What's the best way to get leads from trade shows?

Get out of the chair and out from behind a table at the booth. In fact, get rid of the table. It is only a barrier between you and meaningful conversations with trade show attendees.

After 31 years in trade shows and having personally been to hundreds, there are several things that come to mind: 1- Have clear objectives (who, what, why) 2- Have a clear plan (who, when, how) 3- Choose the right team to be there (not necessarily based on role or desire to be there, but on skills, on demographic alignment with participants, etc.) 4- Have interesting hooks (design, products, entertainment) 5- Be 100% there when in booth (not on devices, not engaged with coworkers, etc.) 6- Engage everyone but drop the unqualified quickly 7- Invite in advance (in person when possible) 8- Get your brand top of mind (official advance marketing, sponsorships, speakers, etc.) 9- Be at the right shows 10- Have fun and look like it

Talk to people you don't know. Don't spend all of your time with your co-workers! Make sure you follow up afterwards with the connections you make.

The key is always to design your customer journey first and then the booth. Five key questions you will need to answer are: 1. How will we arouse curiosity so the attendees stop at the booth? 2. How will we qualify the attendees on the booth so we are not wasting time? 3. How will I educate the attendees on how they can overcome their pain points or achieve their aspirations?, 4. What is the next step after the conversation on the booth? and 5. What attendee data do we need to collect that will help us with the follow up process and measure the value of the leads? In addition to this, you need to identify and select the right booth staff to approach, engage, qualify and educate the attendees. Salespeople may not be the best fit sometimes.

As mentioned above having a well presented stand with the right marketing materials. Some obvious things people often forget. Smile, show visitors you want to be there. Ask questions and qualify the visitors needs before unloading your product details. Stop regularly to give the client a chance to ask questions and confirm you are answering their questions. Have a clear moving forward plan so once they leave they know exactly how you will support them after the show.

Having an attractive booth is a great first step. Certainly, if the booth looks like you don't care, then why should the attendee bother to even stop?! But, the real impact lies in creating an engaging booth. The more senses that you can engage in your space, the more memorable you are likely to be. Keep in mind, people won't remember much of what you say to them, but they will remember how you made them feel!

Before the tradeshow: 1. Research your targeted buyers and their organisation. 2. Invite them for a meeting. Provide a sincere, succinct reason you want to meet with them. 3. If budget allows, send them something to thank them for accepting your appointment. At the tradeshow: 1. Allocate 70 percent of the appointment time asking questions about the buyer and their needs. 2. Unless requested, avoid talking about the info that can be found on your website. 3. Focus on expressing how you and your company can help them with a solution and express the steps of your actions. 4. If there is actual business potential, ask for a lead and another appointment if the current one runs out.

Know your audience, know your product/service, and make sure that you're the right person to be on the stand! You cannot be a passive participant if you're on a trade show stand, you need to be welcoming and engaged with attendees. Whilst it may be cliche, a smile and personal presentation are the first impression trade show attendees get from you. Personally, I don't find that scripts are necessary as I tend to believe they take the personality away from the customer experience. But that isn't to say you should walk into a trade show blind.

Role playing is very important to get staff into the correct frame of mind. It also allows you to rehearse appropriate answers to some 'trickier' queries. Trade shows are when the entire industry is together and likely to pose a few of those tricky questions. With this in mind, it is also a good idea to admit that you don't have an answer rather than make up something and pay for it later.

All these solutions are great but rather pointless unless you convince your staff in the booths to not be "booth statues". Too often, I walk the aisle and people are sitting or standing behind a table (bad move to put a barrier between us) or staring on their phone. Have your people walk into the aisle, ask questions and invite them in. Yes, yes, the trade show people don't like this but the trade show people didn't fork over the money for your booth and the staff. Leverage that not-so-cheap investment and make sure potential leads are not just "walking by".

In my experience, you need to ask questions - lots of them! People are eager to tell you about them, so guide them in the direction you need. Find out how big is their company, who makes the decisions, who is the contact to schedule a team training after the show - either by zoom or in person if geographically possible. Ask them what you can do to grow the business with them. Ask, ask, ask and take notes! Of course, please remember that all of this information will get lost without proper follow up! Have fun!

In doing shows ourselves, we have found that even very excited prospects, ones who seem to have a great exchange in the booth space, can go cold quickly after the show. -Speed is important...start the follow thru within a day or two...and make sure there is a drip campaign to nurture beyond that initial call. -While the attendee is on site, get a commitment for a follow thru if possible. "Can we set something up for next Tuesday?" -Create an opportunity in your booth to get a picture of them that you can share back to them later. A selfie station, fun props in front of a Logo wall. -Keep in mind that attendees likely visit a bunch of booths, so you will need to be memorable. What specifics might you draw on from their visit? -Make it fun

Spot on! Following up with personalized relevant content based on behavior is the key to turning contacts into clients. And automate the process to quickly respond and minimize delays. Most companies I’ve worked with (regardless of size or budget) struggle with this even though there are hidden costs associated.

Here are some ways to get leads. 1. At all times someone in your booth should be reading badges, greeting people and asking potential prospects questions to start a real conversation and then get their contact info. 2. To make your booth attractive to the right people: brightly lit and big picture with words that has your USP. 3. Come up with a compelling creative hook that gets people talking about your booth and spreading the word. This could be a giveaway, costume, dance, free consultation, etc. I wore a straight jacket for my insanity sauce, for instance. 4. Booth staff needs to be paying attention to attendees and not having long conversations with each other. 5. Arrange co-demos with other booths for complementary products.

One thing exhibitors forget quite easily is the visitors that didn't come (wait, what??) You know...the people you expected to see but never made it to the show. Make sure you still contact them and tell them you missed their presence at the show and would still like to catch up. They may have had a very legitimate reason for not coming and may very well appreciate the reach out.

I feel that an important part of attracting customers is not to act like a sales person but just a person you want to get to know. I hate when they are pushy. And let's be honest...offering me a glass of wine works too ??