3 Tips on Effectively Tracking Your Trade Show Leads

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Despite the costliness of trade shows, there are still a lot of companies that are willing to spend hundreds to even thousands of money just to participate in one. Why? For one, trade shows allow you to see your competitors, especially on what their products are and how they do business. You can study their strategies and use them to your own advantage. You can also determine the potential partners for your business. That includes people and companies that can help your business grow more rapidly. Most of all, expos and trade shows are attended by hundreds to thousands of people everyday. This means that they are excellent sources of sales leads.

Why You Need to Track Them

When you’re in a trade show, it’s not enough that you get to sell some of your products to walk-in clients. You must also keep track of every person who visited your booth as much as possible. This way, when the show is over, you can still communicate and set up appointments with them. You can talk about your business in a more detailed scope.

Moreover, some of these sales leads may not fit into your present campaign, but they can be of use in the future. For example, if the newest product is meant for men, you cannot introduce what you’re selling to women just yet. Once you’ve exhausted all male leads, though, you can then drop a call to the ladies. You can try their interest in getting one for their male loved ones like husbands, brothers, and fathers.

How to Keep Track of Trade Show Sales Leads

There’s really not much difference with keeping track of your trade show sales leads from tracking those that come from mailing lists and other lead generation techniques. Nevertheless, there are some things that you have to remember to ensure that you can do this function more efficiently and correctly:

1. Call your sales leads before the actual trade show. You can call all your existing leads, especially those whom you have not set up an appointment with yet. You can tell them about the upcoming expo and inform them that you’re going to have a booth. Tell them that you can talk about the business at full length there. It will also be ideal since they can personally see the products themselves, especially if you have demos or product presentations. You may prioritize those leads who are living near the venue, as they have more resources to attend to it than the ones who may be living in other states or towns.

2. Prepare your registration forms. Make it a point to bring your registration forms to the venue. They are very useful if you want to determine how many of them have visited your booth as well as important information related to them. These include their name, address, and contact details. Papers can be hassle to you as they do have the tendency to get lost. You can opt for a lead tracking software. You can install them in your laptop or, if it’s web-based, you can just access it online. You may inquire from the trade show organizers if they offer Internet connection. A lead tracking program will also allow you to directly add their names to the lead database, so you won’t have to spend more time encoding them.

3. Give them a call. Once the trade show is over, ensure that you can immediately give them a call. It would not be long before they will forget about the expo and thus your business.


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Direct Mail Marketing: An Underrated Method for Lead Tracking

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The communication technologies of today have improved greatly. The Internet itself is the greatest improvement to the impressive array of communication devices that man has in his disposal. With the Internet, anyone can reach out to people all across the globe—in real time. There’s no need anymore to wait for weeks to receive a mail from a loved one miles away from home. With electronic mail, messages can be received within mere seconds or minutes.

Communications and Marketing

Marketing is one of the many things in this world that is truly dependent in communication. In fact, marketing takes advantage of the many mechanisms of communication in order to get this message across: buy the company’s products. It is not uncommon to see advertisements in print media, in television and in websites. It is also normal to hear a spot in the radio advertising a company and its products. That’s how marketing works.

As communications evolve, marketing also evolves. Marketers must’ve had a field day the day electronic mailing was first introduced. With the introduction of the Internet, they know have the capability to reach out to a global audience for less the expenses it takes to do the same before email was ever introduced to the world. The Internet also opened many possibilities for aspiring businessmen: anyone can start a business with the same potential to succeed as the bigger companies have. It can also be said that the gap between small and large business is non-existent, and that the Internet is the great equalizer in the context of business.

The sad thing, almost no one uses written mail anymore because of electronic mail. Marketers are an exception, but it is clearly implied that most marketing techniques nowadays have a focus on television and the Internet. It’s because these two methods of advertising have the widest range. Radio is limited to a certain locality; almost no one uses snail mail anymore. That means the age of direct mail marketing is almost over. However, is it really the end for what was once the most effective marketing and lead tracking technique?

Direct Mail Marketing Explained

Direct mail marketing is a very old marketing technique. Before there was an Internet, mails were definitely the methods with the widest range possible. You can send a letter to anywhere in the world.

In direct mail marketing, the company sends a package of promotional materials to a prospect’s house. These materials can be anything as long as it presents the product in a favorable light. It can be a CD, a sales letter or a brochure. Since it’s a predecessor, it’s basically the same as email marketing but the materials are tangible.

Direct Mail Marketing Will Not Go Away Easily

In marketing and lead tracking, direct mail still has its merits. Yes, that still remains true even if direct mail can be inferior when it comes to the duration needed for the mail to arrive. Direct mail marketing can still serve a purpose in lead tracking and marketing because:

• Not all people in the world can afford an Internet connection. Even if cafes are accessible, not at all times can your prospect log in to the Internet and check their mails. This means that your email may not reach him in time or may be buried within his inbox.

• People still reply to written mail in places where Internet connection is not available. It’s even easier to log in lead tracking information when you receive a reply to your direct mail advertising.

• Email marketing has the tendency to become buried in the spam folder and remain unopened. Direct mail marketing, on the other hand, ensures that the mail gets into the hand of a prospective client and gets opened.


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