Trade shows an industrial company can trace from booked meeting to named opportunity
Trade shows were among the largest marketing costs, yet no opportunity in the CRM could be traced to a show. Booked meetings, a fast handover and a source rule now link each show to what it opened.
- Challenge
Heavy trade-show spend with no opportunity in the CRM traceable to any show.
- Approach
Target lists, pre-booked demos, a fast handover and show-level attribution.
- Result
A show-level opportunity report that the calendar review now uses.
The situation
Industrial technology companies often spend heavily on stands, travel and freight, yet cannot say which show opened which opportunity. Leads reach sales long after the show as a spreadsheet with no source field, sellers log the resulting opportunities as their own, and deals referred by integrators lose the link entirely. At budget time each show is defended with anecdotes. Strong shows get cut alongside weak ones, and productive shows never get a proper meetings programme.
The question that mattered
How can the company make each trade show produce named buyer conversations and pipeline it can trace back to the show?
What we did
- 1
Set an agenda for each show
Build a target list from exhibitor, visitor and integrator profiles, focusing on plants and OEMs with expansion or retrofit signals.
- 2
Book meetings ahead of the show
Run personalised outreach to plant managers, manufacturing engineering heads and integrators, inviting them to a booked demo slot at the stand.
- 3
Hand over within an agreed window
Brief the stand team on booked visitors and capture walk-ups on a short form. Marketing passes each conversation to a named sales owner within the window agreed with sales.
- 4
Attribute and compare shows
Agree a source rule with sales and tag each meeting and resulting opportunity with its show, including integrator-referred deals. Build a show-level opportunity report for the calendar review.
What we delivered
The evidence and working documents the team kept.
- Show-by-show target lists of plants, OEMs and integrators
- Pre-show outreach sequences for engineering and operations roles
- Stand briefing pack and walk-up capture form
- CRM source rule and show tagging, agreed with sales
- Show-level opportunity report: meetings held, opportunities opened and their current stage
The outcome
Booked demos
set with named plants and integrators ahead of each show
Sales owners
pick up show conversations within the agreed window
Opportunities
carry their show as the CRM source, including integrator referrals
The calendar review
sets each show's budget from the opportunities it opened
When a show comes up for rebooking, marketing brings the meetings held and opportunities opened there, and sales confirms which are still live.
What changed in the GTM motion
Marketing builds each show's target list and books the meetings; sales owns follow-up within the agreed window. The show-level opportunity report is a standing item at the calendar review, and the source rule applies at every show.
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