Tips for Improving Lead Capture and Retrieval During Events

In-person trade shows and events are excellent opportunities to engage with your audience face to face and have one-on-one conversations with your prospective customers. One of the most important goals of an in-person event is to capture leads. In fact, 87% of exhibitors attend trade shows to generate leads. However, lead capture can be challenging for companies to execute well. Event attendees may be hesitant to share information, particularly if the retrieval systems are laborious or antiquated. Furthermore, how do you ensure your sales team receives value from the leads? 

At Hamilton, we believe that lead capture and retrieval can be elegant, efficient, and effective. Let’s take a look at our favorite lead capture tips. 

Keep it Simple

One of the most important event lead capture tips is to keep your solution as simple as possible. If you collect information with paper and pen, you will likely need lengthy forms and surveys to get all of the data you need. Many of the questions and form fields will be irrelevant to the people you speak with, and the entire process will be too cumbersome. By using a digital lead capture solution, you can tailor your forms to your audience, coordinate the lead collection across show staff, and keep the lead retrieval process as simple as possible. 

Prioritize Accuracy

Badge scanning is a great way to quickly and easily collect information and receive alerts when VIPs enter your booth. But relying exclusively on badge scanning for lead retrieval can result in a lot of faulty or incomplete data. When talking with booth visitors and capturing leads, it is critical to focus on collecting accurate information, particularly when it comes to contact information. Every data gap or error is a missed opportunity to connect with a prospective customer, so make sure you take the time and have the tools to collect accurate data. 

Collect Contextual Information

Another one of our valuable lead retrieval tips is to collect contextual information along with the lead contact data. A name and email is a great starting point, but what does their business do, what challenges is their organization facing, what drew them to your booth, and what is sparking their interest? The contextual information will prove invaluable when it is time to follow up on the lead because it can be used to personalize the communication. 

Identify Hot Leads

One of the most valuable trade show lead capture tips is to use dynamic lead capture surveys to segment visitors so that the “hot leads” can be identified immediately. Instant leads scoring lets you know immediately when a booth visitor is a “hot lead” so that sales staff can engage strategically with those individuals during the initial conversion point.  

Use Survey Skip Logic

We recommend that exhibitors use survey skip logic to segment leads, collect the most relevant data, and customize the questions to highlight each attendee’s needs and interests. Using survey skip logic reduces the amount of time people need to spend filling out a survey and maximizes the value from the data you collect. 

Integrate with Engagement Activities 

Events do not have to be isolated, singular activities. To create the biggest impact from your trade show, consider enhancing your live event with hybrid or virtual engagement activities. With Hamilton EXTEND®, you can create a virtual brand experience and event solution that enables you to extend your brand reach and customer engagement strategies beyond the physical space of the trade show. This allows you to rethink how you engage with prospects and capture leads. Hamilton EXTEND® allows you to capture customer information, create unique call-to-actions, and access more robust data and analytics than with typical platforms. 

Partner with Hamilton to Improve Lead Capture and Retrieval During Events

Hamilton inSIGHT™ is our proprietary lead capture solution designed to capture qualifying information on your own device from every visitor regardless of where they’re engaged in the booth. 

Hamilton inSIGHT™ includes the same badge scanning and survey qualifiers as show-provided lead retrieval, plus some key differentiators that include multi-device compatibility, instant lead scoring, VIP alert, interest indicator, custom qualifiers, dynamic literature fulfillment, photo capture, lead progress meter, voice-to-text notes, group scan, engagement integration, event program scalability, customized CRM file, and comprehensive summary reports and data export. 

Hamilton is a full-service event marketing agency with a 75-year legacy creating immersive brand experiences for companies throughout North America and around the world. We design, produce, and execute integrated experiences that drive meaningful connections between your brand and your audience. Our full range of solutions include mobile tours, exhibits, proprietary events and conferences, corporate environments, outdoor events, and digital experiences. 

To get expert help with lead capture and retrieval during events, contact Hamilton today!