to figure out which ones are good, then you are destine for failure.

The other lead generation systems your company uses do not dump hundreds of unqualified leads on the sales reps like your trade shows do. Therefore, unless your sales people have nothing else to do, you can't expect them to spend time cold calling from a list of people that visited your trade show booth.

I think we can assume that your trade shows generate "sales ready" leads, but which ones are they? If we also assume that only 10%-20% of the leads from your trade show lead generation efforts are ready to buy something, then at a show where you collect 100 leads, only 10-20 of those leads are worth a follow up effort. Of these 10-20 leads, maybe 5-10 will buy something from your company if your sales reps call the lead within a few days of the show.

If you buy into this theory, then it is time to get the sales people invested in the solution:

1. Set up a meeting with sales management.
2. Ask them "What is the definition of a "sales ready" trade show lead?"
3. Create questions that you can record in the booth to qualify attendees.
4. Go back to sales and get their buy in.
5. Tell sales that they will only be receiving qualified leads from the trade shows.
6. Train your booth staff to ask these questions in the booth.
7. Train your booth staff to avoid SELLING in the booth.
8. Create a simple lead management system to collect this info and deliver it to sales.

So what about the other 80% of the trade show leads, the ones that are not ready to buy yet. I would advise that you create a nurturing program if you don't have one already. A marketing database that you periodically contact with invitations to your events, and Interesting information about your industry and new products etc will help to nurture these leads until they are ready to buy. As these leads declare themselves as ready to buy, you hand them to sales.

This isn't an easy thing to do, so outsourcing this process may be a good option for you. However, if you don't think you can do this because you don't have time, remember if you are not implementing a system to increase the sales from your shows, you're going to lose sales to your competitor that is doing this.