Have you ever asked your reg vendor or lead retrieval company the No. 1 reason they get calls from attendees after a show? Most of them go something like this: “There was this booth — it was over by that bathroom on the left — and it had this really cool machine in it — and I think it had blue carpet. They swiped my badge, but no one ever got back to me. Can you tell me their name?”

Seriously, what kind of business model do we have in which this could happen?

For this reason, I’m fascinated by all the new technologies putting lead retrieval into  the hands of attendees rather than exhibitors.Whether by texting codes, beaming signals or scanning badges, attendees now decide what information they want to collect and when they want to access it. Yes, in some ways it’s no different than gathering brochures — but I won’t leave these in my hotel room. They’re all saved for me on a PURL (personal URL) page or a free account on a proprietary system. And these new technologies don’t shut out the exhibitor. Exhibitors will know who you are, what you download from them, when you read it, how long you spend reading it, who you might forward it to and how often you go back to it. As much as six months after an event, leads can still be coming to the exhibitor if people are still accessing the docs. Better yet, the lead is tracked to your show. How many times are sales made months after an event that we get no credit for?

Show management has access to the metrics, as well. Imagine being on a booth sales call when an exhibitor tells you he did no business at your show last year. You can whip out the 229 leads and ask him why they weren’t converted to sales. (Of course, I’m sure you’ll ask it in a much more professional tone.) You’ll also know if exhibitors in a certain hall get more docs accessed than exhibitors somewhere else. Or if specific types of attendees download more than others.

This is one of the new technologies exploding in our industry that I really think has the power to revolutionize what we’re doing and make our events so valuable that no one has to question the ROI again.
 

Donna Sanford, Publisher