Prospecting: Tradeshow Data

The Power of Tradeshow Data in Scientific Sales

As discussed in previous chapters, scientific tradeshows can be a high-value channel for sales and marketing teams targeting the scientific community. However, tradeshows and conferences also represent a significant investment in terms of both time and budget. To maximize the return on this investment, it is critical that your sales and marketing strategies align with the right events—those that attract your target audience and provide meaningful opportunities for networking and prospecting.

This chapter will explore how to identify relevant tradeshows and rank them based on alignment with your target research areas. Additionally, we will cover the various categories of tradeshow data—who is presenting, who is exhibiting, who is attending, and who is browsing the exhibition floor. Tools such as SciLeads will be discussed to help you make informed decisions on which events to prioritize for your scientific sales efforts.

Finding Relevant Tradeshows

With thousands of tradeshows, symposia, scientific meetings, and workshops occurring globally, identifying the right events to attend can be overwhelming. However, just as you prospect for researchers using keywords and areas of focus, the same approach can be applied to narrow down the most relevant tradeshows.

Keyword-Based Searches

Search event websites using keywords related to your products or services—found in presentation titles, poster descriptions, or panel discussions—to rank events by relevance. The more closely aligned an event’s topics are to your target audience, the higher the likelihood that attending will lead to valuable connections.

Event Themes and Topics

Major tradeshows often have themes that attract groups of scientists focused on specific research areas. For instance, a conference dedicated to mass spectrometry or genomics will draw attendees with similar research goals and challenges. Understanding these themes allows you to prioritize the events that best match your sales and marketing objectives.

Breaking Down Tradeshow Data into Four Key Categories

Tradeshow data can be categorized into four essential groups, providing critical insights into who you will meet and how to engage with them effectively.

Presenters

Those speaking on stages or in auditoriums are typically high-profile researchers, thought leaders, or key decision-makers. Presenters often arrive with a small group of colleagues from their labs or institutions, making them excellent networking opportunities. Their involvement indicates they are actively leading research efforts, and engaging them in conversation could unlock substantial purchasing opportunities.

Poster Authors

Poster sessions are valuable for identifying early-career researchers or mid-level scientists who are actively involved in hands-on research. Poster authors frequently browse the exhibition floor between sessions, proactively seeking new tools, technologies, and collaborations. These individuals may have purchasing influence or connections to decision-makers within their labs, making them ideal prospects for one-on-one discussions.

Exhibitors

Other exhibitors often come from companies with overlapping interests or product offerings. They attend the tradeshow specifically to meet new prospects, and connecting with them in advance via the event’s team can help you reach out to key departments. Identifying exhibitors can also reveal the targets of your competitors, enabling you to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Attendees

Although typically harder to identify, attendees are usually scientists, academics, or industry professionals interested in the event’s theme. Monitoring attendee lists (when available) or engaging in casual conversations can lead to unexpected yet valuable connections.

Challenges of Extracting and Using Tradeshow Data

While information about presenters, posters, and exhibitors is often freely available online, accessing and aggregating this data in a usable format can be challenging:

Scattered Data Sources

Browsing individual event websites, downloading PDF programs, and manually extracting relevant data can be a slow and inefficient process. For larger marketing teams, conducting tradeshow research this way is impractical, particularly when evaluating numerous events simultaneously.

PDF Formatting Issues

Many event programs are uploaded as PDFs, which makes them difficult to search and filter for relevant information. Manually extracting data from PDFs can lead to missed opportunities if key insights, such as presenter affiliations or poster titles, are buried within lengthy documents.

SciLeads: Simplifying Tradeshow Research and Maximizing ROI

Given the challenges of researching and organizing tradeshow data, SciLeads is an essential tool for sales and marketing teams looking to optimize their tradeshow strategy.

Aggregating Tradeshow Data

SciLeads collects and indexes data from a wide range of tradeshows, including information on presenters, poster authors, and exhibitors. Using a robust search functionality, you can search by keywords, event themes, or even specific researcher names to identify the most relevant events to attend.

Search Functionality

SciLeads allows you to search for tradeshows based on the topics, technologies, or research areas you are targeting. You can filter events by presenter topics, poster sessions, or exhibitors, which provides a comprehensive view of the opportunities each event presents.

Custom Alerts and CRM Integration

Similar to funding and publication data, SciLeads enables you to create custom alerts for upcoming events and relevant presenters, ensuring that you never miss an opportunity to engage. Additionally, tradeshow data can be exported in CSV format for further analysis or integration into your CRM system, helping you manage and track leads from specific events.

Leveraging Customer Data to Inform Event Decisions

Another strategy for selecting the right events is to analyze where your target customers already attend. If you’ve researched key prospects, you can cross-reference the events they typically participate in to ensure your presence at the right tradeshows.

Reverse-Engineering Event Attendance

By examining past tradeshows where your target customers have presented or exhibited, you can map out their event schedules. This ensures that you’ll be at the same conferences, allowing for face-to-face meetings and positioning you in front of other like-minded prospects that you may not have previously identified.

Competitive Insights: Leveraging Competitor Attendance

Understanding which tradeshows your competitors attend provides valuable competitive intelligence that can inform your event strategy.

Avoiding Competition

In some cases, it may be advantageous to avoid events where your competitors have a large presence, especially if the audience is small or highly targeted. Instead, attending tradeshows where your competitors are less active may allow you to dominate the conversation and attract more attention from prospective buyers.

Disrupting Competitors

Conversely, knowing where your competitors will be can help you strategically counter their efforts by positioning your brand at the same event. By showcasing your products or services to the same audience, you can counteract their messaging and engage directly with potential customers.

Pre-Event Meeting Scheduling and Post-Event Follow-Up

With access to comprehensive event data, your sales teams can proactively schedule meetings before attending a tradeshow, ensuring they maximize their time and efforts at the event.

Pre-Event Meeting Scheduling

Using event data provided by platforms like SciLeads, you can reach out to prospects or key opinion leaders well before the tradeshow begins. By scheduling meetings ahead of time, you ensure that you’ll have dedicated time with high-value attendees, improving your chances of meaningful engagement.

Using Event Attendance for Outreach

Even if your team isn’t attending a particular tradeshow, you can still utilize attendance data as a reason to engage. Reaching out to prospects after an event with questions like, “How was the conference?” or “What key trends did you notice?” can effectively start a conversation and set up a meeting. Event attendance creates a natural topic to break the ice and build rapport with your prospects.

Tradeshows as Strategic Sales Opportunities

Tradeshows present unique opportunities to engage with key prospects and decision-makers within the scientific community. By carefully selecting the right events and leveraging tradeshow data to your advantage, you can maximize your return on investment and create valuable in-person connections.

With tools like SciLeads, you can streamline the process of finding, analyzing, and ranking relevant tradeshows, allowing you to focus on building relationships and driving sales at the most impactful events. Whether you’re looking to meet presenters, poster authors, or exhibitors, SciLeads provides the insights needed to make informed decisions about which tradeshows will yield the greatest value for your sales and marketing teams.