Tag Archive for: Event Lead Capture

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison, LLC Celebrates a Decade of Innovation in Sales and Marketing

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Lead Liaison, LLC Celebrates a Decade of Innovation in Sales and Marketing

Lead Liaison, LLC proudly commemorates its 10-year anniversary, reflecting on a remarkable journey that has established the company as a global leader in sales enablement, marketing automation, and event management solutions.

Since its inception in 2013, Lead Liaison, LLC has consistently pioneered innovations that cater to the diverse needs of SMBs and enterprise businesses alike. The company’s suite of offerings, including the acclaimed OneFocus™ CRM, Website Visitor Tracking, and Lead Management Automation (LMA), underlines its commitment to enhancing sales and marketing processes.

Founder and CEO, Ryan Schefke, commented, “A decade in this dynamic industry has been an exhilarating journey. From the launch of our LMA platform in 2014 to the recent introduction of EventGen, our event management platform in 2022, our primary focus has always been to offer scalable, integrative, and innovative solutions. It’s deeply gratifying to see our vision transform businesses worldwide.”

One of Lead Liaison’s most notable achievements is the introduction of Captello, a trailblazing lead capture and engagement platform optimized for large enterprises. Captello’s award winning universal lead capture app, event engagement offerings, and integration with over 5,000 marketing automation and CRM platforms have set new industry standards, validating its six-season streak as a G2 Lead Retrieval category high performer.

Brad Froese, Director of Marketing, remarked, “Captello embodies our philosophy of continuous innovation. Its integration capabilities, paired with an unwavering commitment to data security, showcases our dedication to providing clients with a seamless, trustworthy experience. We’re proud to be at the forefront of driving transformative changes in the event industry as well as sales and marketing domains.”

The company’s recent 64% year-over-year growth rate, the introduction of industry-first end-to-end event lead capture system, and the unveiling of a truly unique integrated sales and marketing suite are further testaments to its prowess and vision.

Schefke further added, “Reflecting on the past 10 years, it’s our relentless pursuit of excellence, dedication to client success, and the hard work of our talented team that have brought us here. We’re deeply grateful to our clients for their trust and partnership.”

As Lead Liaison, LLC marks this significant milestone, the company looks forward to the future with renewed passion and commitment, setting its sights on many more decades of innovation, growth, and unparalleled service.


Lead Liaison, LLC is a global leader in sales enablement and marketing automation solutions. With a focus on innovation and customer-centricity, the company offers a comprehensive suite of tools that empower businesses to streamline their sales and marketing processes, driving growth, engagement, and success.’

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 5,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Modern Day Lead Capture for High Performing Exhibitors and ROI Calculator

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Modern Day Lead Capture for High Performing Exhibitors and ROI Calculator

Events are a great opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers. However, traditional methods of collecting leads at events can be time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to errors. In this article, we’ll examine some older, more generic event lead capture methods typically offered by event organizers, and contrast them with newer, more efficient methods like Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture app.

Older event lead capture methods include renting apps and scanners from the organizer, collecting business cards, manually completing online forms, and taking notes on paper. Let’s take a closer look at each of these methods:

Old Method: Disparate Systems

Renting Apps and Scanners from the Organizer

Often times, event organizers rent out expensive apps and scanners to help exhibitors capture leads. However, these apps and scanners are often difficult to use, restrict the number of users who can capture leads, host generic forms that may not collect the data exhibitors need to qualify leads, and require team training at every event. These generic forms of lead capture typically only capture a limited amount of data, making it challenging to get a complete picture of each lead.

Waiting for lead data, whether just a few days or longer, also creates delays in the vital follow up process, and usually results in a spreadsheet that has to be painstakingly culled, edited, and curated before it can be imported (manually) into your CRM or Marketing Automation platform. This process demands countless work hours that should be spent accomplishing other tasks.

Collecting Business Cards
Many exhibitors still rely on collecting business cards as a primary method of lead capture. However, this method is time-consuming and may lead to errors when manually entering the data into a CRM or marketing automation platform.

Manually Completing Online Forms
Some exhibitors require attendees to fill out online forms as a method of lead capture. This method can be tedious and time-consuming, leading to lower engagement rates.

Taking Notes on Paper
Exhibitors that still rely on taking notes by pen and paper to capture leads are disengaging with the prospect during conversations, and sending a signal that their business has antiquated processes. This method is also prone to human error and may lead to incomplete or inaccurate data.

New Method: Dedicated Universal Lead Capture

In contrast, a Universal Lead Capture app like Lead liaison offers a myriad of more efficient and effective ways to capture leads. The app enables teams to capture leads by scanning badges and business cards, using self-service kiosks, gamification, QR codes and more for capturing critical lead data and conversation detail from voice notes that are automatically transcribed and sent to your CRM or Marketing Automation platform.

With Lead liaison, exhibitors have full control over customization of their forms, allowing them to capture more data points including attendee preferences and interests, allowing for better lead qualification and follow-up.

Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture app integrates with over 5,000 3rd party platforms including all major CRM and Marketing Automation systems, making lead distribution and follow-up easy. By automating the lead capture process, teams can save time and focus on engaging with attendees, increasing the likelihood of converting leads into customers.

To help businesses understand the benefits of using a Universal Lead Capture solution like Lead liaison, we have created a free ROI Analysis tool.

Discover Your Event ROI Potential with the free ROI Analysis Tool

This tool compares generic methods of lead capture with the performance that could be achieved by using a Universal Lead Capture solution. The ROI Analysis tool uses the data you enter to produce hard comparisons that will help your businesses understand the difference Universal Lead Capture can make to your event ROI.

In conclusion, while older event lead capture methods may have been effective in the past, they are no longer the most efficient or effective way to capture leads. Lead liaison offers a more efficient and data-driven approach to lead capture, helping businesses to better engage with attendees and convert leads into customers.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 5,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

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6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

We’ve compiled 6 of the best ways to generate leads at trade shows based on our own experiences, our customers’ experiences, and feedback from the market. Here they are:

1: Equip Every Staff Member with Mobile Lead Capture

Exhibiting at a trade show, is when show organizers provide exhibitors with what’s commonly called “lead retrieval”. For the most part, the show appointed lead retrieval system will be very basic, lack customization, and not support integration with your sales and marketing system(s). Moreover, they usually charge per person. Costs can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars per person. 

Restricting use per user limits your company’s ability to collect leads.

Instead, get a solution that allows you to put lead capture in every staff member’s hands. Industry leading solutions work online and offline (so you can collect leads anywhere on site or off site, or heck – in the basement) and capture leads in different ways. Popular mobile apps can scan business cards, badges, and manually collect leads through form fill. These solutions are commonly referred to as universal lead capture apps. Regardless of where you’re at, and who you are, you should be able to collect leads for your company and have them funneled into one centralized database and instantly sent into your CRM or marketing automation system. 

2: Stand Up a Kiosk Inside Your Booth

This self-service approach is a great way to not only advertise your services but complement mobile lead capture. There might be times where all your staff members are tied up in meaningful conversations with show attendees. A kiosk allows attendees to enter their information and/or scan their badge to fill out a kiosk form. The kiosk can be locked so attendees don’t get lost in the lead capture app or start messing with your tablet settings.

Another neat benefit of using a kiosk is advertising. Retailers commonly refer to this feature as an “attract loop”. It’s essentially a screen saver that can rotate through images and calls-to-action on your kiosk. When the attendee taps the screen, they’ll see the lead capture form to fill out, request literature or more information, and be on their way.

Instead of missing leads because nobody is there to help them, use a kiosk and maximize lead capture!

3: Host a Game

Instead of hauling large, expensive, physical activations to your event, use digital activations that you can run on a tablet. I know, you might be a bit perplexed by the word “activations”. It’s essentially a way to engage your audience. An example activation would be a Spin the Wheel game. Instead of bringing the physical wheel to the event, bring a tablet and customize your own wheel game. The concept of gamification will help draw in your audience. 

4: Hold a Competition

Innately, everyone loves to compete. It’s a quality we all inherited . The thirst for competition doesn’t curtail at trade shows. In fact, competition is usually heightened at live events as attendees typically travel with coworkers or friends. Who doesn’t like to compete with their friends or look awesome next to their fellow cohorts! 

Industry leading event gamification platforms also have prizes and leaderboards to help you build a competition. When your competition is solidified, market it with your pre-show efforts. This will help drive more leads to your booth. Also, gift card rewards and prizes provide a reason for your sales team to follow up – resulting in more touch points with your leads. Run your leaderboard live at your event by mounting a small TV in your booth. As attendees play your game, their scores will populate on the leaderboard. 

Want to take the competition to a new level? Have a team-based competition where teams are automatically formed around an attendee’s company. For example, every attendee that works at Microsoft would be on the “Microsoft” team. This will help your company capture more leads as participants will recruit their coworkers for you!

5: Create an Experience

Another way to generate more leads at trade shows is to hold an experience, such as a photo booth or treasure hunt. These interactive experiences help attendees have fun while collecting lead data. This puts your prospect in a better mood and primes them for a good conversation. The attendee also wins as they get a souvenir, can share their photos with friends and colleagues, and have a chance to win something – should you go that route. 

6: Touchless Lead Capture

Touchless lead capture technology was a neat innovation that came from the pandemic. With touchless, or contactless lead capture, companies can set up a custom branded QR code on display inside their booth. Attendees scan the QR code with their personal cell phone. Once scanned, a lead capture form opens up on the attendee’s device. They can fill in their information instead of touching anything, getting close to a staff member, or shaking hands.

Combine games and experiences with custom QR codes to deliver a unique touchless experience that drives lead capture!

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Case Study: Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture

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Case Study: Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture

In this case study, we discuss some common pitfalls in event preparation, participation and execution. We’ll also take a look at how Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture can add layers of protection to these types of investments, and increase ROI at any virtual, live or hybrid event such as a webinar or trade show.

It’s important to do some research on the event organizer before the event. Do you have a history with them? Have they delivered consistently? What do other participants have to say about their experience with this show organizer as show sponsors or exhibitors?

What if the organizer has a great sales team but delivers a poor marketing or event management experience?

We’ve all been in a conversation with a salesperson who promises the moon and stars to get us to sign on the dotted line… And many have signed-up based on expectations implied from a conversation with sales. Unfortunately, the sales team isn’t responsible for delivering goods and services… Marketing and event management are however, and there can be a great divide between the pitch and the delivery!

Document Your Expectations Prior to Paying

Documenting your expectations from verbal agreements at the beginning of the process can be difficult, especially if you’re in a hurry to meet submission, material, or payment deadlines. Remember, if you don’t get it in writing, then you can’t enforce expectations or seek reparations.

In this case study, conversational expectations were:

  • The webinar would have a maximum of 4 sponsors.
  • This would be a single-day webinar event.
  • The expected turnout for this event would be 400-600 live attendees.

We paid top dollar to participate, with those expectations. In fact, the organizer forced another year of paid participation in their online directory (which netted us zero leads during the previous 18 months) in order to be eligible to participate as a sponsor in this webinar, and we agreed to the terms so we could participate in this opportunity to demonstrate our solutions to our ICPs for 8 minutes.

In preparation, we:

  • Produced a 3 minute video demonstrating the benefits of our platform and solutions, plus interview Q&A to showcase the solutions that would benefit our ICPs the most.
  • Developed marketing strategies, multi-channel campaigns, follow-up campaigns & workflows.
  • Incentivized event participation with $350 in gift card rewards.
  • Established business development processes for post-event follow-up.
  • Held meetings with the event organizer, event host, and sales representatives, as well as multiple internal planning meetings.

Delivery, however, wasn’t quite as expected. What we actually received was:

  • An event overpacked with 10 sponsors
  • A two-day webinar series
  • A last place position on day one
  • 192 live attendees on day one

The webinar organizer was raking in money from 10 sponsors, so why stop at 4? Unfortunately, from a sponsorship perspective, too many conversations just diluted all our messages and undermined the value of participating.

As one of the first interested sponsors who prepaid and submitted materials by deadline, surprised us by asking, “which day” we wanted to participate in after we had already established, and paid for, a particular date. It was like they were hinting that they wanted to push us to day 2, which they never mentioned from the beginning… So we stuck to our guns and chose day 1, and they placed us last in line for day 1. 

At this point, we were committed to an event. We had seen no email promotions go out from the organizer, and decided to take success or failure into our own hands…

Ensuring success despite under-delivery

Prior to important events, good team members will be at high alert and hoping for the best. But what if the event organizer under-delivers on expectations?

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

  • Involve partners to help boost campaign reach and share costs.
  • Market the event as if you are the only voice promoting the event. Success is your responsibility, not the event organizer’s, even if they are disorganized or fail to meet your expectations.
  • Employ solutions that give you control and flexibility in case the worst case scenario becomes a reality.

Pre-event marketing from the webinar organizer was not strong. 

The organizer promoted the event in their newsletter a week before the event to 27,149 recipients.

They sent a dedicated email promotion out four days later to 41,772 recipients.

They sent the same dedicated promo to an additional batch of 14,113 recipients 2 days after the first.

As a single sponsor, Lead liaison sent email and social media promos to over 80,000 recipients and drove just over 1,500 page visits to the organizer’s webinar registration page. We partnered with two virtual event platform leaders, providing them with email, social media and graphical assets to further boost messaging and share costs as well as brand exposure.

How many people registered? 306

How many attended? 192 live attendees

Attendee demographics – what type of attendees? 

55% Corporate Marketer / Event Professionals (our ICP)

29% Industry Supplier (partnership opportunities)

16% Other

Distinguishing your experience from the competition:

Realizing we were up against 4 competitor sponsors late in the game didn’t really phase us, because we knew our solutions would speak for themselves, and we had a secret weapon none of the others had: live event activations with universal lead capture.

We were going to present our solutions, then let attendees participate in our experiences, saturate them with our brand and messaging, entice them with instant gift card rewards, and capture them with universal lead capture – before they could finish hyperventilating from all the fun they were having.

Lead liaison’s event activations increase engagement

On average, marketing and event professionals see a 35% increase in engagement in the form of booth visits, virtual experience visits, and campaign conversions.

How we distinguished Lead liaison from the competition:

  • Promoted opportunity to win up to $200 in gift card rewards at the end of the event to encourage people to stick around for our presentation
  • Invited live participation from all attendees by offering a game they could play.
  • Invited the host to play live while participants watched.
  • Offered instant e-gift card rewards to the leaderboard top 3 winners.

Yes, we were last in line to present that day, but the innate desire inside people to win kept the crowd around to discover what Lead liaison was all about.

Lead liaison’s event games and rewards drove the participants into an instantly immersive experience. As the last of 4 sponsors of an event with 192 live attendees, analytics reported 135 game plays. At the end of the experience, 82 unique leads submitted contact information to learn more about Lead liaison Games, Gift Card Rewards and Universal Lead Capture.

That’s nearly 43% of all attendees present and 61% of all who played our branded game experience.

Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture retrieved the leads and delivered them immediately into our CRM.

Before anyone on the webinar clicked the “Leave” button, our lead management solutions were busy scoring and assigning our new leads, adding them to customized, well thought out follow-up workflows. Prospects were getting personalized emails from our Business Development Director along with information that they requested to help them in the decision making process.

Unfortunately, because of a system glitch, the organizer’s lead capture solution failed to collect any leads for the other sponsors. In an effort to recover vital lead data for the other sponsors, the organizer was forced to send out another email communication asking event participants to respond to a survey to indicate which sponsors they were interested in receiving information from.

This process cost 2 additional days, and while 4 other sponsors were relying on the organizer to send them their lead data, we were deep in conversation with our new leads.

Lead liaison Universal Lead Capture gave us the data we wanted, when we wanted it, and the first mover advantage.

Days later, we received an additional 44 leads from the organizer’s follow-up survey (about half compared to our gamified lead capture experience) from the webinar inquiry, which we were able to compare with our own lead capture list and follow up with immediately.

Follow up with incentives and offers

In addition to personalized email and telephone outreach, follow up days ahead of the competition.

We earned the right to land participants’ inboxes by announcing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, offering free downloadable resources, and opportunities to get started with an exclusive discount on our solutions.

What sort of ROI would we have seen if we had trusted the show organizer with promotions & leads?

Ask the other sponsors…

Important Takeaways

NEVER:

Trust your event data with someone else.

Wait days for your precious lead data.

Miss an opportunity to follow up – FIRST!

Pay per-user fees for lead capture.

Lead liaison promises to save you from all this, plus:

The ability to OWN the first-mover advantage at every event.

Drive significantly more traffic to your booth, presentation, or digital experience.

Provide you an ALL-IN-ONE SOLUTION to run your events.

Empower your entire team with Universal Lead Capture that works anywhere – any time – all the time.

 

For information about Lead liaison for your next event or marketing campaign, or to get started with Lead liaison: CLICK HERE.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Need

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Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Want Need

We speak with exhibitors daily and learn about their challenges and why some hesitate to invest in events. With virtual events having low satisfaction ratings and live event attendance being uncertain… exhibitors are carefully evaluating each event to decide:

  1. Which events they will or will not participate in (Top performers only, new markets, etc)
  2. In what way do they want to participate (Exhibit, Speaker, Attendee, other)
  3. How much they want to invest (Booth, staff, tech, marketing, sponsorships, private meetings, etc)
  4. With events now being virtual, live and hybrid, what should they change, improve, automate, streamline and make more efficient to set up their team to handle any type of event and get highest ROI

Exhibitors want SERVICE

Each exhibitor from every industry has their own story/experience to share. Some stories are amazing, about organizers who really understand the exhibitor and set them up for success. Other stories are about their frustrations of not being treated as the customer or getting the ROI they expected. Many will be making their decisions based on their relationships with each event organizer and how much they care to hear about their challenges and offer solutions that set them up for success.

Solution: Deliver concierge style service 

Exhibitors want EXPOSURE

Every exhibitor we speak to is asking organizers to make connecting to their target audience easier. They want their brand to be seen, their prospects to find them, and their new products or services to be showcased. Event organizers who build some basic brand exposure opportunities into their event will provide added value to exhibitors on the fence.

Solution: Offer unique engagement experiences that drive attendees to take action

Exhibitors want to STREAMLINE

With every event offering a different lead capture solution, how much time and energy does the exhibit manager spend on training their team for every single event to ensure no lead is missed and everything flows nicely into their sales process? How many leads are not captured because they have one scanner to share among their team? How many leads don’t receive follow up until days after the event or not at all? How does a company close deals if the next step of the sales & marketing process is not integrated into their lead capture workflow? The challenge is real!

Solution: Do not restrict their ability to capture leads. Now more than ever, exhibitors are seeking a Universal Lead Capture (ULC) provider so their sales team can use the same lead capture system with automated follow up and sales analytics everywhere they go. Event organizers who offer an option for exhibitors to plug into their Registration API will see exhibitor ROI soar and attrition decrease. Organizers who use unfriendly platforms that restrict API access for scanning badges will find push back from exhibitors who will find those events less valuable or friendly to their company.

Exhibitors want ENGAGEMENT

Ask any exhibitor…if you put them in front of a prospect…they will take care of the rest. That is why gamification has become so popular. Exhibitors who use an exciting activation or game in their booth are seeing up to 3x to 5x more leads captured than booths who do not. Plus, it is a known fact that attendees who engage in a memorable experience are 22% to 35% more likely to remember the brand and engage in a next step. Ask any marketing person, this is a dream for any brand and a goldmine for salespeople seeking to build new relationships.

 Exhibitors who know this are asking organizers for ways to promote their games and incorporate them into the event experience. Show organizers need to be prepared.  Exhibitors are on the hunt for engagement solutions and want to incorporate them into the event.

Solution: Organizers have an opportunity to make their event more exciting and engaging!  We suggest offering gamified lead capture as a premium option, or inviting exhibitors to “bring their own game” and plug it into your treasure hunt or other event engagement experience!

 

Exhibitors want ROI

If you were to speak to the CEO of any exhibiting company, they would tell you that ROI is their primary reason for exhibiting. Exhibiting at any event must contribute to the growth of their organization and move the needle forward. Exhibitors measure ROI in different ways depending on their goals. If brand exposure is the goal, they might track email and banner ad views, click thru’s, open rates, game plays, etc. to measure ROI. If lead capture is the goal they would track leads captured, quantity vs quality of leads, and sales generated to measure ROI. The more organizers understand the goals of the exhibitors, the better chance they have at meeting their expectations.

Solution: If show organizers want to improve their attrition year over year, they need to help exhibitors see the value and results your event delivers. Example: Instead of a paper scavenger hunt that cannot be truly measured, use a digital solution (Such as Waypoints or Hybrid Gamification) that can provide detailed analytics to both the show organizer and the exhibitor with a list of leads that supplement the lead capture their sales team is using in the booth.

 

In a nutshell, as we return to live events we cannot go back to the way things were. Events are forever changed, technology just took a huge leap forward, and hybrid is here to stay. The best thing organizers can do is to listen to exhibitors as they explain their challenges, enable them to be successful, and be open minded to doing things differently.

 

 A Message for Exhibitors!

Please keep in mind that event organizers need your help too. Their biggest challenges right now are re-negotiating contracts, managing logistics, and trying to organize speaker agendas and finalize floorplans when exhibitors and speakers are waiting until the last minute to confirm. Organizers have a lot on their plate trying to fill the exhibit hall, promote the event, make people feel safe, and bridge the gap between live and virtual. Now more than ever they are stressed to bring their event back to life on tight deadlines while trying to give you the service you need to ensure you return next year. Please work with them, confirm as early as you can, be patient if they can’t get back to you right away, offer suggestions and partner with them to put on a great show. The challenge of getting our industry up and running again is real and the best thing we can do is to help each other succeed.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Setting Goals & Motivating Your Team

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Setting Goals & Motivating Your Team

Lead capture is one of if not the most important aspects of events and tradeshows, and it could be argued that it is in fact the main point for driving revenue. Why else are you there, if not to create brand awareness, share your products, educate people about your offerings, and gather leads that lead to new relationships and revenue? The most successful trade show exhibitors create successful and memorable experiences that attract, engage, and ultimately convert leads from prospects into customers and hardcore brand loyalists.

How can you affect audiences positively and leave an unforgettable impression? Start  by setting realistic goals and communicate them to your team. Make sure everyone is on the same page. Managers often overlook team motivation, or they might not realize that their team lacks some motivation since they’re so focused on other things such as setting up the booth to their standards, checking up on the hardware, the kiosks, their lead capture software, making sure that everything works, stressing about time, and the list goes on. Establishing and maintaining goals for the team can easily be overlooked. In this article we will highlight the importance of 2 things:

1- Setting Goals

Setting goals and objectives is vital to track and measure the success of your company, event, booth, team, etc. you name it… And a lot of managers either set up goals that are perceived by team members as unachievable, or that don’t fit best with the situation.

When setting goals, be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. To elaborate: Be specific so that there is no confusion. As mentioned before, you have to be able to measure specific goals to identify strengths and weaknesses. You also have to be reasonable in goal setting, placing goals within reach so your team can achieve them without them being too easy. Keep the competition spirit up, and make goals relevant to your company’s goals. Be crystal clear about deadlines to which the goals should be met.

2- Motivating Your Team

When it comes to motivation, there are 2 points we want to address. Going back to the second paragraph, I mentioned something important “positively affecting your audiences.” How do you expect to leave a good impression on audiences if your team is unmotivated, or not on their best behavior? How will you convert audiences to prospects, and prospects into leads and loyal customers? Team motivation is very important to the process, especially when it comes to dealing face to face meetings with potential customers, because in their eyes the team member that they’re talking to is the representation of your company. Ultimately, team motivation directly reflects on the brand that you’ve spent so much time and money over the years building.

Before your events, spend some time setting goals and developing a plan to motivate your team. Take the time necessary to motivate your team, talk to them, and ensure that they’re on full alert, equipped with all the knowledge they need to communicate your brand values and solutions to audiences at trade shows. Offer incentives and challenges to keep them motivated to win… which takes us to our second point:

Create corporate loyalty reward programs for team members to spark up a sense of achievement and competition between the team. Lead liaison has a rewards center with a broad selection of e-gift cards, in which Team members receive their own personalized profiles with progress reports indicating milestones they have achieved. This allows them to track their own progress and keep an eye on the big prize to fuel up their performance.

In that way you’ll make them feel like they have a bigger part in the success of your company, which they do! This also fosters a fun, competitive environment, a way for your team members to prove themselves, compete, and gain rewards which they achieve by their dedication and hard work. In the end, Loyalty & Reward programs are a win-win situation for you and your team. They will be motivated to work harder achieving the goals, engage new prospects, build relationships and leave a good impression on your audiences! Basically, everybody wins.

In conclusion

If you want to build a successful brand loyalty, gather good leads, and build a strong relationship with your audiences, start first with your team! Set SMART goals and communicate them to your team. Make sure they’re on board with all the necessary information needed. Motivate them by awarding them when they achieve goals, and give them the choice of rewards to boost performances.

To learn more about Lead liaison’s corporate loyalty reward programs, contact us today!

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

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Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

One of the biggest challenges event managers seem to have is determining the return on investment for the events they participate in. The reason for that is because they are consistently lacking one piece of crucial information. In fact, it is a piece of information that is readily available to them if they would just ask this simple question of their CEO, CFO, CMO, or owner of the company. It’s a magical question that opens up all sorts of possibilities and releases your creative energy once you have the answer. It causes all aspects of your business, and the company’s short and long-term goals to become crystal clear. So, what is this question?

 

What is the value of a new customer or client to the company? 

I am continually amazed at how many event managers from both small to medium-sized businesses, all the way up to fortune 100 companies have no idea what the value of one new customer is to their company. Now, one of the most common reasons I have discovered for this lack of information on the part of event managers is that no one ever told them the importance of the question, you can’t ask a question you don’t know you should ask.

A lot of companies view events as just another line item on their overall marketing budget, and as long as marketing is producing results, then hi-five! But, that doesn’t mean event managers and their teams don’t benefit from knowing what a customer or client is actually worth to the company. Just as the Sales team needs to know what the value of one new customer is in order to determine salaries, commissions, and bonuses, the event team needs to know this information if they want to put together an effective strategy, and/or evaluate new technologies and tools that can help them achieve their goals.

In so many cases, event teams are left to rely on the show organizer to provide them with their leads, and then it’s up to them to try and qualify them or send them onto sales to qualify and pursue. This makes it even more difficult to determine whether what you are doing at these shows is effective. But, when you know exactly what a new customer is worth, you then begin to look at your budgets differently and can make a case to those within the company who have the final say on approving your budget that investing in a more effective lead capture system will be worth it because you can justify the return on investment. Imagine no longer needing to rely on the show organizer to provide you with a lead list that is also being distributed to your competitors as well. But, because you know the value of a new customer, your ability to move your events team forward with an effective strategy for growing the company will give you the upper hand. 

As live events come back, and with the increased implementation of hybrid events, knowing exactly what you’re aiming at will make all the difference in the world when it comes to planning which events will be the most profitable for you, and creating a strategy to CRUSH IT at those events. 

We sincerely hope that this will inspire you to dig a little deeper into what each new customer actually means to your company, rather large or small, and will help you become more empowered to make impactful decisions for your team and the company as a whole.

For information about Lead liaison for your next event or marketing campaign, or to get started with Lead liaison: CLICK HERE.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

5 ways to increase lead capture adoption at events

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5 ways to increase lead capture adoption at events

With in-person and hybrid events coming back in full force, it’s time to think in-person lead capture again. For many exhibitors, this usually involves scanning a name badge or business card through an app or scanner. These apps are great for quickly getting contact data from your event and into your marketing automation or CRM system of choice.

But in order to get contact data from a scan, booth staff have to actually use them.

Many organizations struggle to get staff to adopt new lead capture methods. After all, taking someone’s business card and scribbling a few notes worked before, why shouldn’t it work now?

Event marketers know exactly why that doesn’t work. People fall through the cracks and don’t receive follow up, and you have a delay in processing your data. 

How event marketers can help increase staff adoption:

1: Set Expectations

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many event coordinators pay good money for lead capture without setting expectations. Who should booth staff be scanning? Here are a few different responses we’ve gotten from our partners:

  • Scan everyone who comes to the booth, no matter what.
  • Only scan potential customers (exclude vendors, sales people, etc).
  • Only scan qualified potential customers.
  • Only scan potential customers with a sales opportunity.

Different people will have different opinions. Many marketers usually favor gathering as many leads as possible and qualifying later. Sales teams, on the other hand, are mostly interested in hot leads, seeing potentially unqualified leads as time wasters. Make sure everyone knows what you need from them.

2: Keep it Simple

We all know it’s important that follow up is targeted for the attendee. You can’t just send a giant email blast with generic content and expect people to engage. You can’t either send personalized content if you don’t know anything about the person.

Having said that, we’ve seen a tendency to ask a lot of survey questions. 

A while back, we had a partner who was switching from paper lead capture forms to digital lead capture. They copied the paper form which included 20 survey questions. All of them were marked required and many had follow-up questions. They left their event with only three new leads from the app.

What happened? The sales staff got frustrated. They felt like they were stuck doing data entry while lines built up at their booth. To quote one of the reps, “I look like I’m just playing on my phone or texting friends; it’s embarrassing.” 

They ended up switching back to the paper forms where they felt more comfortable. The result was that it took several weeks before all of the leads were entered into their CRM.

While it’s tempting to gather as much data as humanly possible, remember your staff are in a busy, highly interactive environment. Make the lead capture process as quick as possible by using the minimum number of survey questions you can.

3: Avoid Manual Entry

Event marketers trying to save on expenses might decide they don’t need to pay for badge scanning. After all, Developer kits usually cost several hundred dollars, and renting devices could break the bank once they add all of their users. Their staff can just type in the contact info, right?

That decision is more costly than you might realize. Just like in my example above, when staff only have manual entry as an option, you can expect them to avoid submitting data on the sales floor. They simply don’t have time to do it when face-to-face with prospects. Instead, they’re likely to collect business cards and upload them later in their hotel room.

However, if users can conveniently scan a badge or business card, lead capture takes mere seconds. Consider that next time you’re thinking of saving a buck on lead capture.

4: Stick to Multi-Select Fields

You’re probably noticing a theme here…

The key to adoption is making it as easy as possible.

The more typing there is, the more time lead capture takes, and the less your staff will want to use your capture form. 

When dealing with surveys, multi-select fields take very little time. Imagine how much longer it would take to type “Lead Management Automation” than to just tick a box.

5: Use a Universal Lead Capture System

Inconsistent experiences are one of the biggest complaints both marketers and booth staff.

Every event and every provider has their own scanners and apps. Some let you add custom survey questions, some don’t. Some only provide badge scanning, others can also do business cards. And, unfortunately, not all are very intuitive.

People are much less likely to invest their time in learning to use an app if they know they’ll probably never use it again. However, if you use a Universal Lead Capture (ULC) system like Lead liaison, users will have the same experience at every event. Most importantly, you have control over what the form looks like as well as the questions asked.

To get the most out of your next event, contact Lead liaison today for more ideas on how ULC can make life easier for your staff.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

 

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Announces Free Lead Generation Tool Dubbed Website Visitor Converter

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Lead LiaisonDallas, Texas – Lead Liaison, the leader in sales and marketing automation solutions, has added yet another free tool to their growing list of resources available to sales and marketers worldwide. The solution is appropriately named Website Visitor Converter.

Brad Froese, Director of Marketing, acknowledges one of the primary challenges marketers must overcome:

“Marketers are constantly trying to figure out what type of content to put on their website. They understand inbound marketing is a critical growth strategy. However, it’s hard to figure out where to draw the line. What should be given away for free and what should be gated?
Gated content should be valued enough by a visitor to exchange for their coveted email address. Once they’ve determined what that valuable “free” content is going to be, marketers can use Website Visitor Converter to gate it for free. They can also set up and manage passcodes, and easily style gated prompts to match corporate branding. It’s a really flexible plugin for any website built on the WordPress platform.”

The solution can operate in one of two ways. First, it can be used for free to gate valuable website content. Interested website visitors can provide their email address to access the content. Through an integration with a leading email validation provider, email addresses can be verified for authenticity prior to accessing the content. Alternatively, content can be gated by a pass code. The pass code can be handed out ahead of time and used to unlock access. Second, the solution can integrate with Lead Liaison’s sales and marketing automation platform. When a visitor provides their contact information, they can easily be added into an automated workflow or drip campaign.

Website Visitor Converter is a free, downloadable WordPress plugin available directly from the WordPress.org catalog, and can be downloaded here.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that help businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and sales automation to boost sales effectiveness. Additionally, Lead Liaison is the global leader in event lead management, enabling companies to capture and manage leads from trade shows and events. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible architecture, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237). To access our Press Kit, visit www.leadliaison.com/press-kit.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that help businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and sales automation to boost sales effectiveness. Additionally, Lead Liaison is the global leader in event lead management, enabling companies to capture and manage leads from trade shows and events. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible architecture, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237). To access our Press Kit, visit www.leadliaison.com/press-kit.

Lead Liaison Press Release
Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Releases Trade Show Success Kit: How to Prepare For, Execute, and Evaluate a Successful Trade Show

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Lead LiaisonDallas, Texas – Ever since Lead Liaison launched their event lead capture solution, GoExhibit!™, in 2017, the company has been hyper-focused on helping businesses achieve greater success at marketing events like trade shows and conferences. They achieve this by offering the most flexible lead capture solution on the market, as well as a copious amount of educational content they produce around trade shows and events. 

This week, they’ve released a kit containing their most popular trade show-related content which they’ve dubbed the Trade Show Success Kit. 

The Trade Show Success Kit contains a checklist to help marketing event managers stay organized when planning exhibitions at upcoming trade shows. The checklist gets down to the nitty-gritty with reminders for when to finalize lead retrieval, how to structure post-event workflows, and more. The checklist even includes a sample packing list and sample itinerary, because as Lead Liaison Director of Marketing Jen Worsham says, “It makes it so much easier to have all of those things in once place – especially during pre-event team meetings.”

Lead Liaison’s Trade Show Success Kit also contains a step-by-step guide to implementing an independent lead capture solution. “We wanted to include this because this always seems to be the biggest hurdle to cross when considering the use of lead capture outside of what the show organizer provides,” says Worsham. “There’s so much to benefit from when using a consistent lead capture method across all events, so we wanted to remove the only real obstacle: the unknown.”

For marketing event coordinators wondering what their role looks like during a B2B event, Lead Liaison also includes a list of 10 things event managers should be doing at the trade show. This list includes suggestions like, “find the show organizer contact to collect booth feedback” and “take a photo of your team at the booth for more personalized follow-up.” 

Post-event strategy is not missed in the Trade Show Success Kit. It also contains a Post-Show Questionnaire intended to assist in collecting feedback from team members after a show. And, if the return on investment (ROI) is a consideration (hint: it should be), then the resource, How to Evaluation ROI from a Trade Show, will prove to be extremely helpful. 

“Because of our hands-on approach to supporting our GoExhibit!™ clients, we live and breathe marketing events,” says Worsham. “Sure, using our lead capture solution aids in success. But, we know that’s not the only thing to consider when planning and executing a successful trade show. This kit covers it all!”

To access the Trade Show Success Kit, click here. 

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that help businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and sales automation to boost sales effectiveness. Additionally, Lead Liaison is the global leader in event lead management, enabling companies to capture and manage leads from trade shows and events. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible architecture, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237). To access our Press Kit, visit www.leadliaison.com/press-kit.