80% of exhibitors throw their leads away. Are you one of them?

The best way for companies to analyse marketing budgets and return on spending, is to have a report proving your trade show program is bringing in qualified leads that are converting.

 Ask yourself how you will deem this show successful in terms of data capture and leads converting. It’s essential to have a plan for your leads, as it’s all about customer or prospect acquisition. Ask yourself: Why are you exhibiting? What is for you a qualified lead? How will you and your team interact with visitors to obtain leads? How will you rate, close and nurture these leads? Ultimately, that spreadsheet of leads is what’s going to help you justify your exhibition.

 There are myriad of ways you can capture leads, from gathering business cards, filling in paper forms to more technological badge scanners.

 Whilst the traditional paper way of gathering data is cheap and easy in the short term, it is not efficient and ends up costing you lots of money in the long term. Many spelling mistakes are made during transfer onto your own CRM system, it takes a lot of time to transfer all the leads and the person following up the leads has very often no idea about the conversations which happened on the booth.

 There are only 2 options when selecting lead retrieval technology for your show:

-      Purchase provided software from the show organiser when available.

-      Contract with a third-party service.

Both have their Pros and Cons and your needs will determine the best solution for you.

Show-Provided Software when available.

The Pros:

-      It is the most convenient.

-      It is intuitive.

-      Support is available onsite, so is not as likely to fail.

-      Some provide the same features than third-party software offer.

-      Show software may grant you access to show engagements such as interactive badge games whereby attendees who scanned their badges and connected with individuals in a booth get awarded points toward winning a prize.

Nevertheless, show-provided software does have a few shortfalls.

The Cons:

-      Some show-provided software does not include an API Kit, meaning integration with the marketing CRM to capture leads is difficult or even impossible.

-      Some lack the ability to customise fields or add notes, which will require you to have a Plan B to capture additional, necessary fields.

-      Often there is a lag time in obtaining leads. It can take a couple of days to receive your list.

 Here are 2 commonly used show provided solutions:

Experient: This is the most popular. It offers seamless data integration, data intelligence that helps marketers deliver customised experiences and provides behavioural data through Bluetooth? beacons placed on attendee badges.

Xpress Leads: It is commonly used on the show floor. It has a downloadable app compatible with Apple? or AndroidTM devices. The Xpress Leads app scans badges and collects the first and last name, online or offline. Online mode includes address, phone number and email. It also provides default or custom lead qualifiers, a ranking system from zero to five stars and a notes field.

Third-Party Software

Not all shows provide lead retrieval software which forces some exhibitors to purchase third-party software or manually capture leads.

Third-party software is not offered by the event’s organiser and will require a little work to set up but these systems can be flexible and are efficient if you’re attending more than one show a year.

The pros: flexibility, data consistency and instant capture.

-      Integration with CRMs more seamless and provide more customizations.

-      The ability to set up required fields ahead of time and plugging into show-provided software creates efficiencies for those working the booth.

-      When data is collected, there is no long lag time from when you capture the lead to when you access it, which makes the follow-up and analysis processes move quickly.

-      If your company is exhibiting at multiple shows, third-party software will make data collection across your program consistent whilst show-provided software fields may vary from show to show.

The Cons:

-      This option is expensive.

-      It is not as intuitive as a show-provided software.

-      It takes time and efforts to train staff how to use it.

-      It sometimes lacks customer support.

-      It is often too reliant on the internet.

-      Your brand may miss out when using third-party software if this one doesn’t integrate with the software provided by the show. This is specifically the case for show engagement activities.

If your lead retrieval strategy needs integration at a show, check with the show provider in advance to resolve any issues and establish a back-up plan.

Zuant. It captures lead data by scanning a badge or business card, uploads the information instantly to a database with live reporting, sends follow-up emails to leaving booth visitors, has a library of form templates or customisable form fields, allows you to edit data on the go, scores leads and works offline. Customer service has been reported to be excellent and will help you work with other app systems to ensure integration is easy, and training and setup only need to happen once.

Selecting the right lead capture software solutions for your needs.

Once you’ve determined which option best fits your budget and needs, you’ll want to select your vendor to make sure that your data is collected seamlessly throughout the show.

Getting answers to these questions will help you determine the best vendor for your needs:

1. What features will this software include at each price point?

2. How is data entered into the software?

3. What type of reporting is available? How quickly is reporting available?

4. How is reporting delivered?

5. Is this data compatible with mobile devices? Are there any restrictions?

6. Is this compatible with my CRM? Will this come with an API Kit?

7. For third party, is this compatible with show-provided software? What are the restrictions?

8. Is this software reliant on internet access? Does it have the capability to operate offline?

9. If creating a survey, what type of question customisations are available?

10. Are pre-made templates included?

These fundamental questions will help you select the best vendor for your show but make sure that your teams receive adequate training before they engage with prospects.

Be it third-party or show-provided software, it’s always a good idea to prepare for any equipment failures to ensure you’re capturing critical information. Make sure you have a plan B in case technology fails. Bringing paper forms or a container to store business cards is never a bad idea.

What METRICS should you use to analyse the success of your Trade Show?

Once lead capture and follow up process are complete, it’s time to analyse the collected data. Regardless of the lead type, the following metrics will help you prove the ROI achieved at your event.

-      Average Cost per Lead: Divide the TOTAL show cost by the number of leads.

-      Average Cost per Opportunity: An opportunity is a lead you’ve qualified as interested in taking a specific action, such as asking for a proposal. Divide the TOTAL show cost by the number of opportunities.

-      Close Rate: It is the percentage of leads your business generated revenue or action from during your trade show. It is calculated in two ways:

? Number of Wins / Number of Leads or Number of Wins / Number of Opportunities.

-      Lead Follow-Up Rate: It is the percentage of leads that your team followed up on after the show. You divide the number of leads allocated to sales representatives by the number of documented follow-ups. For example, if your local team was given 100 leads and you can see documented evidence in your CRM that they tried to contact 75 of those leads, then your lead follow-up rate is 75%.

-      Return on Investment: ROI measures the direct return of a trade show relative to the event’s total cost. (Trade Show Revenue - Investment) / Investment) x 100.

-       Return on Objectives: ROOs measure your show goals, rather than just looking at the total cost and generated revenue. Examples include number of website visits, shared social media posts, introductions to new suppliers…

-      Cost Savings: Because trade show costs vary for a variety of reasons such as service price fluctuations by city. You need to normalise your data and only use a metric (such as cost per lead) that removes these variations and that you can compare between shows and years.

Measuring the success of a trade show has evolved from the days of relying on business cards and paper forms. Defining your goals, the types of leads you need to meet them, selecting the best approach for measuring them, ensuring a proper follow up process and using the right metrics for your final report will help you prove the benefits of your presence at a specific Trade Show.

 So, if you are an exhibitor, are you gathering leads efficiently? Do you have a lead tracking program, and does it include the right follow up process? How do you measure the success of your Trade Show? Make sure you are positioning your organisation’s exhibit program for success!

After thirty years and tons of research, I believe it is so important to ensure that trade exhibitions are understood and used to leverage long terms client’s relations and ultimately business growth.

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