Top event organizers know that exhibitors sign up for tradeshows for B2B marketing - to generate new business leads through event networking. For most exhibitors, the main goal of exhibiting at a tradeshow is to make meaningful connections that justify their investment of time and money on that event.To stand out from the competition, event organizers must offer the best tradeshow experience for exhibitors. This means facilitating good quality business leads for exhibitors with high-value attendees such as hosted buyers, such as through the use of B2B matchmaking tools that connect both parties.
The current issue for exhibitors with tradeshow leads is a familiar one -- too much quantity over quality. Not all ‘leads’ are equal. When exhibitors go for quantity over quality, ‘swiping’ or collecting as many business cards as possible, it creates too many poor quality leads. Many exhibitors also do not consider what other data they need to capture beyond what’s on the attendee’s badge. This rarely gives them enough information to evaluate the real value of a lead.The other issue is simply a question of logistics. Tradeshow events are often held in vast, disorientating spaces. Exhibitors are at the mercy of swag-hunters or the random footfall that passes their booths. Too many serendipitous connections are still left to random chance - booth location, perhaps, or what is happening onsite at that moment of time. (This explains how a staggering 87% of leads captured at tradeshows - costing hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized business opportunities - are not followed up on.) Happily, event technology solutions like Grip are on hand for savvy event organizers to improve exhibitors’ lead capture process. Powered by Artificial Intelligence, Grip is an event networking app using machine learning that personalizes B2B networking to generate high-quality tradeshow business leads.
Unlike most lead capture apps, Grip is not restricted to exhibitor, location of booth, or platform - it can be offered to all tradeshow attendees before, during and after an event. Its Artificial Intelligence matchmaking engine enables pre-event, onsite, and post-meeting scheduling.
Grip removes a lot of the hard work of B2B matchmaking. Tedious form-filling, data-entry spreadsheets, chasing up on meeting schedules, and last-minute changes can be minimized, through the simple use of registration through a networking account or social media. With the ability to prospect who is going to be there ahead of time, this is also when meetings can be scheduled, to make the most of exhibitors’ time from the start of the event.
Badge scanning linked with social media profiles enable real-time insights on prospective buyers’ networking intentions and how well this matches exhibitors’ offerings. Exhibitors can download their leads to CRM systems, such as Salesforce, in a .csv file. As users interact with Grip in the course of the event, the AI recommendations improve, presenting more opportunities for serendipitous, meaningful connections. It’s the best of both worlds - exhibitors take advantage of the enormous exposure to networking situations that tradeshows bring, with a quality lead generation strategy fortified by the power of Grip’s AI.
