Realistic and Improved Lead Capture for Small Trade Shows Staffed By Field Sales Reps

 

We’ve had very similar discussions recently with several exhibitors who have big trade show programs with big booths, but also lots of smaller shows with 10 x 10 booths that they, as the trade show manager, never get to.  Those small shows are staffed by field sales people or channel partners who have no face-to-face contact with the trade show manager.

And while it doesn’t happen every time, far too often the sales people staffing the booth don’t send the leads back to the home office.

These shows may be so small the show producer does not provide a badge scanner or lead retrieval app.  And the reality is, even if they did, the booth staffers may not use it, preferring to tuck business cards into their pocket.

So, the marketing department pays for the show, the trade show manager manages the show, and they get nothing to show for it.

Don’t get me wrong, there may have been valuable leads collected at that show, including leads that turned into sales.  It’s just the marketing department has no way to track the leads to sales. If they have a program with a dozen small shows like this, they have no way to determine which shows are worth keeping, and which to drop, so they can then experiment with other potentially viable shows.

So, to recap – are you in this same situation:

  • You have a big program with booths ranging from small to large spaces
  • You have many small shows where:
    • There may not be a show-supplied lead retrieval app or machine
    • Your company does not have a trade show manager or marketer on-site
    • The field sales people are reluctant to provide leads back to the home office
    • You have no way to record any leads or prove a viable ROI for these shows

Exhibitors in this situation are looking for a super easy lead capture app, one that their field sales people or channel partners will use with minimal training.  Unfortunately, these kinds of booth staffers tend to be the most tech-adverse, and simply don’t use any solution provided.

We have a solution that solves this problem from a different angle. Rather than try to force your reluctant booth staffers to use a lead capture app, and be totally lost if they don’t, start with an easy interactive game that can also do all or most of the lead capture.

Our interactive trade show games record much of the contact and qualifying lead info because the attendees enter their own data in order to play our games.  Then our games save your lead data to the cloud so it always comes back to you. Plus, our games also generate more leads by attracting more people into your booth.  So, you get (formerly lost) lead capture and even more leads!

GET EVEN MORE LEAD DATA: Once your booth visitors give their email address to play our fun digital games, our Lead Manager app synchs with the cloud to get their photo, their social media profiles, and their company contact and profile information.  Your booth staffers don’t have to do anything for that great info.

And, when you do have good booth staffers in the booth, our games also come with a free, ad-on Lead Manager app that lets them record even more info about the lead, such as rating them 1 to 5 stars, take pictures of their business card, complete custom lead forms, and even send a fulfillment email from the booth, with links to requested digital documents.

We have also added our simplest game yet, called the Digital Fishbowl, that makes it even easier on your field sales to set up and run a digital game on site.

So, if you have field reps unwilling to use a traditional lead capture app, they can set up our games and have fun, active booths with more attendees and engagement.  And you get the leads automatically sent to you via the cloud.

If you’d like to see more about how you can drive more booth traffic and get more qualified leads with our interactive trade show games like the Digital Fishbowl, feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss your event with one of SocialPoint’s Digital Strategists. We’ll help you generate excitement, crowds, and leads.

Written by

Samuel J. Smith is a thought leader, researcher, speaker and award winning innovator on event technology. In 2011, BizBash Magazine added Sam to its annual innovators list. Since then, Sam has won awards from Exhibitor Magazine, IBTM World, RSVP MN, International Live Events Association and MPI for innovation in event technology.