Electrical contractors made $8.3 billion in purchasing decisions at the Independent Electrical Contractors (IEC) 44th Annual Convention & Exposition last fall.
That’s big business for a show with just 74 vendors and about 700 attendees. Vendors entrusted their leads for what amounted to a year’s worth of business to personal digital assistants (PDAs).
As President of Expo & Meeting Resources, Arlington, VA, and show manager for IEC, Merrily Messina chose the NOMAD Mobile Lead Retrieval System from Dietze Enterprises Inc. in Chicago for two reasons. “No. 1, cost. And No. 2, Dietze was willing to let us use it,” she says. “A lot of companies don’t want to be involved with such a small show.”
IEC traditionally handles its own registration, and the show had never before provided a lead-retrieval system. Messina queried Dietze about services and learned about NOMAD, the company’s newest product. “We said, ‘Let us try it for you,’” she says.
Designed as an alternative to stationary devices, NOMAD is a Palm Pilot with a built-in barcode scanner and custom lead-retrieval software. The battery-powered unit is held six to eight inches from a name badge to scan the barcode, then the exhibitor can select qualifier codes from drop-down menus and add notes. After the show, Dietze downloads the data and matches the numbers with the registration database to deliver leads directly to exhibitors.
IEC paid $199 for the software to program one-dimensional barcodes for each registration number, as well as housing and travel expenses for one Dietze technician to be on-site during the expo. Exhibitors paid $175 to rent the devices and receive the leads in a printout or on a diskette within 72 hours after the show.
Messina promoted the lead-retrieval system in pre-show communications with exhibitors, and about 60 percent signed up. IEC distributed the units from the registration desk. The Dietze technician answered technical questions and collected the units at the end of the day.
“The exhibitors liked the unit’s ease of use,” says Messina. “It was unobtrusive, and they had no qualms about getting the barcode off the name badges. Because they’d never had anything for lead retrieval before, it was a real boon to them.”
The only problem, which was quickly resolved, cropped up during on-site installation of the registration software. Messina doesn’t know whether the glitch originated with the software or the computers, but one thing she’d do differently is be more involved in registration. Messina says that’s easier for an in-house show manager. “Independent show managers like me would want to be very involved with registration, getting the software in and installing it, as well as in the transition from office to on site,” she says.
Messina plans to use the NOMAD at next year’s expo. In fact, exhibitors who have already reserved space checked to make sure the service would be available again.
