Few marketing tactics offer a greater treasure trove of opportunity that trade shows. Sadly, few marketing tactics are mismanaged as often and as severely as trade shows. Walk the isles of any conference center in world and see the power of billions of marketing dollars hard at work to create exhibits that rival the sets of Broadway, yet the casts have no script, no point and no rehearsal.

I’m not sure why this is. For some reason booth staff have some kinds of plan-phobia. They expect to just show up wearing a logo-monogrammed polo shirt and have customers clamoring to spend their money. I’ve never seen this happen.

Trade shows are magazines with a pulse. Seminars are the articles and exhibits are the advertisements. Keep this in mind when you design your show strategy. Whatever action you want to stimulate through magazine ad is the same action you want to stimulate at a conference. The difference is you can get that response now, not later. And, unlike a magazine you can literally reach out to your prospect and grab them by the hand or the throat, depending on your particular engagement strategy.

Only expect to get out of a trade show what you would expect to get out of a good magazine ad. If you have the kind of product that can actually be sold through a magazine ad, you should consider selling at shows. If you all you can hope for is to generate leads for your product then just plan on generating leads at the show.

Most of the activity around tradeshows deals with the booth, the knick-knacks, the parties, the hotels, the travel, the brochures, the dinners, and all those little things that make it all happen. Many companies are quite adept at creating beautiful trade show booths and having the cutest little logoed toys anyone ever saw. Where they fail is the implementation of a concrete plan on how to properly engage, qualify and capture sales leads. Here are some guidelines to help you get started on the right foot:

Booth staff needs to have their act together if they are going to get it right. The best shows I’ve run have had almost ten hours of pre-show training. During this time we go over how where to stand, what to say, what to ask, how to record notes, how to capture leads and how to politely end the conversation with low-potential prospects.

-       Be prepared with an opener to engage prospects. It should be open-ended as in “what brings you to the show?” vs closed-ended “can I help you?”

-       Know which questions to ask to find out what the prospect needs and be ready to deliver a 30-second pitch.

-       Capture information on a lead card which will keep basic contact information, qualifying questions and some notes on next steps. A qualified lead is one that has enough information to both prioritize it in the sales process and next steps. A business card, by itself, is not a lead it is trash.

-       Invite other employees to do role-play with your booth staff. This is valuable rehearsal time and will get everyone more comfortable and more efficient.

Return on investment for trade shows is painfully difficult to measure. Ideally, you would track a lead through the final sale. I’ve never seen an organization where this is possible in any practical sense. It is better to measure a cost per lead. Take every penny you spend on a trade show and divide it by the number of qualified leads. This is easy to measure as long as you keep track of your costs. A good cost per lead will depend on your product. Paying $1,000 per lead might be okay if you are selling jets, but not if you are selling toothbrushes.

Brochures, knick-knacks and your own business cards have only one purpose. That purpose is to mark the end of the conversation and allow you to move on to the next person. Whatever you pass out, make sure it is as inexpensive as possible. Glossy brochures are total money-wasters at tradeshows. Resist the overwhelming temptation to bring them along. If the lead is a good one you will want to follow-up with that material after the show. “Take my card” is the easiest and least-expensive way to end a conversation with an attendee. Once you have collected qualifying information you should end the conversation as quickly and gracefully as possible.

Avoid giving product demos and talking, in detail, about the attendee’s interests or your product. You will always have time for this later, for now your job is to collect leads like crazy.