RFID: A Prescription for Exhibitor Success at RSNA

After a week of bringing together radiologists and hospital executives from all over the world, RSNA, the country’s largest medical tradeshow, drew to a close Friday.

Attendees participate in RSNA to get an “up close and personal” look at new & current products in the field of Radiology. It is an event where more than 50,000 attendees visit because all the major suppliers in the industry are present. Attendees perform side-by-side product comparisons by walking the show floor. At the same time, this powerful industry group is exactly the target audience large exhibitors such as GE, Philips, and Toshiba Healthcare are looking to meet and sell their multi-million dollar equipment to.  

What’s new and exciting for exhibitors this year in reaching these booth visitors? Intelligent RFID. RFID has been used at the RSNA show in previous years, however this year a marketing intelligence solution was utilized to pair buyers with sellers in real-time on the show floor. The result, the largest number of exhibitors in RSNA history utilized the RFID solution. RFID stations were completely SOLD OUT.

 Exhibitors benefit directly from RFID technology

Booth product demos are often haphazard as staff members demo to anyone wanting to listen to their pitch. Exhibitors often misdiagnose attendees’ specific interests because of an inability to discern attendees’ purchasing power, interests and preferences. Intelligent RFID is able to diagnose purchase intent and level of interest to help identify buyers.

With the use of Intelligent RFID visitor tracking, exhibitors were able to see attendee interests in real-time and understand how long attendees spent in front of a product area, how many days they came back to see the product, and which additional products they were interested in learning more about. Combining product interests, leads and time in the booth with visitor demographics, paints a powerful picture of who really is likely to make a purchasing decision. In the world of real-time information, Intelligent RFID enabled exhibitors to identify a higher-quality lead, which helps shorten sale cycles and increases revenue opportunities.

More tradeshows will be asked to incorporate Intelligent RFID as booth exhibitors start to demand more value and ROI for the shows they participate in.

Welcome!

The economy and emerging technology have driven tremendous change in the event industry.  Event measurement and quantifiable justification are no longer “nice-to-haves”, they are requirements.  To help you succeed in this new reality, my blog will provide actionable, timely information and recommendations, based on our customers’ experiences and on our expertise as technology and measurement solution providers. 

Blogs are most valuable when they become a two-way conversation.   Whether you’re just starting off in this industry or are a 30 year veteran, you have a unique set of experiences and perspectives that we can all benefit from.  So please share your ideas, expertise and questions by adding comments to these posts.

Top 5 Technology Trends in Event Measurement

Here’s my perspective on current technology trends that are adding real value to our customers’ events. 

 

 Easier to Go Green

Thanks to the proliferation of web-enabled devices and “smart” phones, event managers can now provide surveys and conference evaluations via attendees’ mobile devices.   The benefits of electronic surveys are immediate and considerable – you’re “going green” by minimizing paper, you eliminate hours of manual tasks (distributing and collecting surveys, manually tabulating results) and associated labor costs, and you can view results in minutes rather than weeks. 

Game Crazy, a leading video game retailer, used electronic surveys to find out if their sales associates were being motivated and acquiring new learning during their annual sales meeting.  The event management team monitored results in real time and gave immediate and specific feedback to presenters who scored poorly in early sessions.  As the event progressed, these presenters made the necessary adjustments, quantifiably improved their performances in later sessions, and boosted attendee motivation and learning scores.

The Game Crazy team took their green initiatives even further, by replacing all paper agendas with real time, editable, personalized agendas on the attendees’ mobile devices.  They also took advantage of the system’s ability to poll the audience in real time, for more dynamic and relevant speaking sessions.

 

 Social Media

Social media / social networking software for events, when applied strategically, deliver great value.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms can help you start and maintain a pre-event conversation with potential attendees to determine what topics will be of greatest interest and relevance.  They can also help generate excitement for your event – and more registrants.  Oracle sent out a tweet on an upcoming conference and within minutes received 18 registrations before ever formally launching the registration site. 

 There are as many creative, successful uses of social media in the event industry as there are pointless and unproductive ones.  In subsequent posts I’ll provide best practices and cautionary tales so you can separate the truth from the hype.

   

 A Single Consistent Lead Management Solution

A tradeshow lead capture solution that provides contact information is only the first step in adding value for exhibitors.  To drive ROI, exhibitors need a complete lead management solution that includes lead qualification and prioritization to determine which leads have a higher probability of converting to sales.  By extending the lead management solution across all events, the event manager can identify trends, provide benchmarking stats and help exhibitors establish objectives prior to the event.

 

 Event to Event Metrics

Once you have obtained consistent data, you are able to provide event to event metrics.  By combining data generated by all these solutions into an executive dashboard that clearly demonstrates results versus established objectives and compares results from one event to another, you are able to monitor your team’s performance and make necessary changes to improve overall event results.  By communicating this to your organization’s senior team, you are showing your focus on creating value.

 As a result of their successful initial deployments of event marketing metrics, the Philips Healthcare event team has developed a global event measurement tool (GEMT) and is committed to consistently using this tool to measure overall results across all their events.  Moving forward, they now have historical data across multiple events, are much more confident they will meet and exceed their objectives and can justify their investment in trade shows at the executive level.

 

Marketing Intelligence

New technologies allow us to bring disparate sources of information together to better understand attendee interests and preferences.  In addition, managers are looking at attendee behavior and its impact on purchasing decisions.  According to Paco Underhill, renowned retail guru, it is this understanding that gives us the most reliable predictor of purchase.  By delivering corresponding metrics with an analysis of how your event affected intent to purchase, you are delivering real value to your organization.   Emerging technologies assisting with this market intelligence include RFID, tradeshow lead management,  and survey solutions.  A single reporting and analysis system combines the data stream from these solutions to provide better attendee understanding and purchase intent.

 

Related Links:

Whitepaper:  Metrics Are King! Event Justification in a Down Economy

Article:  RFID to Keep Tabs on NPE2009 Attendees

Article:  Jim Spellos – “What You Need to Know About Social Networking Tools”

Article:  “ROI Proving Your Booth’s Worth It”