This article has been written by Isaac Shalev*

The exhibition industry in the world is known for its conservatism. Something revolutionary is needed to convince tradeshow organizers to use new technologies.

This need is especially essential due to the recognition that the ROI of an event depends largely on its leads and matchmaking potential.

The industry has been stuck with different models of lead tracking devices that scan data from business cards or exhibitors’ name tags.

The question is what is their value? Our experience shows: very little.

Why?

Because it does not indicate the most important question “Why did one visit our booth? Is he serious? Was he just passing here?”

Remember me – Remember you

Exhibitors do not know what interested visitors in their exhibit, and for what offerings would visitors be interested to receiving more information and updates.

Even if the exhibitor bothered to make a record of the things that interested any specific visitor, it still requires cross check and performing system integration between the CRM system and the leads providing system.

The visitor, on the other hand needs to remember all the expositions and products he visited and was interested in and the contacts he should be in touch with. There is no way one could completely remember all this at the end of an exhibition day. Ultimately, it does not work.

Who is responsible for the ROI?

Exhibitors as well as visitors want to measure their Return on Investment (ROI) as a major decision as to whether they should be visitors or exhibitors at an exhibition.

The one supposed to present information to exhibitors and visitors is the exhibition organizer.

But what can the exhibition organizer do if he doesn’t have the information?

For example:

Exhibitor will ask at a medical exhibition, how many doctors visited the exhibition and in what products were they interested? The organizer will be able to answer the first part of the question but as to the second part, he has no indication – yet.

And this is the question to which the answer is most relevant for the exhibitor to be able to evaluate the ROI of the exhibition.

The Smart Matchmaking concept

The organizer can supply these answers, but first he must adopt the concept that all relevant information is available but scattered and needs to be bundled up in one package.

In order to do it, what is needed a smart software with logarithms capable of analyzing all the collected information and translate it into operative data.

A tool of this sort exists today. Its development was made possible with the understanding that the key to gain exhibitors’ and visitors’ satisfaction lies in the products exhibited in a fair, and the ability to measure the interest they awake in different visitors.

Simply: the innovative system is based on assembling profiles of users, on the basis of the products they are interested in and creating a match between them and the exhibitors.

Smart matchmaking is the new concept that will increase the ROI by high percentages.

Can exhibitors know who missed their booth?

If up until now, an exhibitor was able to record details of interested visitors in single figure percentages, with the new system the percentages can be double figures.

This means a revolution in terms of ROI calculations.

On what ground is such a declaration based?

The smart matchmaking concept allows organizers to collect the information of all product interests of each and every visitor in the exhibition and.. In real time..

This information is automatically sent to the attended exhibitors. More: the organizer has the information of products each exhibitor shows. He also owns the knowledge of exhibits of interest that visitors missed to attend due to similar products. What remains now is for the system to cross check the information – which it does easily – and for the organizer to guide and navigate the visitor to the unattended booths by pressing a button.

This new reality, in which the exhibitor receives the details of everyone who had visited his exhibit, and the details of all those who did not visit his exhibit but qualify as potential clients, creates a reliable basis for calculating quality leads.

These details appear in a systemized manner on the organizer’s website and every exhibitor can access, using a user name and password. He can download the information at any given moment, during and after the exhibition.

Smart phone application

Technically, the visitors’ products of interest collection, is done by a smart phone application specially designated for the exhibition. The application stores the whole history of the visit in the user’s phone’s memory.

All activities done by the visitor, with the use of the application, are transmitted to the organizers’ server. The exhibitor receives the specific activities at his own show, and the visitor his specific data.

Added value to the Smart Matchmaking system is the ability to create business connections between visitors. This is a Social Business Community platform, with high income potential for organizers.

We shall expand on that in a separate article.

One can watch how the system works at an exhibition on www.expomatch.org and the video clip www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Si8ReTF7_8

For additional information: izakc@enetcom.org

* The author of the book “Exhibitions – 1440 Minutes of Success or Failure in exhibitions” and an independent exhibition organizer

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ecoXpress is a revolutionary new system that removes the need for exhibitors to print and ship pallet-loads of brochures to events; saving marketing budgets and the environment. Instead, visitors quickly and painlessly select an exhibitor’s digital brochures or information most relevant to them on an intuitive and interactive touchscreen and instantly email it to their inbox.

The system – quickly snapped up for use at exhibitions by leading brands including GSK, GE and Honeywell – not only saves money (and trees) through the reduction of printing and shipping costs but also provides invaluable data capture and data analytics, enabling exhibitors to more effectively target their post-event sales activity.

Oliver Richardson, DB Systems Sales and Marketing Director commented “ecoXpress solves a number of key exhibiting issues, and the response from clients has been extremely positive – exhibitors love the data capture which ensures that follow-up is targeted and therefore more efficient, and it’s invaluable for visitors because it means they receive all the info digitally, making it easily searchable, file-able and of course sharable”

In addition to housing an unlimited selection of brochures or product information, ecoXpress can also be configured to include video demonstrations or additional data capture questions. Alastair Reece, Head of Development of ecoXpress said “ecoXpress is fully customisable and brandable and can be used on multiple devices and platforms, so an exhibition stand could have touch-screens that enable the visitor to help themselves, but it can also run on an ipad so each sales person can run through demonstrations with the visitor, then select brochures to email instantly.”

A key feature of the system is its data capture functionality. Chris Martin, EMEA PR Manager, Honeywell Europe, commented “The ecoXpress system gives us absolute continuity across the many shows at which we exhibit and ensures that our customers are able to drill down into the information they require and have it sent directly to them. Our sales teams love the slickness of the system and our customers appreciate not having to take armfuls of brochures away from the stand.”

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