Are You All Out of Lead Generation Ideas for Trade Shows?

The one thing on an exhibitor’s mind is lead capture. Leads, orders, purchases! Otherwise, how is a company to win back the budget for the trade show in the first place. Business travel costs large sums and you need to be proactive in how you handle yourself at the show floor. Everything you do has to guide you to lead generation.

Yes, there’s high pressure to achieve a high rate of lead generation, but we’ll tell you a secret. Four out of every five people that walk the exhibition halls have purchasing power and can be prospect buyers. All you have to do is make yourself be visible. We’ll give you some ideas:

Seek out strategic placement on the show floor

If you’ve the budget for this, the best thing you can do is position yourself in a high-traffic area. The more people walk past your booth, the higher the chances are you’ll have more walk-ins and your chances for conversion increase. It’s a passive strength that works in your favor without you doing anything else for it.

Tag yourself using social media

It pays to make it known that you’ll be exhibiting there. Take full advantage of social media channels to advertise your presence prior to the event (we suggest you start as soon as you reserve space on the show floor) and keep a strong presence during and after. Make sure you’re featured in the official event database as an exhibitor and tag the event’s social media platforms.

Use lead capture app

Gathering walk-ins’ information fast and efficiently is one efficient way to optimize your interaction with prospect buyers. This way you talk with more people and have a bigger database to then use to your advantage after the trade show, but we’ll get to that later.

Host a game

There are ways to make your booth appealing for visitors and convince them to give out their contact information easily – have a fun game. It can be a prize lottery, a contact or a spin-the-wheel set-up, but by giving visitors a prize you have a way to interact, pitch your product and gather information on the contestants.

Schedule meetings in advance

If you want sales and direct orders, you have to make your own success and luck. Research which companies are sending representation and approach them for a one-to-one business meeting. Trade shows often incorporate such pockets of time in their program to allow supply and demand to meet. Have a lineup of meetings to go through so you have serious leads and actual groundwork for further collaboration and partnership down.

Become a speaker

Seminars, conferences and presentations are the bread and butter of any trade show and you’re able to build name recognition for your company by being part of the program for the event. Not only that but you build authority for yourself as a thought leader and an expert, which is a good way to convince prospect buyers that your company is a smart choice for their needs.

Lastly, follow up on all contacts

We always say that the real work begins after the trade show, when you’re back in the office and have all the data that you’ve captured through the apps. You also have a sizeable collection of business cards to go through. Go through all the lead information, sort the people into categories ranging from “easiest to convert” to “hardest to convert”.

Lead with the people from all the business meetings you’ve scheduled and then make your way down to the people you’ve had the least social interaction with. Shoot off emails and make phone calls to get a sales lead or convert to a direct order.

These eight steps are all you need to exponentially increase your lead capture.