BlogThree Technologies that Every Trade Show Planner Needs to Be Using

Mobile Apps, Social Media and LRS are Your Trade Show’s Best Friends

A few months ago, I was asked to plan the trade show logistics, including the email marketing, for a company.  It was the first time the company was exhibiting at the show, so a list of attendees to whom we could advertise had to be generated.   With the regulations about email blasting, bought lists and using opt-in methods on websites and emails, this would pose a challenge. Fortunately, show management was way ahead of me and invited me to install a mobile event app for the show. It was great! It gave me access to attendees, the ability to reach out to other vendors, advertise specials and learn about what the competition was planning.

Using technology to gain buzz is a great way to market your trade shows and events.

Mobile Event Apps

Mobile event apps are evolving and becoming are able to perform many more functions than only standard event information. Event planners can access attendee lists, advertise their speaking engagements, their booth, company profile and their giveaways. Some mobile event apps can create surveys to monitor the pulse of the attendees, which is helpful to any marketer.  App makers, such as CrowdCompass  and DoubleDutch are working toward making event planning easier.

Some of the benefits of using a mobile event app are:

• Who are the top speakers at a show
• Which types of booths draw the most attendance
• What are other’s using to drive traffic to their booths
• How event activities are rated
• Who the key influencers are
• What aspects of your event are most engaging

Social Media

In 2016, most savvy event planners know that Social Media has to be integrated into their marketing plans. No longer is posting a few lines on Face Book or a 140 character Tweet enough; images should now always be integrated into any social media platform. Of course, Instagram is based on pictures, so make sure to take and post immediately the happening at your trade show booth. Quick time lapsed videos of booth setup are a fun way to make the trade show experience interactive and drive traffic to your booth. Also, filming y our speaking engagements and posting them on your website as an educational social media into events has unlimited potential.

Create a social media calendar for pre, during and post shares; a lot of advertising prior, all the fun moments during-especially of the winner of your awesome raffle prize, and follow up after.

Encourage your team and clients to share, retweet and like your social media advertising. You can make this sharing easier by including a “Tweet this” button in your event app that prepopulates the hashtag.

For companies that are very active on social media consider using a large screen to stream all the hashtag conversations provide. These are extremely interactive and increase participation and followers.

Lead Retrieval Systems

By now, most exhibitors realize the importance of a Lead Retrieval System (LRS) to qualify leads.  Collecting business cards is a thing of the past and LRS are usually available with different features to suite your individual team’s needs.   LRS are badge scanners that retrieve registration information from an attendee’s badge.  The registration information is useful to salespeople and marketers as it contains name, company and email addresses. Most LRS have the technology to pre-set qualifying questions. With these qualifying questions, the generated leads are easily parsed to the correct department or salesperson after the show.

I have seen LRS come in all shapes and forms, form handheld scanners to mobile apps.  All of them collect data and have varying features.  Check with your upcoming trade show exhibitor prospectus to find out which LRS the show is using and by when to order the system.

By using technology that is either new to you or to the trade show industry, you increase your reach and sales.