Think about it this way: If your company focuses all of its marketing and exhibit funding into one single trade show a year then you only have this one chance to increase prospects and gather qualified leads for your sales team. Sp, if you spend all of that conference handing out meaningless giveaways or speaking with the wrong attendees, what happens in Vegas is going to stay in Vegas. Namely, all of your potential sales leads.
When it comes to accumulating and organizing leads at trade shows, there are many obstacles that stand in your way. Working to avoid these road blocks will not only create a smoother lead management system for your team, but will also help you to realize the full potential of your exhibit.
When your exhibit is not focused in your marketing messages, or features fun interactions such as giveaways or games, you may attract any and every attendee that is simply looking to be entertained – allot of wrong prospects and leads. And while lots of foot traffic may seem like a good problem to have, you will not gain quality leads this way, as you are not attracting the right kind of prospects. Instead, your booth should be focused and tied directly to the solution that you offer. While this may mean that fewer people stop by your booth, it will ensure that those who do stop will be more interested.
If your booth staff is not correctly trained to ask for the right kind of information that is necessary for qualifying leads, as usually determined for your sales leads, than these leads are dead ends. Recording the products and services that a particular attendee was interested in, along with how interested they were, will help your sales team determine how high up they are on the list of qualified prospects and will help them better connect with attendees after the event.
There is allot of money at stake on the show floor, not just the cost of the show experience – but money lost on wasted efforts and not grabbing true leads. Analyze this subject early on, not two weeks before the show, and make certain everything works in harmony on the show floor.
