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I Want My Leads and I Want Them Now! – Real Time Lead Management
©2005 by Carmen Long, Product Manager for American Exposition Technologies (reprinted with permission from the author)
When we talk about obtaining attendee information or as we refer to in our industry lead retrieval services, the trade show and exposition market has come a long way. From the noble business card exchange to carbon card press to manual hand-written notations; these rudimentary data gathering methods did served their purpose but, one thing was getting the leads, and another was to make use of it. Veterans in the industry may still remember coming back to the office and handing off the information to a secretary assistant, if they were lucky or processing the data themselves.
Fast forward to recent years and today’s lead retrieval world makes use of newer technologies such as, magnetically encoded cards, smart cards and barcode encoded badges combined with wireless readers and Internet connections. So, how is this technological interaction affecting the trade show industry? Well, let’s start with our need for instant gratification. Today’s society seeks instant results in just about everything we do and want; instant on-line payments, real time stocks and weather reports, real time football scores on ESPN’s website, and instant coffee! Lets face it, our life style is based on immediate results.
The lead retrieval business is following the same concept. Once the exhibitor finds that hot lead, he or she would like to make use of the data right away! Innovative technology such as Instant Leads, provided by American Exposition Technologies make this possible by providing exhibitors with a light-weight hand-held scanner which is utilized to read the identification barcode assigned to each attendee’s badge.
Once the barcode is scanned, the lead data is automatically sent wirelessly from the in-booth scanner directly to a data center at the show exhibitor service center. The data is then sent to a web server and made available to the exhibitor OR instantly sent one lead at a time to a preselected email address. Every batch of data is strategically encoded to ensure that gathered information is only accessible to its owner.
By making the data instantly accessible, the exhibitors and prospective clients are able to establish an immediate supplier-customer relationship by delivering rapid feedback, service, and client acknowledgement which is crucial in the sales environment. Sales management can use these tools to track their sales people, on-going lead collection and measure activity levels during a show. In this instance, personnel supervisors or managers can log into the website designated to receive the leads and review each lead as it is being collected on each of the scanners utilized by their sales people. One of the nice features about this utility is that the scanner identification number, collection date and time is embedded with each lead, thus; providing full activity feedback.
Making in-booth lead data instantly available to exhibitors will enable booth staff and sales management to measure real time, the quality and effectiveness of any trade show booth program. For more information contact:
Carmen Long, Product Manager
American Exposition Technologies
Ph: 714.712.7380
clong@expobadge.com
www.expobadge.com |
