How to increase your qualified leads by 50%

More often than not, trade show exhibitors are preoccupied with designing and building their booths. A lot of time and money gets spend on the “look good” factor. And a lot of pride is taken by having a bigger stand than the competitors.

Now I’m not saying that the stand shouldn’t look good – quite the opposite, however, for most trade show exhibitors the main aim of attending is to generate qualified traffic and as many leads as possible.

Therefore it is absolutely critical that you invest heavily into your promotional activity before during and after the show.

And here is why:

It is not show managements task to do the recruiting for you. Their task is to get as many attendees to the show as possible.

It is up to you to make sure that your best prospects know that you are exhibiting and why they should spend their time visiting your stand.

Don’t take the risk that your best prospects and clients drop by randomly, you’ve spent too much time and money by exhibiting at the show.
Business buyers in general plan their trade show attendance well in advance. In fact some statistics show that up to 76% of trade show visitors use pre-show information to plan their attendance.

You also need to keep in mind that you’re competing with conferences, seminars sessions and other educational sessions during the exhibition. If the trade show destination is very popular, and offers distractions for the visitor, e.g. casino’s, theatres etc, you really need to make sure you get your prospects attention.
An outstanding booth never is the be all and end all.

The real reason why you’re exhibiting is because you want to reach old and new customers, generate leads and close business. Make sure you allocate enough funds for effective promotions, you’re business will do much better.
Make sure that you have before and after show promotions in place.

Think of the trade show as a step within a business relationship exercise. The scope of a successful trade show attendance does NOT lie within the duration of the exhibition, it extends well into the future, in particular if you keep your lines of communication active.
Deloitte & Touch conducted a study which proves that exhibitors who invest in pre-show marketing, such as email campaigns increased the quality of attendance during the show by 46%.

In addition to this staggering figure, conversions of booth visitors to qualified leads went up by 50 % when pre-show promotions were used.
Trade show promotions done the right way, do not only increase your return on investment when it comes to visitors. They also have a very positive flow on effect to prospects and clients who can’t make it to the show. I admit, that this is harder to measure, however, you do keep your name in front of your customers while promoting your trade show presence.

So a word of advice, consider how much you really need to invest into your booth, and how much money you want to invest in ongoing marketing and communication before, during and after the trade show.