Lead Liaison

How to Create a Touchless Scavenger Hunt for your Trade Show

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How to Create a Touchless Scavenger Hunt for your Trade Show

If you’re looking to gamify your trade show with a scavenger hunt, you’ve come to the right place.

It’s easy to build a touchless scavenger hunt that operates in a live and virtual environment. In this article we cover why touchless is important and how to truly implement touchless, what you need for your scavenger hunt, and why you should consider a scavenger hunt for your next event.  

How to Implement a Touchless Experience

Bring Your Own Device (also known as BYOD): Attendees can use their existing mobile devices for the experience, whether they’re at the live event or participating virtually. Attendees don’t have to download an app either. They can use the built-in, native features included with most modern smartphones to scan QR codes to collect prizes/points. 

QR Codes: QR codes keep the experience completely digital. QR codes (what Lead liaison calls Waypoints) can be positioned in stands or stuck to equipment anywhere in your booth, or displayed on a computer screen for virtual attendees. 

Digital Leaderboards: A digital leaderboard keeps track of collected points to tally winners. Digital leaderboards can be displayed on a large screen at your event or accessible in your virtual platform. 

By allowing attendees to use their own devices, deploying QR codes, and leveraging digital leaderboards organizers can create a truly touchless scavenger hunt experience. 

7 Things you Need for your Scavenger Hunt

To pull off an amazing contactless scavenger hunt experience you’ll need to prepare the following artifacts and strategies:

  1. Directions: Think about how you’ll lead attendees to different clues and/or what clues you’ll give them. Engage exhibitors to understand what item/object they’ll want to draw the attendee too to come up with clues. Since we’re aiming for a touchless experience, post your directions to the scavenger hunt on a landing page for your event and consider distributing it via email to attendees. You can also create a PDF with instructions and use a QR code to access the PDF. Lead liaison provides a pre-event marketing platform if you need assistance.

  2. Exhibitor Buy-In: Depending on your setup, you might need participation from exhibitors. Your exhibitors might offer a treasure, prize, or artifact for visiting their booth. Keep in mind though, you don’t always need a booth as one of the stops on the scavenger hunt. You can use different areas of your event (live or virtual) that might need more traffic or eyeballs. When working with exhibitors, understand what they want to offer to ensure consistency with your clues. Since the scavenger hunt will drive traffic to each stop, consider monetization opportunities with your exhibitors. In summary, make sure you’ve got your exhibitors lined up and in support of your program.

  3. Rewards / Prizes: Consider what, if any, prizes you want to offer attendees at each stop or for your scavenger hunt winners. Exhibitors could also offer prizes at each stop on the attendees journey. Depending on how you configure your winners, you can also provide prizes to winners once they complete the scavenger hunt. Consider offering digital prizes, such as digital gift cards to keep the experience touchless and to appease virtual attendees. Digital gift cards will give you a homogenous experience across live and virtual. Also consider offering a digital gift card cash value, where winners can spend their cash at 100s of different locations, ranging from Starbucks, Foot Locker, AirBnB, lululemon, and many more coveted brands.

  4. Waypoints: Each “waypoint” is a stop in the scavenger hunt journey. The waypoints are displayed via QR codes. Think about where you want to place each Waypoint. Waypoints could be used at exhibitor booths, anywhere in your virtual environment, at the registration desk, lobbies, cafeterias, social events, on a human beings shirt, and more. Each Waypoint can be assigned a different number of points. Waypoints that are harder to find might be worth more value to the attendee. Once a Waypoint is scanned it instantly reveals points, an optional game to deepen the experience, or a smart form to collect custom data. Data collected might be of value to your exhibitor, and another upsell opportunity for you.

  5. Global Leaderboard: Consider where and how you’ll display winners, if at all. Leaderboards should be customizable to position a sponsor (a monetization opportunity) or include branding to match your look/feel and message. Leaderboards are accessed via a web browser link. They can be displayed on the big screen at your event or iFramed into your virtual environment. Leaderboards refresh in near real-time to provide instant gratification. Some advanced leaderboards have the ability to trigger certain actions when leaders surpass point thresholds, so give some thought into how you want to handle that.

  6. Winner Strategy: Well, you’ve got options! With a customizable scavenger hunt platform you’re able to announce winners in multiple ways. For example, you could announce winners at the end of each day (or for the first X days), which would encourage attendees to complete the scavenger hunt quickly. You could also announce winners at the end of your event, or give the top X winners on the leaderboard a reward. Instead of having an equal amount of points for each stop, consider varying your point system. Harder to find items might be worth more value, whereas easier to find items might be worth less.

  7. Monetization Strategy: Your scavenger hunt could be a revenue line item driver for your event, resulting in increased profit. Exhibitors will find value in being a stop on the scavenger hunt. They might want to invest as well.


    Here are a few ways you can monetize the scavenger hunt:

  • Exhibitor fee for participation
  • Additional exhibitor fee for a gamification experience that retains the attendee at the booth for a longer period of time
  • Sponsorship opportunities within games that play behind each Waypoint
  • Sponsorship opportunities on the global leaderboard
  • Sponsorship opportunities as the “host” of the scavenger hunt
  • Sponsor-endorsed or provided prizes with their branding
  • Custom branded Waypoints with sponsor logos 

Why Use a Scavenger Hunt

If you’re contemplating the use of a scavenger hunt at your event, consider the benefits of having one. Here’s a summary of the 12 reasons why it’s great to host a scavenger hunt:

  1. Used in Hybrid Environments: Modern day scavenger hunts are built to work in a hybrid world, with both live events and virtual events. 

  2. Networking: Scavenger hunts can be a great ice breaker for exhibitors. It helps connect people with one another. Consider adding a Waypoint to a human! A key person or host at your event to foster more interaction.

  3. Passive Experience: When attendees arrive exhibitors aren’t necessarily interrupted, but they have an option to engage with the steady flow of attendees visiting each Waypoint. This non-intrusive way allows attendees to further engage with an exhibitor’s services where they see fit, and exhibitors to engage with attendees as time permits.
      
  4. Brand Promotion: Whether you’re promoting your event, sponsors, or exhibitors there are plenty of ways to do so across each Waypoint, stop in the scavenger hunt, leaderboards, games, and more.

  5. Taps into Innate Desire to Win: People love to win. People love to compete. It’s in our nature. They also love to get rewards and prizes. All of the innate concepts are presented with a well orchestrated scavenger hunt.

  6. Nothing to Download: With a touchless scavenger hunt there’s nothing to download or come in contact with. Attendees use their own devices to access Waypoints and clues/instructions. This reduces complexity which fosters adoption and ease of use at your event. Your goal is to maximize participants.

  7. Attendees Spend More Time: You’re setting up your event to provide value to exhibitors, attendees, and sponsors. With a scavenger hunt, participants spend more time on the show floor or in your virtual environment searching for artifacts. That means more time spent and invested with event constituents.

  8. Monetization Opportunity: This ones pretty simple, you can make more money!

  9. Deepen Education: Each Waypoint can have a tailored experience behind it. The experience could be entertaining, simple, or educational. Educational opportunities include trivia, a version of Jeopardy, a swiping game, and much more. Educational experiences help reinforce messaging and give exhibitors additional opportunities to increase brand awareness while transferring knowledge.

  10. Collect Data that Matters: After attendees scan a Waypoint QR code, they might be prompted to enter a brief amount of information into a form, such as name and email, to register their points. Alternatively, exhibitors could leverage smart forms to collect meaningful data that’s important to their business. That data could easily flow into their CRM or marketing automation system and be used for targeted marketing and sales.

  11. Normalize Traffic: Instead of developing clusters of people at your event (not a great idea on the heels of a pandemic), your scavenger hunt can be used to spread out foot traffic (or online traffic). Place Waypoints around the event like honeypots to attract attendees to less common areas and better normalize traffic.
     
  12. Increase Awareness: Having a unique experience at your event will give you something to market, thereby increasing awareness while delivering a better experience. Your attendees will have fun and love the competitive aspect of your event. 

How to Put your Scavenger Hunt Together

You can certainly try to piecemeal your scavenger hunt together; however, for an all-in-one scavenger hunt with great customer support, let Lead liaison do it for you. Our packaged scavenger hunt has everything you need including Waypoints, customizable QR codes, a vast library of digital games, leaderboards, and digital rewards all packaged up and ready to go. Our out of the box solutions are highly customizable to adapt the scavenger hunt to your event and overall goals. 

Our award winning customer service team will help you deliver an incredible touchless scavenger hunt at your next event. Contact us for more information.

 

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

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6 Ways to Generate More Leads at Trade Shows

We’ve compiled 6 of the best ways to generate leads at trade shows based on our own experiences, our customers’ experiences, and feedback from the market. Here they are:

1: Equip Every Staff Member with Mobile Lead Capture

Exhibiting at a trade show, is when show organizers provide exhibitors with what’s commonly called “lead retrieval”. For the most part, the show appointed lead retrieval system will be very basic, lack customization, and not support integration with your sales and marketing system(s). Moreover, they usually charge per person. Costs can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars per person. 

Restricting use per user limits your company’s ability to collect leads.

Instead, get a solution that allows you to put lead capture in every staff member’s hands. Industry leading solutions work online and offline (so you can collect leads anywhere on site or off site, or heck – in the basement) and capture leads in different ways. Popular mobile apps can scan business cards, badges, and manually collect leads through form fill. These solutions are commonly referred to as universal lead capture apps. Regardless of where you’re at, and who you are, you should be able to collect leads for your company and have them funneled into one centralized database and instantly sent into your CRM or marketing automation system. 

2: Stand Up a Kiosk Inside Your Booth

This self-service approach is a great way to not only advertise your services but complement mobile lead capture. There might be times where all your staff members are tied up in meaningful conversations with show attendees. A kiosk allows attendees to enter their information and/or scan their badge to fill out a kiosk form. The kiosk can be locked so attendees don’t get lost in the lead capture app or start messing with your tablet settings.

Another neat benefit of using a kiosk is advertising. Retailers commonly refer to this feature as an “attract loop”. It’s essentially a screen saver that can rotate through images and calls-to-action on your kiosk. When the attendee taps the screen, they’ll see the lead capture form to fill out, request literature or more information, and be on their way.

Instead of missing leads because nobody is there to help them, use a kiosk and maximize lead capture!

3: Host a Game

Instead of hauling large, expensive, physical activations to your event, use digital activations that you can run on a tablet. I know, you might be a bit perplexed by the word “activations”. It’s essentially a way to engage your audience. An example activation would be a Spin the Wheel game. Instead of bringing the physical wheel to the event, bring a tablet and customize your own wheel game. The concept of gamification will help draw in your audience. 

4: Hold a Competition

Innately, everyone loves to compete. It’s a quality we all inherited . The thirst for competition doesn’t curtail at trade shows. In fact, competition is usually heightened at live events as attendees typically travel with coworkers or friends. Who doesn’t like to compete with their friends or look awesome next to their fellow cohorts! 

Industry leading event gamification platforms also have prizes and leaderboards to help you build a competition. When your competition is solidified, market it with your pre-show efforts. This will help drive more leads to your booth. Also, gift card rewards and prizes provide a reason for your sales team to follow up – resulting in more touch points with your leads. Run your leaderboard live at your event by mounting a small TV in your booth. As attendees play your game, their scores will populate on the leaderboard. 

Want to take the competition to a new level? Have a team-based competition where teams are automatically formed around an attendee’s company. For example, every attendee that works at Microsoft would be on the “Microsoft” team. This will help your company capture more leads as participants will recruit their coworkers for you!

5: Create an Experience

Another way to generate more leads at trade shows is to hold an experience, such as a photo booth or treasure hunt. These interactive experiences help attendees have fun while collecting lead data. This puts your prospect in a better mood and primes them for a good conversation. The attendee also wins as they get a souvenir, can share their photos with friends and colleagues, and have a chance to win something – should you go that route. 

6: Touchless Lead Capture

Touchless lead capture technology was a neat innovation that came from the pandemic. With touchless, or contactless lead capture, companies can set up a custom branded QR code on display inside their booth. Attendees scan the QR code with their personal cell phone. Once scanned, a lead capture form opens up on the attendee’s device. They can fill in their information instead of touching anything, getting close to a staff member, or shaking hands.

Combine games and experiences with custom QR codes to deliver a unique touchless experience that drives lead capture!

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

14 Ways Show Organizers Can Increase Attendee and Exhibitor Engagement at Live, Virtual, and Hybrid Events

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14 Ways Show Organizers Can Increase Attendee and Exhibitor Engagement at Live, Virtual, and Hybrid Events

We’ve been working with show organizers as they navigate changes in the events industry. We understand the challenges they face putting together live, virtual, and hybrid events. Many show organizers have different needs; however, when you search for the common thread across all organizers, we found engagement to be the number one need. The other need is creating additional revenue streams (see our other blog post titled “15 Ways Show Organizers Can Create New Revenue Streams at Live, Virtual, and Hybrid Events”). 

If you’re a show organizer reading this article, you’re in the right place! We decided to consolidate the top 14 ways show organizers can increase engagement with attendees and exhibitors. Here’s the list:

1. Digital treasure hunt

In the “olden days” show organizers would hand out physical, paper cards that attendees would bring with them as they searched for key items throughout the event. When they found an item, a staff member would use a rubber stamp to stamp the card. When the attendee filled in the entire card, they’d return the card to the front desk to claim their prize. Modern technology has eliminated the need for paper. Now, attendees use their mobile phone to scan QR codes, reducing reliance on resources required to staff the station and the use of raw materials. Attendees can traverse the event floor or virtually hosted environment to find the treasure hunt items. When found, the attendee scans the QR code on their phone, receives points, then proceeds to search for the next item until all items are discovered.

2. Exhibitor tour 

This concept is similar to the digital treasure hunt; however, exhibitors are the treasure. When we attended ExhibitorLive, our main event, it was interesting to see their “Tech Tours”. As an exhibitor, we paid $1,500 to be part of the tech tour. Exhibitors would pay a premium to be a stop on the tour. A QR code posted in their booth could have a uniquely branded message or look on the QR code, indicating the stop number on the tour. For example, there might be a total of 10 stops on the tour, one for each exhibitor, and the signage with QR code represents “Stop #2” on the tour.

3. Experience getaway

Waypoints (stylized QR codes) represent a way to get attendees to do what you want them to. This might include a visit to a specific location, downloading a brochure, a conversation with a particular representative, attending a presentation…just about anything you can imagine. Consider having pavilions or zones at your event. To get your attendee to visit all the pavilions/zones, use Waypoints!

4. Speaker polls

With all your educational sessions, keynote speakers, or anything similar consider having a poll / survey for your attendees. Speakers, or an assistant to the speaker, can control what questions are asked and when they are displayed. The audience can launch the questions via a QR code and view / answer the questions on their personal device. Data is collected on the backend to give show organizers a better understanding of what the audience thinks of whatever it is that is being presented.

5. Live photo booth

Show organizers can present a photo booth at live events running in a few modes. The photo booth can be launched on an attendee’s personal device from a branded QR code, or displayed in the lobby on a physical device. A customizable Gallery can be displayed on a computer screen or on the wall using a TV or projector.

6. Virtual photo booth

Similar to the live experience, a photo booth used on a virtual platform can work in combination with a live event (hybrid events). The photo booth can be embedded in a virtual event platform, such as Bizzabo, Swoogo, etc. or accessed via a customized QR code (for mobile). Using the attendee’s web browser or mobile device, their photo can be posted to a Gallery, which they can share with friends and team members.

7. Touchless attendee gamification using QR codes

In an environment where safety is a concern, games can be launched via customized QR codes spread out throughout the live or virtual event. Instead of hauling hardware with you, attendees can play games on their mobile device.

8. Educational opportunities

Trivia and Quetrix (spin off of “Jeopardy”), among other games, present great educational opportunities for show organizers. Attendees engage with these activations by being challenged with questions that can also deliver specific messages about your event.

9. Participation awards

Encourage attendee participation on initial attendance or at individual sessions. The more sessions an attendee joins, the more “points” they get, resulting in higher participation levels and a chance to be atop the leaderboard.

10. Digital prize drawings

The various types of attendee engagement that we’ve alluded to above can be scored using points. Points can be rolled up into a master leaderboard. Winners can be selected at the end of the day or at the end of the event. Winners can be rewarded with digital gift cards. I like to think about this like an online shopping spree. For example, if the first place winner (the attendee who was the most engaged) won $500, then they can spend the $500 across more than 150 brands such as Nike, Dunkin’, Airbnb and many more.

11. Fundraiser for charity

Many events enjoy raising money for charity… and why not? It’s all for a good cause! Attendees like to be part of these giving opportunities, and it often serves as a breath of fresh air outside of the pandemonia of the event.

12. Casino-based networking event

Use a suite of casino games, such as roulette, spin to win, three cups, blackjack, roll doubles, and more to create a unique experience that like-minded attendees can participate in. Create a leaderboard dedicated only to this experience to connect attendees to others with similar interests.

13. Hold team competitions

Break audiences into groups or use companies to automatically create teams. Companies and groups can compete against each other for a chance to be placed atop the leaderboard.

14. Clue

Use Waypoints with tips to create a game based on clues. Who killed who? With where, and what? Waypoints support the clues as each attendee scans the Waypoint and receives a clue for where they should look next.

If you’re a show organizer looking for ideas to increase engagement at your event, let us know! We’re happy to ideate with you to increase engagement at your next event. Contact us and schedule a meeting today!

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

The Importance Of Customer Experience For B2B Relationship 

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The Importance Of Customer Experience For B2B Relationship 

Efficiency, service, quality, and reliability…

These are just a few of the terms we often hear when discussing the topic of customer satisfaction. Most businesses understand that retaining customers is a fine art that requires a well defined process. 

Oftentimes, we see that a basic framework for customer experience is built at the beginning of an organization’s founding and once built, time and resources are pulled away and reallocated to other areas of the business leaving the skeleton framework to run itself. However, successful businesses understand the value in continuing to measure and optimize and grow their approach towards enhancing the customer experience.

One of the best ways to optimize your customer experience and retain customers is by collecting data from customer satisfaction surveys, or by using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) process. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple but powerful tool to measure client satisfaction with one single question, an indication of the growth potential of your company or product.

Marketing research, focus groups, and client satisfaction surveys are oftentimes polarizing topics. However, it is our belief that the data you collect is always less scary than the data you ignore. We would argue that the benefits far outweigh the negatives when implementing a customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey.

First and foremost, simply giving your customers or clients an avenue to voice their feedback goes a long way. Sure, any major issues or problems can be communicated on a daily basis without a survey, but an effort like this allows customers and your company to take a step back and think about larger themes and strategies outside daily minutiae. A good analogy is playing football everyday on the field focusing on one play at a time, versus stepping back and viewing plays from the booth. You need to spend time doing both, and we all get so busy worrying about the little things that we forget about the big ones.

When organizing a customer satisfaction survey, here are some items to consider:

We will dive deeper into each point below: 

5 basic aspects:

  • Who should be interviewed?
  • What needs to be measured?
  • How should the survey be carried out?
  • How should customer satisfaction be measured?
  • How to use the results to increase satisfaction, loyalty and profitability.

Who Should Be Interviewed?

When it comes to the target audience for our survey, we must consider the big picture. Take, for example, a truck manufacturing company. Who should be interviewed? The driver, the transport manager, the general management of the company? Similarly, in other b2b markets there may well be influences on the buying decision from production, QA’s, research, engineering or development staff. Because each department evaluates suppliers differently, the customer satisfaction survey will need to expand and shift to cover the multiple views.

What Should Be Measured?

In researching the satisfaction level of our customers, we are searching to uncover the respondents’ view on a variety of categories that will help us identify how the company is currently performing and how we can improve in the future. This understanding is obtained at a high level (“how satisfied are you with Lead liaison overall?”) and at a very specific level (“how satisfied are you with the clarity of invoices from Lead liaison?”).

How Should The Interview Be Carried Out?

While customer surveys are important, there are other indicators to help measure your customer experience. Sales volumes from cross-selling are a great indicator, but they can fluctuate for many other reasons beyond customer satisfaction. In addition, the complaints you receive from customers speak volumes, but they may also reflect the views from a more narrow portion of your clientbase. Positive words relayed through an email or spoken out loud during a conference call are also worthwhile indicators, and should be noted. However, each of these haphazard pieces on their own are not enough to provide understanding on a higher level. 

We believe that you must tie it all together by using several different tools in a very intentional way. The toolkit for measuring customer satisfaction boils down to three options, each with their advantages and disadvantages:

  • Online Surveys 
  • Face-to-Face Interviews
  • Phone Conversations

How Should Satisfaction Be Measured?

Customers may express both their satisfaction & unhappiness in a variety of ways. The best thing to do is to be intentional about asking for their opinion. 

By using the basic concept of the NPS survey, your customer can accurately relay their happiness by rating you using a concept they are familiar with – Numerical Scoring. Once the respondent has been given the anchors of the scale, they can readily give a number to express their level of satisfaction. Typically, scales of 5, 7 or 10 are used where the lowest figure indicates extreme dissatisfaction and the highest shows extreme satisfaction.

Developing An Action Plan That Rectifies The Weaknesses And Builds On The Strengths

The purpose of customer satisfaction research is to improve customer loyalty, and yet so often surveys sit collecting dust. Worse than that, customers have generously given their time to assist in the customer satisfaction survey believing that some positive action will take place. Their expectations will have been raised. The process of collecting the data seems easier than taking action to improve satisfaction levels.

  1. Spot the gap
  2. Challenge and redefine the segmentation
  3. Challenge and redefine customer value propositions, customer journeys and understanding of customer needs
  4. Create an action plan
  5. Measure and review

In conclusion, implementing this type of survey is one of the best ways to continue to build on your customer experience framework. You must remember, however, that customer satisfaction indexes are a snapshot at a point in time. People’s views change continuously and the performance of companies in delivering customer satisfaction is also changing. Measuring satisfaction must be a continuous process. Whether you offer a reward, such as a coupon for a free e-gift card, or customers complete your survey without prompting, be prepared to dig far enough that you discover information that can require anything from a mere tweak in company policy to a complete change in your operating paradigm.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Case Study: Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture

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Case Study: Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture

In this case study, we discuss some common pitfalls in event preparation, participation and execution. We’ll also take a look at how Event Activations with Universal Lead Capture can add layers of protection to these types of investments, and increase ROI at any virtual, live or hybrid event such as a webinar or trade show.

It’s important to do some research on the event organizer before the event. Do you have a history with them? Have they delivered consistently? What do other participants have to say about their experience with this show organizer as show sponsors or exhibitors?

What if the organizer has a great sales team but delivers a poor marketing or event management experience?

We’ve all been in a conversation with a salesperson who promises the moon and stars to get us to sign on the dotted line… And many have signed-up based on expectations implied from a conversation with sales. Unfortunately, the sales team isn’t responsible for delivering goods and services… Marketing and event management are however, and there can be a great divide between the pitch and the delivery!

Document Your Expectations Prior to Paying

Documenting your expectations from verbal agreements at the beginning of the process can be difficult, especially if you’re in a hurry to meet submission, material, or payment deadlines. Remember, if you don’t get it in writing, then you can’t enforce expectations or seek reparations.

In this case study, conversational expectations were:

  • The webinar would have a maximum of 4 sponsors.
  • This would be a single-day webinar event.
  • The expected turnout for this event would be 400-600 live attendees.

We paid top dollar to participate, with those expectations. In fact, the organizer forced another year of paid participation in their online directory (which netted us zero leads during the previous 18 months) in order to be eligible to participate as a sponsor in this webinar, and we agreed to the terms so we could participate in this opportunity to demonstrate our solutions to our ICPs for 8 minutes.

In preparation, we:

  • Produced a 3 minute video demonstrating the benefits of our platform and solutions, plus interview Q&A to showcase the solutions that would benefit our ICPs the most.
  • Developed marketing strategies, multi-channel campaigns, follow-up campaigns & workflows.
  • Incentivized event participation with $350 in gift card rewards.
  • Established business development processes for post-event follow-up.
  • Held meetings with the event organizer, event host, and sales representatives, as well as multiple internal planning meetings.

Delivery, however, wasn’t quite as expected. What we actually received was:

  • An event overpacked with 10 sponsors
  • A two-day webinar series
  • A last place position on day one
  • 192 live attendees on day one

The webinar organizer was raking in money from 10 sponsors, so why stop at 4? Unfortunately, from a sponsorship perspective, too many conversations just diluted all our messages and undermined the value of participating.

As one of the first interested sponsors who prepaid and submitted materials by deadline, surprised us by asking, “which day” we wanted to participate in after we had already established, and paid for, a particular date. It was like they were hinting that they wanted to push us to day 2, which they never mentioned from the beginning… So we stuck to our guns and chose day 1, and they placed us last in line for day 1. 

At this point, we were committed to an event. We had seen no email promotions go out from the organizer, and decided to take success or failure into our own hands…

Ensuring success despite under-delivery

Prior to important events, good team members will be at high alert and hoping for the best. But what if the event organizer under-delivers on expectations?

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

  • Involve partners to help boost campaign reach and share costs.
  • Market the event as if you are the only voice promoting the event. Success is your responsibility, not the event organizer’s, even if they are disorganized or fail to meet your expectations.
  • Employ solutions that give you control and flexibility in case the worst case scenario becomes a reality.

Pre-event marketing from the webinar organizer was not strong. 

The organizer promoted the event in their newsletter a week before the event to 27,149 recipients.

They sent a dedicated email promotion out four days later to 41,772 recipients.

They sent the same dedicated promo to an additional batch of 14,113 recipients 2 days after the first.

As a single sponsor, Lead liaison sent email and social media promos to over 80,000 recipients and drove just over 1,500 page visits to the organizer’s webinar registration page. We partnered with two virtual event platform leaders, providing them with email, social media and graphical assets to further boost messaging and share costs as well as brand exposure.

How many people registered? 306

How many attended? 192 live attendees

Attendee demographics – what type of attendees? 

55% Corporate Marketer / Event Professionals (our ICP)

29% Industry Supplier (partnership opportunities)

16% Other

Distinguishing your experience from the competition:

Realizing we were up against 4 competitor sponsors late in the game didn’t really phase us, because we knew our solutions would speak for themselves, and we had a secret weapon none of the others had: live event activations with universal lead capture.

We were going to present our solutions, then let attendees participate in our experiences, saturate them with our brand and messaging, entice them with instant gift card rewards, and capture them with universal lead capture – before they could finish hyperventilating from all the fun they were having.

Lead liaison’s event activations increase engagement

On average, marketing and event professionals see a 35% increase in engagement in the form of booth visits, virtual experience visits, and campaign conversions.

How we distinguished Lead liaison from the competition:

  • Promoted opportunity to win up to $200 in gift card rewards at the end of the event to encourage people to stick around for our presentation
  • Invited live participation from all attendees by offering a game they could play.
  • Invited the host to play live while participants watched.
  • Offered instant e-gift card rewards to the leaderboard top 3 winners.

Yes, we were last in line to present that day, but the innate desire inside people to win kept the crowd around to discover what Lead liaison was all about.

Lead liaison’s event games and rewards drove the participants into an instantly immersive experience. As the last of 4 sponsors of an event with 192 live attendees, analytics reported 135 game plays. At the end of the experience, 82 unique leads submitted contact information to learn more about Lead liaison Games, Gift Card Rewards and Universal Lead Capture.

That’s nearly 43% of all attendees present and 61% of all who played our branded game experience.

Lead liaison’s Universal Lead Capture retrieved the leads and delivered them immediately into our CRM.

Before anyone on the webinar clicked the “Leave” button, our lead management solutions were busy scoring and assigning our new leads, adding them to customized, well thought out follow-up workflows. Prospects were getting personalized emails from our Business Development Director along with information that they requested to help them in the decision making process.

Unfortunately, because of a system glitch, the organizer’s lead capture solution failed to collect any leads for the other sponsors. In an effort to recover vital lead data for the other sponsors, the organizer was forced to send out another email communication asking event participants to respond to a survey to indicate which sponsors they were interested in receiving information from.

This process cost 2 additional days, and while 4 other sponsors were relying on the organizer to send them their lead data, we were deep in conversation with our new leads.

Lead liaison Universal Lead Capture gave us the data we wanted, when we wanted it, and the first mover advantage.

Days later, we received an additional 44 leads from the organizer’s follow-up survey (about half compared to our gamified lead capture experience) from the webinar inquiry, which we were able to compare with our own lead capture list and follow up with immediately.

Follow up with incentives and offers

In addition to personalized email and telephone outreach, follow up days ahead of the competition.

We earned the right to land participants’ inboxes by announcing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, offering free downloadable resources, and opportunities to get started with an exclusive discount on our solutions.

What sort of ROI would we have seen if we had trusted the show organizer with promotions & leads?

Ask the other sponsors…

Important Takeaways

NEVER:

Trust your event data with someone else.

Wait days for your precious lead data.

Miss an opportunity to follow up – FIRST!

Pay per-user fees for lead capture.

Lead liaison promises to save you from all this, plus:

The ability to OWN the first-mover advantage at every event.

Drive significantly more traffic to your booth, presentation, or digital experience.

Provide you an ALL-IN-ONE SOLUTION to run your events.

Empower your entire team with Universal Lead Capture that works anywhere – any time – all the time.

 

For information about Lead liaison for your next event or marketing campaign, or to get started with Lead liaison: CLICK HERE.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

15 Ways Show Organizers Can Create New Revenue Streams at Live, Virtual, and Hybrid Events

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15 Ways Show Organizers Can Create New Revenue Streams at Live, Virtual, and Hybrid Events

Digital activations, leaderboards, and reward systems open up better revenue streams for show organizers. Below are a 15 revenue-generating opportunities for show organizers running live, virtual, and/or hybrid events. 

Sponsorships:

1. Sell sponsorship branding on games

Companies such as Lead liaison provide an interface to build your own game. Many areas in the game such as backgrounds, logos, game elements, etc. can be easily customized. Offer sponsorship opportunities on an entire game or dissect a single game into individual sponsorships. One of our favorite examples of this is Whack-A-Mole. Instead of the stock game, show organizers could build a Whack-A-Microsoft, assuming Microsoft was the sponsor, and change logos and elements popping out of the hole. 

 

2. Sell sponsorships at a photo booth or other digital experiences.

The photo booth presents a dual opportunity to create additional revenue between the photo booth and gallery. Inside the photo booth there are customization opportunities for “stickers”, which are elements that can be placed on top of your photo, as well as logos and custom frames. Let’s assume Microsoft was again the sponsor. Have a Microsoft shirt or hat as a sticker that attendees can add to their photo and share on social media or in the gallery. Inside the gallery, more revenue opportunities exist. Logos and backgrounds can be customized in the gallery. The gallery can be displayed live on a web page, posted to social media, or projected on a wall during your event.

3. Sell sponsorship on a digital gift card portal

Lead liaison provides a digital gift card catalog with over 250 gift card options. The portal that attendees visit to redeem their gift cards can be customized with a sponsor’s logo and colors.

 4. Sell sponsorship on leaderboards

Similar to games, leaderboards have their own builder. Every element of the leaderboard can be customized. Show organizers can generate revenue from a sponsor-backed leaderboard that displays their images, logo, and color.

 5. Sell sponsored digital experiences in lobbies 

Think about the main lobby or concierge area of your event as another opportunity to generate revenue from sponsors. Inside these areas you can run educational games, entertaining games, or deliver unique experiences such as a treasure hunt or photo booth. Use as much space real estate as you can to garner additional revenue.

 6. Sell sponsorships with branded Waypoints 

Waypoints are QR codes that can be customized with colors, style, and logos – making them a great opportunity to sell to one or more sponsors.


7. Sell sponsorships on the QR code used to launch poll answers

Host a poll inside educational sessions. Poll answers are launched from a QR code, once again presenting a revenue opportunity for show organizers. Attendees scan the branded QR code to start answering poll questions on their mobile device.

 8. Sponsor a prize

The sponsor can offer a prize to one or more winners. The prize could be one of the sponsor’s services or something more generic, like a vacation that’s offered from the sponsor. All digital activations provided by Lead liaison have a prize system built into them. Whether they’re prizes such as vacations, or digital gift cards, the options to generate incremental revenue are numerous.

 9. Rotating advertisements on digital activations 

All digital activations/games in the Lead liaison library include optional screensavers. Generate revenue from sponsors by offering them an opportunity to display their company’s products or services on the rotating ad. Ads can be displayed on kiosk-hosted games or games running on any mobile device.

 

 

 Exhibitors:

10. Sell digital activations to exhibitors 

Show organizers can generate additional revenue from exhibitors by selling them activations. Providers such as Lead liaison work with show organizers on special rates. These services can be sold for additional revenue to exhibitors or included with premium booth space purchases. Exhibitors get more value than just standard lead retrieval, as games attract and engage attendees at the event.

11. Sell universal lead capture to exhibitors 

Universal Lead Capture, also known as ULC, is a premium lead retrieval option over standard lead retrieval services. ULC enables an exhibitor to capture custom questions, qualify leads, send data directly into their CRM or marketing automation system, and so much more. A ULC also works outside the booth space, allowing exhibitors to capture leads throughout the entire event, beyond exhibiting hours, inside and outside of the show venue.

12. Sell exhibitors access as a stop on a tour (tech, startup, etc.) 

Create tours for your event, such as a tech tour, startup tour, or tour of solutions in a specific category relevant to your event. Exhibitor booths can act as one stop on the tour. These stops can yield $1K+ from each exhibitor. Attendees get value from having the tour organized into stops that they particularly care about while participating exhibitors get the increased foot traffic they want from the event. 

13. Sell kiosk terminals with “attract loops” to pull in attendees 

A kiosk with rotating calls-to-action (kind of like a screensaver on your computer) is an upsell opportunity for show organizers. Kiosks present an alternative or additional opportunity over standard lead retrieval for exhibitors to better showcase their services. 

14. Sell branding opportunities on leaderboards 

Exhibitors can also grab paid spots on the leaderboard with background imagery, logos, and more. 

15. Sell enhanced product tours 

We had a client that sold large tires. They attended an event where multiple exhibitors were showcasing their own products (tractors, machinery, etc.) that had the manufacturer’s tires on them. The manufacturer spoke with the other exhibitors and created a product tour where attendees would walk around the event, inspecting tires, looking for QR codes. When an attendee found a QR code on a tire, they scanned it and were identified as a new lead. The tire manufacturer got increased exposure of their tires, while exhibitors generated additional booth traffic – resulting in a win-win. Show organizers can offer certain exhibitors these paid opportunities to participate in their own product tour. 

For more information on how to get started with our digital activations, leaderboards, and reward systems. Contact us here.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!