trade show lead capture
Samuel J. Smith
September 14, 2018
When you exhibit at a major USA trade show, it’s a given that attendees will be given badges, and that you as an exhibitor can rent a badge scanner to scan those attendees. A badge scanner saves exhibitors time during in-booth interactions, allowing them to quickly gather attendees’ contact info, and at some shows, a few qualifying data points, too.
But what’s an exhibitor to do when the show doesn’t offer a badge scanner because the show:
You still want to gather lead info, and gather it quickly, even if there is no badge scanner.
Exhibiting at trade shows – how hard can it be? You just show up and talk to people, right?
Actually, exhibiting is surprisingly harder than it looks. That said, trade shows still remain very popular (and even keep growing) because they can produce great results when done right.
If you’re exhibiting for the first time, we want to help shorten your learning curve with these 8 tips you need to succeed:
Everything you do at trade shows should support your main sales and marketing goal. So if you don’t know why you’re exhibiting, there’s no way to succeed. Discover or decide if your trade show goals are (most likely) to boost brand awareness, generate sales leads, or strengthen key relationships, or something else. (This advice is good, even if you are not first time trade show exhibitors.)
More and more exhibitors are ditching paper and instead of using a trade show app to capture lead data from their in-booth conversations.
Many shows provide a lead retrieval app that allows exhibitors to scan a badge and capture data digitally. Some exhibitors are going a step further and are purchasing lead capture software that they can use across many shows.
There are advantages to using a trade show app to save time entering and exporting data. However, too many exhibitors fail to go one more crucial step and include valuable qualifying questions in their digital lead capture.
When you manage a large trade show program with 20, 50, 70, even over 100 shows, your regional trade shows pose several unique and significant problems – problems our Digital Fishbowl game solves:
Let’s dive deeper into each of these regional trade show problems that the SocialPoint Digital Fishbowl game solves.
When you “volunteer” your remote field sales reps to staff your booth at regional shows, they reluctantly participate. Hey, it’s not really their job, but for most companies, their sales reps are their best choice for engaging with local attendees. It’s just that those salespeople will often not have your sense of urgency to get any leads they take back to you.
Just as there are 60 minutes to an hour and 4 seasons to a year, there are 5 steps to the trade show lead cycle:
Every step of the cycle is key to generating leads that turn into sales and profits. That’s why we’ve designed our interactive trade show booth games to help facilitate each step:
Attracting trade show leads is certainly the best-appreciated reason for using our trade show booth games. Attendees walk into your booth for the fun, the excitement, the cool-looking branded visuals, the chance to win prizes, and to compete for bragging rights. Our games will help you attract more attendees out of the aisle and into your booth.