To follow up on trade show leads, sort every scan into a real conversation or a passing contact within 24 hours, send each
conversation a personal follow-up within 48 hours, and give every lead one named owner with a
due date.

Then review the list at day 7 and again at day 30, while you can still see which
leads were worked and which stayed in a spreadsheet.

This page is about the follow-up process. Measuring what the booth returned, with the full
exhibiting cost and the ROI formula, is covered on the
[trade show ROI page](https://eventiq.io/md/event-roi/trade-show-roi).

## How do you follow up on trade show leads?

Split follow-up into 4 jobs, each with its own deadline, so that when leads go unanswered
you can see which job was missed.

1. At the booth, the rep adds what the visitor said to the scan. The scanner only records the
   badge.
2. Someone sorts the scans into conversations and passing contacts, so the two groups get
   different follow-up.
3. Every lead gets one owner and a date for the next touch.
4. The leads land in the CRM attached to the show, so an opportunity that opens 3 months
   later can still be traced back to the booth.

Most of this is set up before the doors open. If the grading, the routing rule, and the first
email templates are ready in advance, the team can spend the first day back calling people.

## Who owns trade show follow-up?

Marketing usually pays for the booth and receives the lead file. Sales holds the relationships
and the calendar. A plan that only says "sales will follow up" leaves no single person
responsible for any particular name.

Write a routing rule before the show and give it to everyone staffing the booth. This version
fits most B2B teams:

| Lead type | Owner | First touch due |
|---|---|---|
| Existing customer or open opportunity | The account owner in the CRM | 24 hours |
| New company, conversation with an agreed next step | The territory or segment rep | 24 hours |
| New company, conversation without a next step | Sales development rep | 48 hours |
| Badge scan with no conversation | Marketing, through a post-show email sequence | 7 days |

Two more names belong in the plan. An operations owner is responsible for the file: getting
the export out of the lead capture app, cleaning it, and loading it into the CRM on time. A
sales manager reviews follow-up status at day 7 and day 30. Keep both roles away from the booth
lead if you can; that person comes back to a week of missed work, and the review slips first.

If you organize the show rather than exhibit, exhibitors often receive their lead retrieval
data through your vendor. State in the exhibitor or
[sponsorship prospectus](https://eventiq.io/md/templates/sponsorship-prospectus) when the files will arrive and in
what format. Every deadline on this page starts from the moment the file is in hand.

## Sort every scan before anyone sends an email

A badge scan shows that a person was at the booth. It does not show whether they asked about
pricing or stopped for a coffee. If both get the same email, the conversation is wasted and the
passer-by has one more reason to unsubscribe.

Agree on 3 grades before the show. Reps set the grade at the moment of the scan, in the
notes or qualifier field that lead capture apps generally provide:

| Grade | What happened at the booth | What the rep records |
|---|---|---|
| A | A conversation about a specific problem, with a timeline or next step agreed | The problem in the visitor's words, the next step, and the date promised |
| B | A real conversation and visible interest, with no timeline or next step | The topic discussed and the visitor's role in a purchase |
| C | A scan with little or no conversation: demo crowd, giveaway, badge swap | The grade only |

The rep who had the conversation assigns the grade, at the booth. A grade assigned later from
job title and company size measures fit on paper. It will miss the operations director who
said her team is rebuilding its renewal process before Q2.

Company fit still counts once the file is in the CRM. A B lead from a target account can move
up, and an A lead from a company outside your market can move down. Record the adjusted grade in
a separate field so the booth grade stays visible for the day 30 review.

## Keep the conversation attached to the lead

A rep who had 40 conversations over 2 days will not remember most of them by the flight
home. Without notes, the follow-up email says "great to meet you at the show", the same line the
visitor gets from every booth they passed.

These habits keep the context on the record:

- Give reps the same short prompts for every conversation: problem, current approach, timeline,
  agreed next step. Reps are more likely to fill in four labeled fields than an empty notes box.
- Enter the note within minutes. When the booth is too busy to type, a 30-second voice memo
  attached to the scan holds the detail until evening.
- Run a 15-minute debrief at the end of each show day, where each rep goes through their A
  and B leads and fixes grades and notes.
- Before the show, run a test export and confirm that the grade and notes fields come out of the
  lead capture app and map to fields in your CRM. A load that keeps names and emails and drops
  the notes loses the column the follow-up depends on.

The first follow-up should quote the conversation back to the visitor. "You mentioned the
renewal process rebuild before Q2, so here is the checklist I described" gives them a reason to
reply. C-grade visitors left nothing to quote, so they go into an email sequence instead.

## How fast should you follow up after a trade show?

Contact your A leads within 24 hours of the show closing, every other real conversation within
48 hours, and badge-only scans within 7 days. The visitors you spoke with also spoke with other
exhibitors, and a reply that refers to their actual problem stands out from the thank-you
emails arriving the same week.

| When | What happens | Who |
|---|---|---|
| During the show | Grades and notes captured at the scan; evening debrief; meetings agreed at the booth sent as calendar invites the same day | Booth reps |
| First 24 hours after close | Lead file exported and cleaned of test scans and staff badges, then loaded into the CRM with grade and notes; A leads get a personal email or call | Operations owner, account owners |
| First 48 hours | Every B lead gets a personal follow-up that refers to the conversation; every lead has an owner and a due date in the CRM | Territory reps, sales development |
| Day 7 | C leads enter the post-show email sequence; A and B leads with no logged activity are reassigned | Marketing, sales manager |
| Day 30 | Status recorded for every A and B lead (contacted, meeting held, opportunity created, or disqualified with a reason); second touch sent to anyone who has not replied | Sales manager, marketing |

After day 30, leads that are still open join your normal nurture and pipeline reviews. How the
show gets credit for the deals they turn into is a measurement question, and the rules for it
are on the [event marketing attribution page](https://eventiq.io/md/event-marketing-attribution).

The day 7 review is easy to drop, because by then the show feels finished. All it needs is
one filtered CRM view: A and B leads from the show with no activity logged, grouped by owner.
Go through that list in the weekly sales meeting, before those leads sit untouched until
someone asks about the show at quarter end.

## Why do most trade show leads go cold?

Leads usually go cold at a gap in the follow-up process. Each gap below leaves a trace you can
check in your own data:

- The file arrives late. The export takes days, someone has to clean it, and by then the reps
  are booked with other meetings. Compare the date the leads were loaded with the show's closing
  date.
- Nobody owns the list. Count the leads that still had no owner in the CRM at 48 hours.
- Every lead gets the same email. Check whether your A and B leads have a personal first touch
  logged, or only the thank-you blast.
- The context stayed on the scanner. Look at the share of A and B leads with an empty notes
  field.
- One email goes out, then nothing. Count the leads that got a second touch by day 30.

Percentages about how many trade show leads never get a follow-up circulate widely, often without
a named study behind them. Your own number is more useful: at day 30, pull every A and B lead and
count the ones with no logged activity. The checks above tell you where those leads stopped.

## Tie the leads to deals in Salesforce

Follow-up ends with a meeting or a disqualification, but the record of what the show produced
runs until an opportunity opens or closes. By then nobody remembers where the contact
came from unless the CRM holds it.

If you run Salesforce, create a campaign for the show before the event. Load the leads as
campaign members with a member status that separates a scan from a conversation (for example
Scanned, Conversation, Meeting held), and keep the booth grade as a field on the lead or contact.
When one of those people turns up on an opportunity, connect the opportunity to the show campaign
under the rule your sales and marketing leaders agreed on. A deal that opens in month four is
then still traceable to the booth.

The same link feeds the measurement work that comes later: the pipeline and closed revenue you
compare with exhibiting cost on the [trade show ROI page](https://eventiq.io/md/event-roi/trade-show-roi), and the
follow-up status you record in the [post-event report template](https://eventiq.io/md/blog/post-event-report-template).
How campaigns, campaign members, and campaign influence connect to opportunities is explained on
the [Salesforce integration page](https://eventiq.io/md/integrations/salesforce).

## Trade show lead follow-up checklist

Copy this into your show plan.

### Before the show

- Routing rule written: lead type, owner, first touch deadline
- A, B, and C grade definitions shared with every booth rep
- Note prompts set up in the lead capture app: problem, current approach, timeline, next step
- Test export confirms that grade and notes come out and map to CRM fields
- Salesforce campaign created, with member statuses
- Personal follow-up templates drafted for A and B leads; email sequence ready for C leads
- Operations owner named for the lead file; manager named for the day 7 and day 30 reviews

### At the show

- Grade and note entered at the scan, or a voice memo attached
- Fifteen-minute debrief at the end of each day
- Meetings agreed at the booth sent as calendar invites the same day

### Within 24 hours of close

- Export cleaned of test scans, staff badges, and duplicate rows
- Leads loaded into the CRM with grade, notes, owner, and campaign
- A leads contacted personally

### Within 48 hours

- Every B lead contacted with a reference to the conversation
- No lead left without an owner and a due date

### Day 7

- C leads enrolled in the post-show sequence
- A and B leads with no activity reassigned

### Day 30

- Status recorded for every A and B lead: contacted, meeting held, opportunity, or disqualified with a reason
- Second touch sent to anyone who has not replied
- Opportunities connected to the show campaign
- Count of A and B leads with no activity added to the post-event report

## Where EventIQ fits

EventIQ replaces nothing. It connects on top of the platforms you already run, and for this page
the connection that matters is Salesforce: deals, stages, and close dates link to an event
through a campaign relationship you confirm, and they sync every 4 hours.

Ask any vendor, including us, which of these it holds in the product rather than on a slide: the
full cost of the event, the ROI figure itself, and one person counted once across sources. The
follow-up process in this article is the one you run before those deals exist.

---

HTML version: https://eventiq.io/blog/trade-show-leads