How to Generate and Qualify Leads Before Virtual Trade Shows

If there is a talk about the event industry, it seems significantly different from just a year ago and it is just because of the COVID-19. These days, organizers use innovative technologies to reach out to a more global audience as meetings and interactions are taking place behind the screen. These days, the experts are very concerned about the virtual events but on the other side, the goals of stakeholders are the same. Sponsors and exhibitors are still wanting to increase their brand awareness, hold customers, make leads, and increase sales. Capturing high-quality leads at online events like online trade shows is the hint of successful events for the showers. It can be said that the more qualified the leads, the better the probabilities of converting them. Beyond the conventional ideas of one-to-one conferences and post-event follow-ups, there is a large number of effective lead-generation strategies for virtual trade shows and these are as follows:

Customized exhibitor profiles and booths

For effective lead generations, the idea of customized exhibitor profiles and booths is the best one. In this method, a virtual 3D booth is designed to recreate an actual, physical exhibit that makes your brand stand out to the attendee. In addition to this, for the engagement of the attendees, sponsors use pre-recorded videos, presentations, brochures, and various features like live chat and product demos as it provides enough data to generate and qualify potential leads. Moreover, to be a part of certain exhibitor packages, exhibitors can make their shows visible to attendees even before the start of an event. It can be said that this is the best strategy for attracting more business.

Creating an AI-powered marketplace:

At virtual trade shows, thousands of products can be showcased. An online marketplace brings the use of AI-powered matchmaking to connect the users to relevant products. This technique is similar to Amazon that assists in driving more targeted buyers towards a business. The sponsors can get e-referrals that can be nurtured into the potential needs by the creation of an environment that fulfills the distribution and transactional desires of the public.

Use Remarketing to Generate and Qualify Leads

Remarketing is one of the best strategies to generate and qualify leads. There may be a great chance that in the start the attendees who show some meaningful interest in the virtual booths, products, or content get distracted after some time and stop engaging further so paid remarketing services make it possible to retarget these attendees. Exhibitors reach out to more pre-qualified prospects, nurture these leads and push them to sales.

Sponsorship options with analytics 

Data-driven sponsorship at virtual trade shows plays a significant role in measuring the performance of digital ads, banners, and videos that allows the exhibitors to analyze engagement statistics. The promoters gather business intelligence from various sponsorship strategies which in turn helps them to plan their post-event follow-up and drives great qualified leads.

Pre-event engagement in community groups:

Most of the event organizers implement a community-driven tactic to increase brand awareness around their online trade shows. Different groups are made on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to provide pre- and post-event access to participants. In this way, the showers can make their community get engaged and if their content develops great interest in people then it means that they already have received pre-qualified leads before the event.  

Host webinars and online workshops to Generate and Qualify Leads

Host webinars and online workshops play a significant role in generating new leads before the virtual trade shows. According to Xant, there are seventy-three percent marketing and sales leaders give all the credit to webinars as it generates high-quality leads. Now the question is how the exhibitors gain high-quality leads. So here it is the process that starts from sharing valuable information of the participants who come to get themselves registered for an online workshop or webinar. Most of the webinar hosts ask for information from the participants like company name, industry, and size of the organization. With the help of this information, the sales team create a custom outreach plan for the engagement of the leads throughout the sales procedure.

Focus on email campaigns to Generate and Qualify leads

Before the virtual trade shows, focusing on email campaigns can be a worthwhile activity for the exhibitors. It can be said that the sponsors get into their email campaign metrics to know about the messages that have resonated with their audience. Open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics linked to the specific goals of the campaign offer valuable insight that can enhance their future email approach. When the promoters get ready to implement their email game, they have to make a start by defining the goals and parameters of their upcoming campaigns. Several ideas are available to generate and qualify leads from the email campaigns and these are mentioned below:

• • Email helps to promote and sell specific products and services.
  • Collect registrations for an upcoming online event. 

• In the end, email assists in converting current email subscribers to paying customers. 

Once the showers define their email campaigns, they need to determine how the right potential leads will see their content and choose to opt-in. At this point, there are important questions to consider:

• How is the reader getting this email campaign? 

• What are the challenges faced by the reader regarding the email?

• Identify the factors that lose the interest of the reader in receiving emails from the promoters?

• How can the promoters help the readers to overcome the various challenges?

Conclusion:

In the end, it concludes that the in-person trade show has an unmatchable value but on the other side virtual trade shows benefits seem affordable and high-return approach for the people who are searching out for generate and quality leads just with a little bit of investment. Moreover, the exhibitors must hold the various lead generating strategies like remarketing, arrange online workshops, host webinars, place customized exhibitor profiles and booths, make an AI-powered marketplace, sponsorship options with analytics, and email campaigns.