If you've been a part of serious trade show marketing for any length of time, you know how difficult it can be to track leads during the convention, and how tough it is to enact good follow up afterward. You've seen how your outreach endeavors can hardly reach any of your visitors, and how many who come to your trade show booth are never heard from again. Even if you get their contact information, many will slip through the cracks by pure accident. A combination of new tactics and new technology has made the process easier. In many cases, implementing the new ideas is easy. You just need to be exposed to them first.

Have A Dedicated Lead Manager

Before the event, designate an official manager of leads for that particular convention. This person should be a responsible individual who knows your company and knows the staff who will run your particular trade show booth. The staff will still be responsible for talking with interested visitors, but they will have to report to the lead manager at the end of the day. The lead manager should work closely with you to plan out a strategy for sorting and qualifying leads in the shortest possible amount of time. The lead manager should also supervise all trade show marketing that includes outreach to these new leads, from specific projects like follow-up packages to general marketing. Having one person who tracks everything helps stop important leads from slipping through the cracks.

Emphasize Personal Phone Calls For Trade Show Marketing

Your best leads are the people who have actually asked for information and show interest at your booth. You want to return that interest with a knowledgeable person who can provide more information about what your company offers. For that reason, it is always best to have someone from your company return all qualified leads in person. The best trade show marketing option is to actually have the trade show booth staff member who spoke with the lead originally continue following up. However, this can be difficult for the lead director to organize, making it a more difficult system.

Use A Computerized System To Streamline Lead Gathering At Your Trade Show Booth

There are now systems available which can gather a wealth of information from an attendee simply by scanning a nametag. Renting one of these machines is not inexpensive. You will need to ensure that what it offers is customizable, as you will want to gather as many details as possible from this machine. If you can set this tool to record all of the data that you want, then it will save a lot of time. If a lead is rated as likely to become a conversion, and that data can be sorted on a computer, then that lead is less likely to fall through the cracks. You can have the same level of data tracking for every lead without investing in this system for your display, but it will take you more time, delaying responses.

Creating A Comprehensive System

Putting together these three tips allows for a variety of systems. All of them will work. Some of them may be more effective than others - the best system will vary by company, region, and even staffing makeup of a particular event. Try utilizing all three, and you'll end up with a great way to track trade show marketing leads and turn them into customers.