How To Generate Leads At Trade Shows

How to Go (Good) Leads at a Trade Bear witness

March 7, 2019

Nourish a trade testify they said. Y'all'll get leads they said.

It'southward true, trade shows tin can be an amazing way to generate new high-quality leads. In fact, 4 out of 5 people who attend trade shows have buying authority—meaning over lxxx% of the people walking through those trade show aisles are potential paying customers.

The fundamental is knowing how to get them.

Nosotros've cleaved down what to do before, during, and after a trade show to maximize the number of leads you bring in.

Before the evidence:

Write downward what you want to achieve at the trade show.

Yes, y'all want leads. Only what exactly practice y'all want them for?

For example, your chief goals may be to:

• Gain brand sensation
• Get people to sign upwardly to your newsletter
• Connect with new vendors and suppliers
• Sell merchandise

Information technology's important to narrow downward your goal (or goals) for the trade prove and focus on that. This will give your trade bear witness efforts some direction.

Choose trade shows where your target audition will be.

It's ameliorate to attend a smaller merchandise show where more of your audition volition be than a larger one with only a few potential prospects.

When evaluating whether you should attend a trade prove, ask yourself: "Will this trade show help my company accomplish our master goal?" (The one yous decided on the previous footstep.)

Merchandise shows aren't cheap. They can price upwards of thousands of dollars plus the time and effort involved in setting upwardly your booth, ordering swag and data pamphlets, getting speaking points ready, and of form, paying the employees who volition be staffing the berth.

So, a fiddling research on the types of people that typically attend this trade evidence, which other companies will be there, and the plow-out rate from previous years is well worth the endeavour.

Pro-tip: Trade shows are as well a expert relationship-building opportunity for your electric current clientele. Use your CRM to look upward which customers live virtually the merchandise testify and invite them to come say hi and pick up some free swag!

Inquire if you can speak at the show.

Most shows have individual speakers or a panel of them that talk about relevant topics. If you can secure a speaking spot, you lot're sure to achieve a ton of people fifty-fifty if they don't come talk to you at your booth.

Plus, you lot'll get some great content for your LinkedIn folio!

Simply recall, this isn't somewhere to sell your product, but rather to speak well-nigh an manufacture topic in general. However, yous practise desire to make sure your audience knows who you lot are, and so briefly innovate yourself, your company and what it is you guys do.

At the end, let them know where your booth is located so if anyone is interested in learning more, they tin stop by!

Hither are some pointers when trying to go a speaking gig:

• Bank check if speaking opportunities are available: Usually, you can cheque the trade show's website to see if they have a section titled something along the lines of "Speaker Submissions." If not, that'southward okay, just reach out through their general contact form.

• Take a speaker proposal ready: If in that location is a speaking position available, the trade show organizers are going to want to know what you have to say. Then, call up of a topic relevant to the merchandise show (hint: looking at pop speeches that were give in that location in previous years tin help give you some ideas), slap a catchy title on it and accept it ready to send off!
• Reach out early on: Merchandise shows are unremarkably planned out months if not over a year in advance, so plan appropriately.
• Advertise it: If you do land a speaking slot, awesome! Be sure to denote information technology on social media to get people intrigued about your topic and start some buzz about your brand before the trade prove even begins!

Reserve a good booth location.

Before the trade show, suss out the venue it'll be held at and effort to become dibs on a good spot to ready your booth.

Spots well-nigh the concession stands are ordinarily a surefire bet because of the high traffic. Corner spots are too valuable every bit they tend to have good visibility and are easy for visitors to get to, specially when information technology'due south crowded.

Make sure you volume early though—the best spots go fast.

Allow the globe know yous'll be there.

Put the word out on social media that yous'll be at X trade show at X fourth dimension and where your berth will be. That way people who are interested in your brand will know exactly where to find you.

Y'all might even desire to offer an incentive to drop by specific to your social media audience. for example, you lot could Tweet "Come visit us and we'll hook you up with a gratis food/drink voucher!" (Who doesn't like free food?)

Even if people don't nourish the trade show just see your post, they'll meet you as someone who is actively participating in manufacture events and this volition help position you as a leader in your field. Hello, make sensation.

During the show:

Make sure your booth looks sharp.

Looks affair at trade shows.

You want to make sure your company's berth stands out, and that anyone who is passing by tin can know right away what you exercise at a glance.

That being said, don't overload your booth with your company'due south life story either. Continue it unproblematic and to-the-point.

Here are some pointers for designing your trade bear witness booth:

• Accept a clear tagline that lets people what you practice in 1 curt sentence (and make sure it's legible).
• Don't put too many words on your berth. A logo and tagline paired with 1 or two visuals is ordinarily enough. Y'all want to aim for about forty% empty space.
• Focus on only one matter you want people to remember well-nigh your company after the trade show and highlight that. For example, if you lot're an apparel company and desire people to remember your unique hoodie designs, feature merely hoodies in your display instead of your entire clothing collection.

Staff your booth with the right people.

The people standing at your berth are the ones who are going to exist representing your company at the trade prove. So for starters, make sure the people standing there actually want to be at that place. Later on all, they can't make others interested in their booth if they aren't interested in it themselves.

Of course, your berth staff should know the products very well and be able to talk about them and answer any questions confidently and accurately. Otherwise, your chances of getting quality leads from the trade prove are slim.

They should also be strong communicators both verbally and in being able to read trunk language to properly gauge whether booth visitors are actually interested in what y'all're selling or merely there for the free stuff, which brings u.s. to the side by side point. Typically, sales teams practise peachy in this surround.

Have visitors complete an activity before giving out swag.

Non all trade testify leads are equal, so having them prove themselves through a simple activeness is a good way to commencement qualifying them early.

For example, maybe you determine to hand out free t-shirts at your booth. Everyone likes costless t-shirts, only not everyone is necessarily interested in learning about your brand. Rather than paw them out to everyone who walks by, reserve them for the visitors who cease to ask questions and hold to leave their electronic mail address where y'all can ship them more than information.

Use the power of technology.

Going dorsum to our t-shirt swag example, you may want to streamline this process by having multiple iPads at your booth (ideally one per staff member) where you can have visitors enter their email addresses before handing them a gratis shirt.

These email addresses tin can and so exist fed directly into your CRM, ready for you to utilise afterwards (here are some templates for writing trade bear witness follow-up emails).

For example, meet how y'all'd manage leads in Copper:

As we mentioned above, another powerful way to employ technology at merchandise shows is social media. The show likely has a designated hashtag. Notice information technology and tweet straight at people using it to come visit you for (for a complimentary t-shirt!) and let them know where your booth is located.

Yous tin also schedule additional posts ahead of time using a social media management tool similar Hootsuite or Sprout Social and so your booth staff tin can focus on engaging with the potential leads in front end of them instead of looking down at their phones.

Afterwards the testify:

Follow upward ASAP.

You could get a mountain of leads at a merchandise prove but if you don't follow upward with them, it was all for zilch.

Follow upward the same day if possible. Otherwise, follow upward the next 24-hour interval while the lead is still hot and your meet is however fresh in their mind—and yours. To speed things up while keeping your message personal, have a follow-upwards e-mail template ready to go and simply customize it to each lead.

Email personalization gets harder the longer you wait between trade testify and follow-up, as you're more than probable to forget key details that could help y'all connect with the lead. And so don't wait.

If y'all had a conversation with them, sprinkle some of that into your email to help them retrieve you (proving you lot think the conversation will earn you some brownie points in the human relationship-building department also).

Recollect of it this way: the longer you lot wait to follow upwardly, the colder that atomic number 82 gets. And then make sure yous have a plan for how to manage these leads.

Record your results after each merchandise show.

Did you achieve the goals you lot wrote down?

If your goal was brand awareness, how many people did y'all appoint with? If information technology was newsletter sign-ups, how many email addresses did yous get? If it was networking, how many vendors or suppliers did y'all connect with?

These numbers will assist you determine which trade shows you had the most success at—so you know where to pay another visit to adjacent twelvemonth!

At present that you've got your trade show leads, learn more on how to build relationships with them and turn them into sales.

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Source: https://www.copper.com/resources/trade-show-leads

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