Trade Show Lead Capture: Systems, Strategies, and Management

Lead retrieval, often referred to as trade show lead capture, is the term used most often in the event, conference, and trade show industry to describe the overall lead generation process.

What is lead retrieval? Really.

Lead retrieval, or exhibitor lead capture, is the way in which trade show exhibitors or event hosts capture, qualify, and process attendee leads.

The reality is that lead retrieval is actually a single stage in the entire lead management process that starts long before a trade show begins and is completed weeks after a trade show ends.

Lead retrieval vs. lead management: How do they fit together?

So, technically speaking, lead retrieval represents the element of lead management in which leads are consolidated and downloaded or collected to be sorted and distributed to sales for follow-up. This is the system by which an exhibitor captures trade show attendee details like their name, company name, email address, title, and other pertinent information on trade show attendees who visit their booth or interact with the exhibitor in some way. However, it’s frequently the term used when speaking about all aspects of trade show lead capture or lead generation.

Let’s take a minute to understand the importance of knowing your entire lead management process before you think about lead retrieval for your next trade show.

Lead management

The four stages of lead management are:

1. Lead generation

2. Lead capture

3. Lead retrieval

4. Lead follow-up

Since each of the stages are so interlinked, the entire lead management process should be part of your exhibitor strategy from the beginning of your trade show planning.

Here are some important decisions you’ll have to make.

• How are you going to generate leads in your trade show booth? Throughout other areas of the event? Check out the Lead Generation stage below if you want to see some examples.

• How are you going to capture these leads? Are you going to use an electronic lead retrieval device or will you use paper and pen? If you use the show’s lead retrieval device, will you use their standard form fields or will you create your own contact fields and custom questions?

• Once your team captures these leads, what steps will they go through until they are given to sales for follow-up and conversion to customer?

• Will you collect the leads generated each day and hold onto them until the end of the show or will you give the day’s pile of leads to your sales team at the end of each day?

• How will you prevent leads from disappearing? (I’ve had salespeople shove hot leads into their pockets and have had leads stolen from our booth cabinet overnight.)

• Where will you store your lead retrieval devices (or paper lead forms) overnight so they are secure and easily accessible the next morning by your staff members doing morning booth duty?

Lead management process

So, with these questions in mind, what is your lead management process going to look like? Here is a example of things you’ll need to do to give you inspiration.

1. Develop specific lead goals and objectives.

2. Create tactics that will help you achieve the objectives you’ve set.

3. Decide how you’re going to capture the leads.

• Are you going to use an electronic lead retrieval device like the show’s badge reader?

• Could your company create a custom app?

• Are you going to use old-fashioned paper and a pen?

4. Decide on and design your post-show lead follow-up process and timeline. When will your sales team have to start making calls - before the show is over or after it ends? Are you going to send an automated thank you email to attendees who stopped by your booth? If yes, the email or series of emails need to be thought out and created.

5. Write a list of questions specific to your company that your booth staff will ask attendees to qualify them as a lead, opportunity, or someone who needs further nurture.

6. If appropriate, upload these questions to your lead retrieval device.

7. Work with your sales team to decide how they will report back to you on how successful the lead follow-up process was and how many lead converted to paying customers.

8. Collect and secure all leads until they are entered into your CRM software or marketing automation system.

9. Make the leads available to sales so they can follow up using the strategies and timeline you both agreed to.

Lead generation (stage 1)

Wow, that was a lot of great information. Now let’s get into the individual stages.

At this stage, lead generation, is about the different ways you’re going to generate leads at your next trade show.

Here are some examples of ways you can generate leads. You could include something as simple as putting a fishbowl and a sign on a table or as detailed as building product demo stations in your booth.

• Require your booth staff to speak with all booth visitors about your products and services.

• You may decide to play a game in the booth or have a contest which requires people to give you their contact info to win a prize.

• You may decide to hold an invitation-only reception or networking event.

• If a member of your staff is giving a presentation, you may invite presentation attendees to visit your booth for a special offer available only to them.

Trade show lead capture (stage 2)

You will certainly talk to booth visitors but you may also have a contest or invite people to join you at a reception. How are you going to capture their contact information?

Lead capture options include paper forms, exhibitor lead capture devices like a badge reader, a smartphone or tablet app, a business card scanner, and more.

Let’s get into each of these trade show lead capture options.

What kind of lead retrieval devices are there?

There are several trade show lead capture options but one is not necessarily better than another. They each have their benefits and drawbacks. Let’s take a look.

Paper forms

• Benefits: A paper lead form is entirely customizable and it can be created by anyone with basic computer knowledge. You can make it as long or short as you want. You can ask any questions and request any personal information you want. There are no compatibility issues with any technology

• Drawbacks: Depending on how much information you ask for and how many leads you collect, it may take some time for all the information to be manually entered into your CRM. There is no automatic backup. If you didn’t make copies of the paper forms and you lose them, they’re gone forever.

Trade show lead capture device or badge reader

• Benefits: Since the device is rented directly from the show, you’ll have access to much of the data each attendee entered into the system when they registered for the show. You’ll be able to download the data as a CSV file and use Microsoft Excel for easy data analysis. You can then add notes and upload the electronic data to your CRM.

• Drawbacks: Some trade shows won’t allow you to download leads at the end of each day or even at the end of the show. They may take two or three days post-show before they give you access to your lead data. The delay can cause a lag in your sales team reaching out to your new leads.

Lead retrieval app (on tablet or smartphone)

• Benefits: Because your phone is always with you, you can collect leads whenever and wherever you want. You’re not limited to working in your booth during show hours. The data collected is immediately available to you and your sales team. Salespeople can call follow-up immediately.

• Drawbacks: Web-based apps require a good internet connection. Unfortunately, a trade show’s Wi-Fi connection can be spotty at best. This unpredictability can make a web-based lead retrieval app a challenge to use. When researching lead retrieval apps, see if you can find one with offline capability.

Business card scanner

• Benefits: Your sales team will inevitably collect business cards so having a business card scanner helps ensure you can scan cards immediately rather than waiting until they are brought back to the office. Using a scanner also reduces transcription time and expense and enables you to distribute the contact information to your sales team more quickly.

• Drawbacks: Some trade show attendees choose not to carry business cards. Not all business card scanners are created equal. Some are simple scanners, while others can read common characters but have trouble with foreign characters. This will require additional transcription to correct errors.

Lead Follow-Up (stage 3)

Sales scripts and automated emails should have been created and put in place as part of your pre-show lead management process.

Now it’s time for your sales team to start closing deals. The call and email follow-up process, timing, and message should be agreed to, finalized, and put in place before the show ever begins. You want to start closing deals as soon as you’re back in the office.