One simple trick to count hot leads during an event

Counting leads during event is not the easiest task, especially for a busy exhibitor. What’s more, there are different types of leads: hot, warm, cold. If you leave lead qualification for later, you may never find out who was truly interested in your offer and who was ‘just looking’ kind of a lead that requires further education in order to become a customer. Thankfully, we have a perfect solution. Read more and learn how to count hot leads during an event.

Hot leads, warm leads, who needs to count them anyway?

There is no sales without leads. Even though the leads are not customers yet. On the other hand, almost every customer was once a lead. Depending on lead’s level of interest in your offer you can further push them down the sales funnel and make him a customer. That’s why it is crucial to keep track of the generated leads. Usually, generated leads are one of the most important KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in the marketing department.

Ok, but why do I have to count leads during an event?

Events are a great source of lead generation. People come there lured by promotional promises. You are there, waiting with your A-class materials, stand and conversation techniques. The doors open, people come inside and it starts – vivid presentations, interesting discussions and tons of opportunities.

Dollars to doughnuts that you will lose the track of the leads within an hour or even less. But you shouldn’t! If you already came to an event, put some money and efforts into making a great impression, you may want to know how are you doing.

If you count leads in the real time, you will know if you are sticking to the plan. Is it midday, and you still have only 20% of the target? Or maybe you have enough of them and now you can focus on building relations with the people you have already met?

Counting leads during an event will provide you with a guide on what to do next to make the most of your appearance in this place. Especially, if you categorize them while counting.

Most companies know the value of the lead depending on its temperature. To make your presence on the event profitable you have to generate a specific amount of hot, warm and cold leads. So if you count them and qualify them on spot, you will know exactly what actions you should take to stay on course.

Wait… hot leads, warm leads – what are they? Hot lead definition

The temperature of the lead indicates how interested they are in whatever you offer. There are different criteria that you can use to differentiate between them. However, at the event, you usually observe how a person acts around your stand.

A cold lead is the one with the lowest value. He is interested in a stand in general but not in anything in particular. A cold lead requires a great deal of work to become a customer.

A warm lead is a person who expressed an interest in your offer but is not ready to make a purchase at the moment. Warm leads also require some work, but they have a potential to become a customer faster and more often than a cold lead.

The most valuable leads are the hot leads. A hot lead is a person who is about to become a customer. Someone who is most likely to sign the agreement during or right after the event.

So how to qualify leads and prospects?

One of the greatest lead generation tips of all time is to ‘Learn how to qualify leads and prospects‘. And here’s an explanation why. You have set a target. You know exactly how many hot/ warm/ cold leads you want to get to make your trip to the event profitable. But how are you going to count the leads if you don’t know which is which?

I suggest that you set clear criteria to distinguish between them. It will affect the way you will measure the number of all kinds of leads and help you track your goals.

One simple trick to measure hot leads (and warm leads and cold leads) during an event

First, you are going to equip yourself with a smart technology that can measure different event activities. Let’s be honest. No one is capable to notice every person that passes by the stand during an event. No one can run manually a successful and precise lead qualification process if so much is happening around.

Second, you have to define what ‘hot leads’ means. It also applies to any other leads. And so you have:

Cold lead – a person who noticed your stand. Cold lead can be identified as a person who stopped for a while but didn’t make any further actions. The number of cold leads can be measured with beacons. Beacons communicate with smartphones (who doesn’t have one nowadays?) and provide you with the information about who and for how long stayed near your stand. If you are an organizer, you will have a free access to this data. If you are an exhibitor, ask the organizer to provide this information.

Warm lead – a person who might be interested in your offer. The next level of lead is a person who not only spend a while looking at your stand, but also interacted somehow. You have to put the lines very precisely. It might be, for example, the moment, when a person scans your QR code with Eventory Scanner, or when you scan their code. It means that they want to keep in touch and may become a paying customer.

Hot lead – a person who is ready to buy. Hot leads are the holy grail of any trade show. To extract them from a mass of other leads prepare a unique step that will distinguish hot leads from warm leads. The trick is to catch the moment when a person goes from ‘I want this’ to ‘I’m buying this’. My suggestion is to prepare a brief or survey that will collect consumer’s preferences. This way you will have both lead’s data and preferences. A perfect start for a personalized sales pitch with many cross-selling and up-selling propositions.

Wrap up

To count hot leads during an event you must have a hot lead definition – a clear picture of what a hot lead means. Then you have to adjust your actions and technology to count them in the real time during an event. Making a survey for those who are ready to buy whatever you are selling is a perfect way to get all the hot leads in one place – your database.

What are your tricks to qualify and count hot leads during an event? Share them with others on our Facebook group!