Leave the Stress Balls For the Stressed

Breaking the mold of give (throw) away items from exhibit floors, and giving conference attendees something they could feel good about, I increased ID Experts' exhibit booth lead capture numbers, and provided meaningful conversation starters for our sales team.

Situation

For more than 9 years, ID Experts sponsored and exhibited at highly targeted industry trade conferences with attendees that represented 80% of the ideal target customer. Booth traffic was consistently good; however, lead generation fell short of our goals, because attendees were reluctant to share their contact information. We needed to find a better way to increase our lead capture.

The Process

I decided that instead of providing the attendees with typical give away items in our booth consistent with most vendors (such as stress balls, key rings, or fish bowl drawings for a technological gadget) we could provide attendees with a reason to want to provide their contact information and increase our lead capture at these events. By promoting that we would donate $5 to a certain cause instead of providing a chance to win a prize, we began to see a dramatic increase in business card collecting and/or badge scans. At a Washington D.C. area event, we selected the Wounded Warrior Project. We donated over $1000 at this first event. That means over 200 people, or about 10% of total conference attendees, agreed to give us contact information. We typically captured between 80-100 leads at these types of events.

The Results

Not only were attendees willing to provide their information, but we were able to brand our company as one that believed in community involvement, following our mission statement. With this message, attendees were willing to spend more time with the sales staff in the booth and learn more about our products and services. Many follow up meetings resulted. Attendees would even bring their colleagues over to our booth to learn about our donation project, and in turn would learn more about what we do. We continued to donate to other charities such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in our event appearances.

The Sales cycle for data breach services is very long, built upon a level of trust over a years-long relationship with the sales representatives. Since we began this new method of lead generation, an average of 10 meaningful meetings per event came through the nurturing cycle via this trade show channel.