Orchestrating a successful trade show for industrial companies can be a difficult task.  Trade show attendance requires a significant amount of time and resources, not to mention the competition may be only a few steps away…literally!  As an industrial company, you may make the initial introduction to potential customers during the trade show, but chances are you won’t close the deal while you’re there.  With impressions and visitor traffic to your trade show booth untracked and unmeasured, ROI for attending a trade show may be minimal and limited to brand awareness.

So what can you do to leave your trade show visitors reminiscing about your special offers and distinctive products and services enough for an encore?

#1: Don’t forget to count!

Start with setting your most important goal at a trade show – to be meeting as many prospects as possible and gathering their contact information.  Unless the lead is pushing to buy that day, save the actual converting process for later.  Your approach should be a slowly rising crescendo,  most trade show visitors aren’t there to do hard business. Waiting to convert maximizes the number of visitors your team can meet, while also allowing you to slowly nurture prospects that have longer sales cycles.

#2:  Show up for your encore online!

Highly interested leads will look up your company’s website during or after the show, The question is, did you prepare your website for the encore?  Equipping your website with a marketing and sales automation system is the one truly superior strategy for industrial companies to nurture prospects toward a sale. Online marketing and sales tracking software like ActiveConversion have unique properties to identify new and returning visitors, monitor their online activities on your website, and provide you with email marketing capabilities to follow-up.  A marketing and sales system allows you to cross reference and input the contact information you’ve gathered from the trade show and see if the handshakes you’ve made in person resulted in a prospect or sales online.

#3:  Achieve a standing ovation by nurturing leads!

Use a marketing and sales system to set up automated emails to follow up with prospects from the trade show who showed interest in your products and services. You can also nurture the lead even closer to a buying decision by providing links to online brochures, promotional offers, and other resources discussing the benefits of your products/services.

Attending a trade show is great for networking and making personal connections with potential customers, but your real performance and finale for closing the leads made at the show is online.