Lead Card. Don’t leave the show without it.

Submitted by Brian Keobke CME

Getting show attendees to approach your exhibit is one thing, engaging and recording valuable information is quite another. A simple tool like a lead card can help guide your conversation with an attendee and ensure you have the information you need to pursue a sale, long after the show is over.

A typical lead card is 4 x 5 inches in size and printed on inexpensive card stock. It provides blank areas to fill in the attendee's contact information, product and/or service of interest, date of requirement, budget and the best time to follow-up. For speed and accuracy you may want to have a spot where a business card or the print out from a badge reader could be stapled. You may also want to incorporate a simple "grading" system ranking the clients from A – D and overall impression on their urgency to purchase. The lead card can also be further customized to record anything you promised the visitor.

Once the show is over, take your lead cards and begin prioritizing them for follow up making sure that you call the A's before the D's. It is essential that the initial follow up takes place no more than 2 to 3 days after the show. This will ensure the attendee's visit to your exhibit is still fresh in their mind and their need for your product is still a priority. If you wait any longer then you will probably be behind calls from your competitors that collected the same information at the show.

Now, as most people know, trade shows can be hard work with lots of standing and numerous demonstrations. This is why it's so surprising that many exhibitors do not call the leads gained at the show! By way of example, a Toronto-based marketing publication attended a business solutions show posing as representatives of a fictitious company. They even printed business cards and set up a phone line.

After meeting with each and every exhibitor they expressed a sincere interest in each exhibitor's products and services. Before leaving a display they requested that they be called after the show to pursue an order. The study concluded with startling results: 80 per cent of all the exhibitors they visited did not follow up the "qualified lead". This example illustrates the high number of ill-prepared companies who go into a show without a post show plan and unfortunately they end up having very little to show for all their cost and effort.

In conclusion, the best way to measure the success of a tradeshow is by the number of qualified leads you generate and the sales that they produce. Using a simple lead card can be just the tool that makes your next exhibiting experience a successful one!

A Quick Consideration…

For those companies that rely on badge readers alone please keep in mind that the information contained on badges is often incorrect and it really does not tell you much more than the company name and contact. Pretty much the same as the Phone Book – and you get those for free!

Do you have a unique way of gathering leads at trade shows? Share your ideas with the Exhibit Industry by writing a comment below.