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What is pre-show appointment setting?
Outbound that fills your booth calendar before the show starts: dedicated callers work your target-account list and the show's audience in the weeks before the event, warming accounts and booking specific meeting slots at your booth or nearby. Instead of hoping the aisle delivers the right people, your team walks in with a schedule of qualified conversations - and the booth becomes the venue, not the strategy.
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Why do trade show leads go cold?
Capacity and timing. The team that worked the booth flies home to a full inbox, badge scans sit in a CSV, and by the time anyone calls, the moment has passed - industry research puts it bluntly: up to 80% of trade show leads never receive any follow-up (Exhibit Surveys), and companies that follow up within 24 hours convert at 6-9x the rate of those who wait a week. The failure isn't the show; it's that nobody staffed the 48 hours after it.
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What does a trade show meeting program cost?
The same published prices as every Alleyoop program: $5,250, $10,000, or $14,750 per month, flat - and a single Lift program can be pointed at your show calendar: pre-show booking in the weeks before each event, follow-up sprints in the weeks after. Against a mid-size exhibitor's $10,000-$30,000 per-show spend on booth, travel, and logistics, the program is the part that determines whether the rest of it produces pipeline.
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How far before a show should the program start?
Six weeks is the working minimum: enough time to build the target list from the show's audience and your ICP, warm the accounts with air cover, and book the calendar in the final two weeks when attendees plan their schedules. Booking starts too late at most companies because the booth logistics eat the runway - the space is booked months out, the meeting engine days out.
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Does this work for small booths and regional shows?
Often better. At a regional show, twenty pre-booked meetings can be the difference between a table that gets walked past and the busiest ten feet on the floor - and smaller shows produce leads at lower cost. The qualifying question isn't booth size; it's whether your deal economics clear the bar (roughly $10K+ a year per account) and whether someone can work the meetings booked.
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Can you run just the post-show follow-up?
Yes. If the show already happened and the badge scans are aging, a follow-up sprint works every lead by phone while the memory is warm, qualifies against your standard, and books the meetings your team didn't have capacity to chase. It's also, honestly, the best trial of the whole system: you already paid for the leads - the sprint just determines whether that money comes back as pipeline.
