Trade Show Leads: Quantity or Quality?
While trade show displays can accomplish plenty of goals at once, it’s certainly not controversial to suggest that gathering leads is usually the main purpose of your average trade show appearance. Trade shows offer unparalleled opportunities to meet and chat up people face-to-face, which can lead to great sales opportunities for months to come.
This also opens up the discussion of whether there’s such a thing as “too many leads.” After all, for plenty of businesses, their initial impulse is probably to try to collect as many names, numbers, and email addresses as possible. What’s wrong with giving the sales team more material to work with?
Well, it’s not that simple. After all, resources are always limited, most especially time. Your time in the trade show booth is limited, and your sales team’s time is limited as well. There’s a strong argument to be made that maximum returns will ultimately come from careful selection of leads, and a willingness to pass over people experience says are not likely to pan out.
Why Companies Shoot For The Most Trade Show Leads Possible
There are plenty of reasons a company might want to compile a huge lead list at an exposition, and in some cases, they make sense. Those selling mass-market products often want as many people as possible hearing about their wares. Producers of a new soft drink, for example, usually can’t afford to be terribly choosy about who drinks it.
Another reason is that, fundamentally, big numbers look more impressive. I’m sure at one time or another, we’ve all found ourselves accountable to someone who simply doesn’t care about much besides seeing numbers that are as large as possible. Huge sales lead numbers also play well with shareholders and other people of importance and, of course, they always look impressive when turned into graphs.
Big numbers always create an easy justification for the expenses of the trade show and the investment in your expo displays, when dealing with higher-ups who might not be entirely sold on the list of different costs and expenses.
Plus, depending on the traffic at a trade show, you may simply not have anything better to do than collecting information from people. Unless everyone at your expo booths are already busy with other people, chatting up newcomers is generally worthwhile more often than not.
More Is Better… In Moderation
The problem comes when a company goes totally overboard chasing leads, to the point their efforts end up becoming counterproductive. This goes through my mind every time I see someone holding a raffle at their trade show display. Sure, you get a huge list of names, but you also have to be aware that most of those people are only there for the free BBQ grill, and not for the product.
This makes it extremely difficult for a sales staff to be productive, if they end up with a lead list comprised of people who, by and large, really aren’t interested in buying. A lot of those people will likely have forgotten they signed up for the raffle by the end of the convention. (Especially if, as often happens, they’ve gone around signing up for every freebie possible.)
It ends up wasting a lot of time, and time is most definitely money when salespeople are making phone calls and writing emails.
This becomes an even more pressing issue if your staff is already overworked at the your trade show booth. Trying to collect info from everyone quickly starts becoming impossible at a busy show. Their time is valuable too, and ultimately they end up screening who they talk to anyway.
Pre-Screening Leads At Your Trade Show Display
Generally speaking, I’d say the rule of thumb should be to try to capture the information for anyone who genuinely seems likely to buy. Opinions might vary on where that line should be drawn, but it’s probably still better to err on the side of more… as long as it’s not indiscriminate.
Just as a few suggestions for what to look for or ask about when pre-screening your leads:
- The way they’re dressed. Granted, the Internet-rich Zuckerbergs of the world like to dress down, but you can usually get a good sense of someone’s purchasing power from their clothes.
- Their position in a company. Is this person a buyer, representing a buyer, or just there gathering information? Chatting up an intern rarely gains you much.
- Genuine interest in the product. You can tell when someone’s actually into what you’re pitching, and when they’re just there for a free show.
- Extended conversations. Generally speaking, aside from the lonely ones, if someone talks to you for more than a minute or two, they’re probably a decent lead.
- Extended product interaction. This is why having demos or hands-on displays works well. Someone spending a lot of time fooling with your product should go on the list.
- Repeat window-shoppers. Look for people who pass by your booth several times while looking interested. Shy buyers may need to be approached directly if they appear interested but won’t interact.
Social Media Leads Create A Balance
If you’re really looking to generate some impressive numbers, without investing too much time, look to social media. It’s extremely simple to set up an iPad kiosk or other interactive media display in your expo booths that allows visitors to quickly link to you on Facebook or LinkedIn. Visual cues such as scannable QR codes or in-booth calls to action also encourage people to connect with you socially.
At that point, they’re effectively on your mailing list, but you don’t have to go out of your way for them. Let social media do your work for you. Absolutely anyone can Like you on Facebook, costing you nothing, and in the meantime they end up receiving your promotional materials and links.
For potential leads who are of questionable value, social media allows them to screen themselves. The interested parties will ultimately go on to explore your website or your other content on offer, and the others will simply fade into obscurity without the need for your sales team to waste time trying to contact them directly.
If you go this route, try pushing your gated online content a bit harder for the first couple weeks after a show. Do what you can to encourage these marginal leads to take that next step and convert themselves by voluntarily giving up their email in exchange for your online value propositions.
Be Smart When Gathering Leads
The key takeaway here is: more leads are better, but only up to a point. There’s no need to screen your trade show visitors like you’re the maître d’ of a 5-star restaurant, unless you deal in seriously high-end products, but some discretion will ultimately pay off. It saves your sales team time once the trade show is over, and helps maximize the profits off their efforts.
Pulling off this balancing act – getting the best leads you can while still generating numbers that will impress the bigwigs – is what will make your trade show displays truly pay off.
For more, read how to engage new prospects or how to remember your prospect’s problems.