Open Forum

• How do you capture, shortlist and follow up with leads garnered during trade shows?

Let your thoughts pour in the comment section below! #HuddleoftheWeek #VoiceIt
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#ManagingOn-site
#ManagingVirtualEvents

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Megan Clark
Assistant Team Lead, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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At tradeshows we usually use a handheld scanner to scan QR codes on name badges provided by the facility. These track everyone who has been scanned, we can take notes on their programs, and at the end of the show they can be emailed back to us in a spreadsheet. If this is not an option, we use our HiHello Digital Business Card which is on an app on our phone. We can add new business cards and attach attendees Linkedin's, websites, Facebook's, etc.
Once we get back to the office, we upload everything into our CRM and usually send a Follow-Up email which includes our picture, Meeting Planner Guide and other helpful information. We send more personalized emails to anyone that we had an appointment with or if we know they have an important upcoming program.

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Virginia McCoy
Sales Associate
Visit Savannah
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The best way to capture leads is by having a give away that will require people to put in their business cards. Then make sure you follow up with all of them, even if you think they were just trying to win something, their needs could change and then they might need your services or know someone who does.

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Teresa James
Director of Sales and Marketing
DoubleTree Gainesville
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A great way to capture leads is by having an incentive or a prize give away that will require people to put in their information. During trade shows using the app to scan badge qr codes is a great way to capture leads. Then we use google drive/ google sheets to make a spreadsheet and keep up with all the leads. Then send a mass email to all leads to check in with them.

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Jorja Johnston
Events Marketing Coordinator
eXp World Holdings
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On one hand, I think a great way to capture leads is to have a giveaway prize; however, this can also results in a handful of not-so-promising leads. I'd suggest doing this AND trying to have an Account Rep onsite to have in-depth conversations. This combination, in my opinion and experience, tends to lead to more legitimate leads.

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Sarah Virgin
Director of Marketing and Partner Programs
SyCom Technologies
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Our events are all internal and the majority of our vendors already have established relationships with stakeholders. However, we try to drive engagement, lead captures, and ROI to the vendor by encouraging them to "spruce" up their booths to make them attractive to attendees, have opportunities to leave a business card (ex. giveaways), set up an area where the vendors can give short presentations about a product/service or relevant topic. We've also used Cvent products to drive leads - encouraging 1-on-1 appointments, using Click game (ex. a challenge where attendees have to interact with particular vendors and take photos to win points).

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Bouran Qaddumi
Sr. Manager, Training
Church's Chicken
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• How do you capture, shortlist and follow up with leads garnered during trade shows? Give always always help with capture.  Follow up is important and strategy should be a "series" of activities.  Starting with an e-mail blitz then I think phone follow up to those e-mails is essential! 

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Colleen Beck
Director of Sales & Marketing
The Westin Tampa Bay
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I know for previous Tradeshows that I have been apart my company has always done some kind of drawing to get lead information. I think the one year my company did a huge flat screen TV! But I have also seen other companies to drawing for a free product or estimate.

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Meghan Payne
Travel and Events Coordinator
Corning Incorporated
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Most of the trade shows we are involved in have some sort of lead capture tool - either virtual event booth that tracks visitors, in-person QR code scanner, etc. Sometimes we also do a door prize and either have an old-fashioned fish bowl in which people drop their business card, or a tabletop sign with a QR code - they scan the code to go to a landing page to enter the drawing - that data is immediately captured into our marketing automation software to provide to the sales team for follow-up.

Sadly, our organization currently does not have solid marketing and sales team alignment, so our marketing team has no idea what the sales team does with the leads.

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Lori Wildman
Senior Marketing Manager
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.
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