Scientific Tradeshow Success

You spend budget on events – but are they getting you results? How do you find the right scientists at the conference who are relevant for your products? And how do you stand out, and get remembered by them?

In this session we covered how to get the best ROI and generate real leads this conference season.

We used SFN / Neuroscience in Washington DC as our example – but you can apply this to every show.

Notes on some of the key points we covered below:

• Finding the right shows: should I use Google, AI, or SciLeads to find relevant scientific tradeshows?
• How to find relevant people at the scientific tradeshow
• Pre-conference outreach – how to email scientists before an event
• Holding events at scientific tradeshows
• Getting the most value from your poster or talk at a scientific conference
• Attending local scientific shows – without a booth
• Peacocking – how to be memorable and increase engagement at conferences
• The best freebies or swag to have at science tradeshows
• Using competitions to pre-qualify leads
• How to make networking and notes easy at science conferences
• Best way to follow up leads after science tradeshows

Finding the right shows: should I use Google, AI, or SciLeads to find relevant scientific tradeshows?

Using Google or AI to find relevant scientific events can be difficult, because they will prioritize those with your keyword in the name. For example, if you’re looking for Alzheimer’s researchers Google and AI may not find SFN / Neuroscience, even though this is the premier show for that field – simply because it doesn’t contain the keyword in the event name.

By using SciLeads you can search through the actual presentations and posters, to see what people are really talking about at the event. Even if you are not a SciLeads customer, they will give you a free report on the best events for a given keyword here.

How to find relevant people at the scientific tradeshow

After choosing an event, its important to find the relevant people there – because not all of the crowd will fit your niche ICP. You can do this manually or with specialized tools.

To manually search for relevant individuals going to a scientific conference, the online abstracts or LinkedIn are the best options. You’ll search for either your keyword, or the event hashtag, but will then need to note the names and separately research their broader work to understand how relevant they are. Tracking this in a spreadsheet is the best method, but it is time consuming.

You can try AI to find relevant individuals, but often it hasn’t got access to (or had time to ingest) the abstracts. We tested one LLM, asking it for scientists working on Alzheimer’s who are going to SFN / Neuroscience 2026 – and it returned just 3 names. In contrast, the same AI with the SciLeads plugin returned 3,290 names – and gives you access to their emails and LinkedIn profiles too. This is because the show data has been properly curated and annotated for AI interpretation, and because SciLeads is able to broaden the search to the scientists’ other work – they might not be talking about Alzheimer’s at SFN, but they did just get a grant for work on it.

Learn more about how the SciLeads LLM connectors work here.

Pre-conference outreach – how to email scientists before an event

Doing specific outreach to relevant people before the event is important – those who do report higher happiness with their tradeshow ROI. You need to personalize that outreach to make sure its actually opened, read, and acted on. This also gives you a chance to segment the audience, giving different offers to different groups – for example inviting academics to your poster, but pharma scientists to a dinner.

To personalize the emails, use the scientist’s poster, paper, or talk name in the subject line – this immediately shows you’ve actually looked at their work, and are reaching out for a relevant reason. The exact structure of an outreach email we have covered before, see our previous sessions Cold Email Clinic here, and Psychology of Cold Outreach to Scientists here.

Holding events at scientific tradeshows

One great way to really build relationships with your ICPs is through events. Sometimes putting your science tradeshow budget towards a dinner or behind the bar is better spent than on a booth. Advertise your event through many channels (LinkedIn posts, email to relevant ICPs, and flyers at the event with the start time, map, and what to expect).

One important thing is to research what other events are usually on at this show. For example PacBio hosted huge parties with chart-topping artists at ASHG for many years (Maroon 5, Macklemore, Flo Rida…!) and trying to compete with that is just not worth it!

Getting the most value from your poster or talk at a scientific conference

If you’ve been accepted for a poster or talk at a conference as a provider, make sure you make the absolute most of the opportunity.

• Invite relevant scientists to your poster or talk
• Post about it on LinkedIn (even film a quick talking head video to introduce it)
• Take tonnes of photos
• Repurpose the content into a webinar the month after – you can advertise it with “as seen at SFN” etc, to demonstrate that it is worthy scientific content. This also gives you a great reason to follow up (hey I wasn’t sure if you caught our presentation at SFN, but you can catch it online here…)

Attending local scientific shows – without a booth

If you have a modest sales and marketing budget, or if you’re wanting to test out new conferences, just going as an attendee is a great choice – and you can still generate leads this way. You can use all the same tips above (find the show, find the people, reach out) — just offer to meet for coffee.

One laboratory supplier did this for the IUCr conference – using SciLeads to narrow down the 1,400 attendees to 300 which fit his niche. Of these he got 150 emails opened, and 50 replies – leading to back to back meetings without any booth or presentation.

You can find local shows in your city – SciLeads publishes a full list of scientific conferences twice a year, so even if you’re not a customer you can check this out.

Access the full list of scientific tradeshows for this year here.

Peacocking – how to be memorable and increase engagement at conferences

When you’re at the event, everybody is busy and having lots of conversations – so finding a way to stand out and be memorable is important.

Visual cues are instantly recognizable, and keeping the same ones across events makes sure you’re building that rapport and familiarity over time. For example, keeping your hair and clothes the same at each event, or having a unique and recognizable trait. We love “Scot the Scot’s” yellow kilt, Rizwan Chaudhery’s orange hoody, and Christina McClure’s purple blazer. Each of them ALSO have that visual cue in their LinkedIn profile pic – so when they add their leads as connections, that familiarity is already there.

The peacocking does not have to be unique to you – the whole team at SciLeads wear the same branded polos. This means even if it’s different people at different events, you know they’re from SciLeads. Uniforms on a booth are also really helpful to signal to prospects that you do work here, and instantly show if you’re speaking to a customer or colleague (so you can be interrupted!).

The best freebies or swag to have at science tradeshows

It’s confirmed – scientists will come to your booth if you have good freebies (yes, we really did ask them – watch it back here). Categories that always do well are useful stuff, or kids stuff. Useful things might be multi-chargers, good quality bags… things people really will keep around their house for years. Kids stuff like plushies or toys are great for parents, they’ll be grateful they don’t have to shop at the airport before getting home!

Keep cheaper items like pens for students or people less relevant, and don’t be afraid to make people work for the good stuff – a cheeky “trade you for a badge scan?” after you’ve had a proper chat is just fine for your bigger items.

Using competitions to pre-qualify leads

Competitions for larger prizes give scientists a good reason to come to your booth – and you can even use these to pre-screen people. Don’t advertise the competition openly, and instead email only qualified ICPs about it (using SciLeads to see which scientists fit your keywords, and have funding!). This way anybody coming up to the booth asking about the competition is effectively qualifying themselves.

For competition prizes, Amazon vouchers actually do the best. They are relevant to everybody, across ages, geographies, interests – unlike some more showy prizes (eg Apple Watch rules out android users, Lego might not interest everyone…).

How to make networking and notes easy at science conferences

Make sure you’ve set up your phone so networking and note-taking (and therefore your follow-ups!) are easy. Set a QR code for your LinkedIn profile as the lock screen, so people can instantly add you without cards.

For notes and follow-ups, get your favorite AI on your phone, and connect it to your CRM and SciLeads. While you’re talking to someone, you can quickly search their name (even via a photo of their badge) and get context about their scientific work from SciLeads, and your relationship to them from your CRM. Practice this before you go, and even set up a custom GPT for events so it knows what you want from just a photo. You can also dictate your notes into the AI after each conversation, while it’s fresh, and either sync these to the CRM immediately or use them when you get home.

Best way to follow up leads after science tradeshows

After you’ve put in the work, time, and budget to go to a show, be memorable, meet relevant people – do NOT mass email “thanks for coming to our booth” and call it a day. Generic follow-ups undo all the work you put in to build actual rapport. Instead, keep applying those same rules to personalize follow-ups to include their work, and how you fit into it.

Yes, personalization still applies in your follow ups!

See our previous session The Psychology of Cold Outreach to Scientists here.

As well as people you spoke to, follow up those you missed – addressing that in the message (“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to chat, but I saw your poster on <topic> and I’d love to talk this week instead”).

This kind of personalization takes work, but there’s increasing numbers of people automating this through SciLeads API or LLM connectors – if you want to test it out for your next show ask us about getting set up.

Finally, for an EVEN deeper dive on getting the most value as a provider at science tradeshows and conferences, check our other blog here.