Exhibitions are key opportunities for businesses to generate leads, sell their products, increase brand recognition, and develop relationships with people. Moreover, being part of an event isn’t sufficient in itself. There’s a strategic element to success that revolves around lead capture. In this blog from PROVEN 360, we discuss eight clever approaches to improving participation and engagement, sourcing better leads, and ultimately improving your return of investment (ROI) at exhibition lead capture.

1. Set Clear Lead Capture Goals Before the Event

Have a comprehensive outline of your exhibition lead capture objectives before setting foot in the venue. Do you aim for decision-makers, prospective partners, or simply brand awareness? Having clear goals enables your team to pursue the right prospects and devise tailored engagement strategies.

Hot leads

You can structure leads into different tiers like hot leads (immediate purchase intent), warm leads (interested but require nurturing), or cold leads (introducing stage). Set the right targeted key messages for each segment. Additionally, arrange booth activities and other promotional activities to provide the required exposure and attention.

Qualified

Moreover, define measurable KPIs such as qualified leads, meetings, and demos scheduled. When goals are clearly defined, your team can operate in an efficient manner, ensuring every interaction at the event improves business and ROI, rather than complicating it.

PROVEN 360’s Strategic Consulting service page shares insights into setting clear objectives and developing tailored engagement strategies.

2. Use Digital Lead Capture Tools

Proactive data mining through newspaper ads has been replaced by advanced technology nowadays, enabling easy recording and transcription of business cards collected at events. Mobile applications, QR code captures, and electronic sign-up sheets facilitate information access while correcting the chances of human error and delays in follow-ups.

Software

Merging these innovations with your customer assistance software makes it possible to instantly categorize and automatically reach out to these initial prospects. These digital tools give a far better understanding of contacts – how often they interacted with the company and to what extent, qualifying leads in a much more effective way.

Chatbot

For example, an artificial intelligence powered chatbot on the stand can do some primary qualification of visitors on-site and free your sales staff from a considerable amount of work. Your visitors are treated better and their experiences become effective while working with you, increasing the efficiency of the exhibition lead capture and number of true prospects gained.

Did you know PROVEN 360 offers services like Email Marketing and SMS Campaigns?

3. Prepare Your Team to Engage Effectively

Lead retrieval is extremely important in marketing, and your booth staff plays an important part in this, which means training is important to capture sales. Your team should be equipped with conversation starters, product information, and sales skills to engage attendees effectively.

Qualify

Make them learn how to qualify a casual visitor versus a serious prospect with questions. Role play can help with their approaches to handling objections and ensures they communicate your value effectively. Also train them on digital lead capture tools so no opportunity is lost.

Welcomed

Make them friendly but not overly approach attendees so they feel valued and welcomed. A properly prepared team greatly improves the possibility of successfully collecting leads and increasing the chance to convert exhibition visitors into actual long-term business partnerships.

PROVEN 360’s Event Management services offers you resources on organizing events and preparing teams to engage attendees effectively.

4. Use Games to Attract Attendees

Whether it is a simple spin-the-wheel competition, a trivia contest with questions related to your industry, or even a virtual reality experience, games do an excellent job of attracting visitors to the booth, while having fun and motivational ways of capturing their information.

Capturing

Attendees might appreciate turning the mundane task of game participation into something fun, which unlocks doors for capturing their contact information. In so doing, the booth will enjoy increased competition for leads and sales, not only during the exhibition lead capture but also after on social media. This tactics can also be used to increase overall brand exposure.

Improvement

When implemented correctly, these gaming techniques will lead to an improvement in business. Most importantly, it creates new and more interactive ways of capturing leads and spending further increases CRM effectiveness.

5. Offer Valuable Incentives for Lead Information

Participants will be willing to give out their information if there is an incentive that is considered important to them. Nevertheless, standard freebie items such as pens or keychains will not generate meaningful impact or attention. Instead, consider using specialized incentives such as industry-specific e-books, discounts, free consultations, additional relevant content, or other high value items relevant to your business.

Demo

If your company deals in software, how about offering a free trial or long-term demo instead? Personal incentives are also effective such as gifting the attendee with a branded report that applies their name to customize it or giving them an industry report that is specific to their field.

Approachable

In order to be as effective as possible, your lead collection process should be fast, non-intrusive, and easily approachable. Increasing the number and quality of leads captured requires a balance, a value that is provided and the effort that is required from the attendees to engage with the offer.

Visit PROVEN 360’s Content & Copywriting services to learn how to create valuable content that can serve as lead magnets.

6. Follow Up Promptly with Personalized Communication

Effective measures during the exhibition lead capture revolve around personalized and timely follow-ups. Since attendees can wander around and check multiple booths, a response sent within 24 to 48 hours enables you to reach out to them while ensuring your response is still relevant.

Customize

Instead of sending a bulk email, try to customize your messages based on the attendee’s interests, interactions, and talks held at the booth. Employ marketing automation to send specific emails, schedule follow-up calls, or offer additional materials. For example, if a visitor showed interest in a certain product, offer them a class proving the relevant case study or invite them to a one-on-one demo.

Personalized

Prospects are engaged with personalized speeches, which fosters trust and boosts chances of conversion. A proper strategy for follow-up at the event ensures that the leads progress through the sales funnel seamlessly alongside raising ROI.

7. Use Social Media for Extended Engagement

Social media helps during and after an exhibition lead capture. Attendees should be engaged in real time by posting live coverage, behind-the-scenes snapshots, and interactive polls on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Develop unique hashtags for the event and ask the visitors to tag your brand in their posts.

Visibility

This way, you will gain more visibility. You can also invite attendees to join a dedicated LinkedIn group or WhatsApp community for post-event discussions. Think about conducting a live Q&A session or webinar about the event as a way to bring in even more leads. Another efficient way to increase social interaction is running a social media contest.

Engage

Invite attendees to follow your page or engage with your past posts to enter the contest. This drives up social interactions, too. The expansion of social media also strengthens relationships and deepens engagement long after the exhibition ends.

Read about our Social Media Management services to help you engage attendees during and after events through various social media platforms.

8. Analyze and Optimize Lead Data for Future Success

Looking for leads is one thing but analyzing them and gathering insights for future events is an entirely different thing. After the event evaluate lead quality, conversion rates, and engagement levels to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Patterns

Look for patterns – were some sources of leads better than others? Did the use of digital methods work more? What engagement strategies gave the best value leads? Create booth design, staff training, marketing, and all that goes into the next event using all of this data.

Conversion

Being able to track a lead from first point of contact to conversion helps deepen the analysis of ROI. Data can transform the purpose of every future exhibition as well as help perfect the strategy to make it more effective and sustainable, ensuring that every future exhibition lead capture has even better results.

How We Can Help You

At PROVEN 360, we specialize in maximizing companies’ ROI after public relations events. Combining our years of marketing experience, we craft capture campaign strategies that ensure our clients achieve business and brand growth after every exhibition. Pick up the phone and call us today to ensure your next event is guaranteed to be a huge success.