Manufacturing Technology Series events are gearing up. We had a successful HOUSTEX in February and EASTEC is coming up fast in May. If you’re an MT Series exhibitor, it’s important that you are marketing to registered visitors and your own customer base to drive them to your booth where they can see the latest and greatest that you have on display. Along with WESTEC and SOUTHTEC, the tradeshows are an important way of reaching local manufacturing markets in different parts of the country.
Each MT Series event draws together key decision-makers, major tool and technology suppliers and thought leaders from across a broad spectrum of manufacturing disciplines.
But what if somebody doesn’t register or let you know they will be there in advance? What happens if they just show up and register on-site? In today’s events environment, that is becoming increasingly common; but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with some helpful tips.
Train Your Booth Staff
This is the most important tip I can give: Make sure your booth staff is trained on your product and how to capture leads. For attendees that register on-site, you won’t always have the chance to market to them pre-show. It’s important that your staff knows not just your product details but also how to collect and qualify a lead from people who stop by your booth. This is crucial to feeding your sales funnel.
Key to this is using a lead capture system, and the MT Series events have a great option with the Xpress Connect app from Convention Data Services (CDS). The system allows badges to be scanned and provides tools for your booth staff to input notes, qualify with questions, and more. Using this system means data is pulled directly from the visitor’s badge and gives you additional insight into their demographics, which can help your salespeople sort leads.
But this technology isn’t a replacement for well-trained booth staff; it just supplements and enhances their abilities. It’s still important to have pre-show training with anybody that might work your booth so they understand the organization’s goals for participating in the show and how you plan to extract value out of it. The lead retrieval app will allow them to capture data and add relevant information from their conversation with the visitor, but they need to be trained on what to include in that conversation in the first place.
Get the Right Tools
Another important thing to remember is that all exhibitors have access to the IMTS Exhibitor Passport app for a small fee. The benefits this provides you during the show are immense. Registration info on visitors is updated every day, and your leads collected from the Xpress Connect app are put directly into the tool. Additionally, it provides all visitors’ registration demographics so you can tailor the conversation like I mentioned above. Passport allows you to market or reach out to on-site registrants almost immediately. And if you collect a lead, it allows you to follow up with the visitor quickly after the interaction.
Follow-Up After the Show
Speaking of follow-up, my final tip is to make sure to do so. Now this tip holds true whether the visitor registered on-site or ahead of time, but doing so is much more important for an on-site registrant that you meet at the show. You don’t have the same opportunities to do pre-show marketing to on-site registrants, so it’s important to introduce them to your brand and get them into your sales funnel immediately following the event.
We want to help make sure you’re prepared to capitalize on leads from the next MT Series event. Now is the time to prepare, strategize, and optimize your time onsite.
As always, we are here to help exhibitors get the most out of their marketing investment. If you’d like to learn more about Exhibitor Passport or see a demo, you can visit exhibitorpassport.org. Or you can send any questions about the tool to PassportNotify@AMTonline.org.
