Lead Management Solution

Trade Show Tips: Generating Trade Show ROI

Monday, March 29, 2010 by Chris Tremblay

If the sales people are not following up on the trade show leads, is there anything that the marketing department can do?

Yes. The bottom line that sales people will call on a lead that they think will turn into a sale. Trade shows obviously generate sales ready leads, but they also generate a large quantity of leads that are not buyers yet. Marketing's job is to consitently deliver only the leads that have a significant probability of being ready to buy.

In this economy, it is no longer OK to take the lead file from the trade show lead capture system and hand all the leads to the sales people. And if you are dumping lead lists from your trade shows into the sales database, and expecting the sales reps to figure out which ones are good, then you are destine for failure.

The other lead generation systems your company uses do not dump hundreds of unqualified leads on the sales reps like your trade shows do. Therefore, unless your sales people have nothing else to do, you can't expect them to spend time cold calling from a list of people that visited your trade show booth.

I think we can assume that your trade shows generate "sales ready" leads, but which ones are they? If we also assume that only 10%-20% of the leads from your trade show lead generation efforts are ready to buy something, then at a show where you collect 100 leads, only 10-20 of those leads are worth a follow up effort. Of these 10-20 leads, maybe 5-10 will buy something from your company if your sales reps call the lead within a few days of the show.

If you buy into this theory, then it is time to get the sales people invested in the solution:

Set up a meeting with sales management.
Ask them "What is the definition of a "sales ready" trade show lead?"
Create questions that you can record in the booth to qualify attendees.
Go back to sales and get their buy in.
Tell sales that they will only be receiving qualified leads from the trade shows.
Train your booth staff to ask these questions in the booth.
Train your booth staff to avoid SELLING in the booth.
Create a simple lead management system to collect this info and deliver it to sales.

So what about the other 80% of the trade show leads, the ones that are not ready to buy yet. I would advise that you create a nurturing program if you don't have one already. A marketing database that you periodically contact with invitations to your events, and Interesting information about your industry and new products etc. As these leads declare themselves as ready to buy, you hand them to sales.

This isn't an easy thing to do, but if you are not implementing a system to increase the sales from your shows, you're going to lose sales to your competitor that is doing this.

What's your take on Trade Show Lead Generation?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

Do your sales and marketing teams have the same impression of the leads generated by your company's marketing efforts? Are you sure? I have been calling the 2 different departments within the same organizations for a few months and have found that they rarely have the same perception of sales leads. I work specifically with companies to implement a trade show lead management solution, so I will speak to that issue.

When I talk to marketing contacts, they usually think their trade show lead management program is great. I normally hear that they use a exhibitor lead retrieval system, maybe qualify the leads with a paper lead form and then send all of the leads out to the sales people after the show.

The sales contacts I speak with have a completely different outlook on trade show lead generation. The sales people generally see the leads as a waste of time. Most of the "leads" are not actively shopping for their products and they rarely find a good prospect out of the list of names they receive from any given show.

The disconnect is really nothing more than a communication breakdown. The marketing department thinks their trade show lead management solution is perfect, so they don't see the need for improvement. The sales department labels the trade show leads as weak, and stops calling them. My recommendation is to have a meeting with high level sales and marketing people to open up a discussion about the quality of leads coming in (from all sources, not just trade shows).

There are many ways to improve a company's trade show lead generation process. However, the only way to improve the process is to first diagnose the problems.

Trade Show Tips: Green Trade Show Strategy

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

"Green" has become one of the biggest buzzwords of the past few years and it's here to stay. Everywhere you go people are talking about climate change, increasing energy costs, dependency on foreign oil, and so on. Consumers are becoming more aware of their impact on the environment and are looking to support corporations with eco friendly practices.

As an exhibiting company, there are many trade show strategies you can implement to decrease your program's carbon footprint. One strategy is eliminating paper collateral on site. Instead of handing out 1,000 color catalogs on site, you can send out all requested information via email after the show.

You can do this by using third party lead retrieval software. These trade show software programs enable you to customize questions and have a "literature request" page where you can check off all of the catalogs each attendee wants. After the show you can import your trade show leads into a lead management solution (some CRMs can do this, some email programs will work, or you can outsource this part of the process) and send out the requested literature to each attendee via email. The more advanced systems will even provide reporting letting you know who opened the emails and clicked through to which pieces of literature.

By collecting leads and fulfilling requests electronically, you will significantly decrease your trade show program's carbon footprint. This process will eliminate the printing and shipping of all of those brochures and catalogs. If the environmental impact isn't enough of a reason to implement this process, the cost savings on printing and shipping are huge. An additional benefit is the quality of the leads. Using a third party lead retrieval system will get you better qualified leads that are available to you whenever you want them (not when the show wants to get them to you).

If an attendee says they would prefer to walk away with a brochure in hand, just explain your company's commitment to the environment and tell the prospect they will receive their information within a few days of the show (you can also do this nightly).

For additional trade show tips, please click HERE.

For information on how to implement this trade show strategy into your program, click HERE.

Third Party Software: Argument for it

Monday, August 10, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

When talking about trade show lead capture, exhibitors have two viable options: the trade show scanner offered by the show or third party trade show software. Let’s explore the argument for using a third party exhibitor lead retrieval system.

Third party trade show lead retrieval solutions are software based and normally run on a laptop or a handheld device (they can also run on tablets, kiosks and other PC based computers). They vary in capabilities, but for the most part they enable you to customize a survey with as many questions as you need, put your company or product logos on every screen and customize an export file format. They also can read just about any trade show badge out there. Some systems are available for purchase and some work on yearly license agreements.

This all adds up to a system that you can use at just about every show, customize for perfect trade show lead qualification and create an export file that will be the same at every show. Having this data opens up a world of opportunities for trade show follow up. You can electronically fulfill information requests immediately, easily upload leads into your CRM with custom tabs for your qualification data and provide reports to management letting them know how the trade show leads were. Because this is a consistent process at every show, implementing a lead management system becomes much easier. No more typing in leads from paper or dealing with different formats from the different boxes you use at every show.

While the sticker shock for these systems throws off a lot of exhibitors, if you sit down and crunch the numbers it can actually save you money. If you purchase a system it will eventually pay for itself (it’s just a matter of how many shows you do). For the systems you lease on yearly agreements, as long as you exhibit at enough shows it will either be the same price as the trade show lead retrieval system or cheaper.

Even if you don’t exhibit at enough shows for the cost to be the same as the show system, these lead retrieval systems are also available for rent. While the rental price is normally more expensive than the show system, their capabilities are so far superior it’s worth it. In fact, because they are so different, it really doesn’t make sense to compare the cost of these systems vs. the cost of the show system. The question is: what is it worth to your organization to collect highly qualified trade show leads (vs. just the contact info you get from the show system). Ultimately, if you exhibit to collect trade show leads, you should be willing to pay a premium for your lead retrieval system.

If you would like a free consultation to help you determine the best system for you, please click HERE.

Trade Show Leads: Marketing vs. Sales (part 4)

Monday, August 10, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

Post Show

After the show there are a number of different trade show lead management responsibilities. Here are some facets of a good lead management program and who takes care of each task.

Lead Cleanup – Depending on the trade show lead retrieval system used, there may be duplicates, bad swipes and just bad information in your lead file. Traditionally, the marketing department takes care of cleaning up the lead file before sending it off to sales

Lead Rating - Some companies implement a lead scoring system for proper lead rating. In this scenario, the sales department has to acutely define the different levels of rating and make sure they are in line with what is collected onsite. This technical process is usually outsourced to lead management solution experts, but can be taken care of internally by either the sales or marketing department.

Sales Lead Distribution – Delivering the leads to the appropriate sales rep in a timely manner is vital to any lead management system. The sales lead distribution process really depends on internal systems in place and corporate structure. However, the sales lead distribution process is normally taken care of by either the sales or IT department.

All in all, the trade show lead generation and management process is not as simple as it seems. However, with thorough planning and preparation, you can implement a good lead management solution. If you don’t know quite where to start, we would be happy to give you a free consultation of your current process to give you some pointers. For more information, please click HERE.

Lead Management System: Where do you start?

Monday, August 10, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

Most trade show managers cringe when they think of their company’s lead management system. It just gets worse when they think about improving it. Unfortunately there is no one way to handle trade show leads. Every company has different products, sales cycles, number of sales reps, CRM system, IT staff, marketing resources...well you get the idea. When faced with improving trade show lead management, forget about how you currently handle the leads. Instead write down the ideal trade show lead management solution. Start by answering these questions:

What information do you need to collect onsite for adequate trade show lead qualification?

Do the reps need to receive every lead, or just the leads ready for a sales call?

How quickly do you need to get the leads to the reps?

Once you get these questions answered, you can determine what type of trade show lead retrieval system to use onsite. The rest all depends on those variable factors I mentioned earlier (CRM system, number of reps, resources, etc.). However, if you know what you ultimately want to accomplish there are lead management solutions available that can help you figure out how to accomplish your trade show goals. There are many trade show strategies that can vastly improve your trade show sales. If you would like us to evaluate your current lead management process for free, please click HERE.

Another suggestion: It’s ok to improve your process one step at a time. “Fixing” your current system most likely won’t happen overnight, so tweaking your trade show strategy for little improvements is better than sitting back and cringing at the thought of your current system.

Trade Show Advice: Post Trade Show Email

Monday, August 10, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

The cheapest and easiest trade show lead follow up method is sending a post show email. After successful trade show lead qualification with your preferred lead retrieval system it is fairly simple to put together a customized email for your trade show leads. The easiest way to do this is by using the mail merge feature available in Microsoft Word, a basic email program, or a web service. This will enable you to send a personalized message to each attendee. The message can be a simple thank you with a link to your website and corporate contact information.

There are a number of more advanced trade show strategies that can help the sales process. If you use a trade show scanner with custom qualifiers or trade show lead retrieval software, you can implement a lead rating program. This will enable you to send a different email message to the A, B, and C leads. You can also send links to specific brochures requested onsite if you record that information during onsite trade show lead qualification.

There are email services out there that can track who opens the email, who clicks on which link, who wants to be removed from your list, and much more. When implemented across a few shows, using an email service can be a powerful lead management solution (notifying a sales rep that a prospect has opened your email 5 times is VERY helpful information). While the marketing department is a great resource to put together the correct email message, if you are short staffed you may want to hire an outside firm to write the email message for you. To implement some of the more advanced trade show lead follow up techniques, you may also want to talk to lead management consultants about a customized lead management program. For additional trade show advice, click HERE.

Trade Show Tips: Lead Rating

Monday, August 10, 2009 by Kevin Ehlers

Lead rating is a key component to trade show lead management. We’ve found that when companies just scan leads and send them out, the sales department loses faith in the leads and they stop following up on them. One way to combat this is lead rating. Rating the leads effectively separates the good leads from the bad. When done properly, rating leads can increase the efficiency of your post show sales efforts by 70%.

In order to implement a successful lead rating program, you first need a good trade show lead qualification process. A good place to start with trade show lead qualification is using BANT criteria (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe). When writing your qualifiers, it is important to involve both sales and marketing. Getting a clear definition of a hot vs. cold lead from sales is ultimately how you will rate the leads.

Once you have the qualifiers set, you can use a trade show strategy called lead scoring. Lead scoring involves assigning a numerical value to each qualification response. For example a “Contact Immediately” response might be worth 100 points while a “Contact in 6 Months” response could be worth 25 points. Once you have assigned a value to every response, it is time to create some mock leads to see if your lead rating system generates an accurate lead rating. To do this, you add up the total numerical value of all responses for each lead. Wherever the point total falls within a certain predefined range will determine the rating of the lead (for example Cold < 149 points, Warm 150-299 points, and Sales Ready > 300 points).

This can be a confusing process, but there is help out there. You can use lead scoring software, a home grown lead management process or a full service lead management solution. Lead management system companies can help you implement anything from a simple lead management solution to the most complex trade show lead generation and management system. The good news is that whatever steps you take to improve your trade show lead management program will help increase your trade show ROI. For additional useful trade show tips, click HERE.