Back in the early days of computing, there was a popular saying, “Garbage in; garbage out!”  It’s still true today: if you collect garbage for leads, don’t expect anything but garbage to come out the other end.  What’s a pile of leads garbage?  That’s the pile of badge scans that have inaccurate contact information (phone and email are often incorrect) and are not qualified, just swiped. And don’t be fooled that your leads “are on a USB stick” or you “download them from the Internet”.  Garbage is garbage, be it on paper or electronic.

If you analyze any trade show’s demographics, you’ll likely find that no more than 20% of the attendees are your target.  If you promote an iPad giveaway and everyone gets scanned, then only 20% of those scans are worth anything.  But worse than that, those scans are just contacts, not leads.  To get sales to pay any attention to any leads …