Capturing trade show leads
3 min read

One of the key reasons for exhibiting at a trade show is to generate leads for your sales force. It’s important to have a detailed plan in place for lead capture and lead dissemination prior to starting your show.
You should put a written process in place for lead capture and follow-up prior to the start of the trade show. This process should include:
1. Criteria for evaluating leads. Agree on the criteria you want to use to determine the quality of a lead.
2. A Scoring chart for leads to score the priority based on the criteria established in #1.
3. Key information elements to capture for each lead to ensure that you can score and follow-up on leads
4. Any other information relevant to your specific product or market needs such as existing solutions used, size of the business, etc.
You’ll also need to identify which technology you are going to use to capture the lead data. Most shows will offer a barcode scanner or other lead capture system for you to use which is capable of scanning the attendee’s badge. These lead capture systems are available at a modest cost for rent by the show organizers.
You’ll want to make sure you understand exactly what fields will be captured by the lead capture system and ensure that it is sufficient to meet your needs. Many systems allow you to add custom defined questions to the lead capture system so that you can ask those key questions that will allow you to properly score your leads after the show. Some shows also provide printed receipts for each lead which is a great idea as it gives you a hard copy backup in case there’s a problem with the electronic file.
Remember to train your booth staff on both use of the capture system and any specific details that you want them to capture with each lead. The more information you capture about your prospects the more useful the leads will generally be to your sales force. Especially items like particular areas of interest and purchase time frame. Training is important to ensure consistency during the data capture phase otherwise the old phrase “garbage in, garbage out” will catch up to you.
Last but not least you should determine your lead follow up program prior to the start of the show. This will require buy-in from your sales team so be sure to involve them in the pre-show planning meetings. The best practice for follow up is to always make contact with your prospects within one week of the trade show. Email or phone on their own are fine but ideally you use both methods to maximize your impact.