Capture Technologies has just completed a yearlong software development project that will offer four important services to event organizers and associations. This project, we believe, is the first to offer sophisticated service integration for leveraging on site capabilities with on-line registration companies. The initial rollout supported one of our partners Maritz who produced the 2010 IHG Show. Using Cvent as their registration provider, we were able to integrate fully and provide real-time badge printing and check in statistics, which allowed the customer to take full advantage of the strategic reporting inside Cvent. Along with our lead retrieval and session tracking tools, we have a complete solution for on-site services. We will be continuing to add to our portfolio of integrated registration companies.
The services provided include: first, real time onsite interface opportunities with multiple online registration systems, second, provide custom badge design software, third, onsite quality badge printing and fourth, leverage all current reporting capabilities of the online registration systems with real time information for strategic planning purposes. The new suite of software tools ensures an efficient and high quality attendee experience to a wide variety of show managers. For the event organization, Capture Technologies will offer meaningful reductions in staff time for pre-show, onsite and post show operations to event planners using online registration systems; of course, these services can support mature registration companies as well. The solution consists of a set of robust web services and onsite applications that utilizes the value of Capture Technologies event integration experience with Fortune 100 companies around the world as well as smaller organizations looking for best practice efficiencies for their events.
We have considerable experience in the industry supporting world class companies. Hewlett-Packard uses our software for lead retrieval for their entire North American tradeshow schedule as well as John Deere for the majority of their major events. We have provided national and international meeting support for McGraw-Hill, HP, Halliburton, Dell and a wide variety of other significant companies. HSM Global is the #1 executive symposium company in the world and they rely exclusively on our technical expertise and broad range of products. We also support Maritz, which is a multibillion dollar event services company for all badge services as well as lead retrieval, session tracking, and data management.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Out and About the Industry
Projects and Jobs
2011 Jobs
Juniper Networks, January
MRO Middle East, February
Halliburton Academy, February
Honda Civic Dealer Show, February
Commodity Classic, March
HP Sales Academy, March
HP Image Print, March
Aviation Week Laureate Awards, March
21st Annual NIBCC, March
Roth Capital Annual Growth Stock Conference, March
Doble Conference, April
ADP Meeting of the Minds, March
Juniper American Partner Conference, April
MRO Americas Miami, April
2010 Jobs
2010 IHG Americas Investors & Leadership Conference
Rolled out our new registration interface product allowing all online registraion companies to offer onsite integrated services.
COPSWEST 2010
The premier law enforcement show in California. Supported registration, badging and lead retrieval.
Aviation Week MRO Asia 2010 - Singapore
We support all Aviation Week conferences worldwide for badging and registration integration.
2010 Canon Expo
Supported the 93,000 sq. ft. Canon booth by purchasing 12 servers, configuring and delivering for running VLANS for Canon product groups.
2010 World Business Forum @ Radio City Music Hall
Managing badging for the HSM Group and the largest gathering of senior executives in North America.
Aviation Week MRO events in London, England - Dubai - Phoenix
We support all Aviation Week conferences worldwide for badging and registration integration.
Aviation Week Laureates Awards in Washington DC
The Aviation Week Laureate Awards recognize individuals and teams for their extraordinary accomplishments in aviation and aerospace.
2011 Jobs
Juniper Networks, January
MRO Middle East, February
Halliburton Academy, February
Honda Civic Dealer Show, February
Commodity Classic, March
HP Sales Academy, March
HP Image Print, March
Aviation Week Laureate Awards, March
21st Annual NIBCC, March
Roth Capital Annual Growth Stock Conference, March
Doble Conference, April
ADP Meeting of the Minds, March
Juniper American Partner Conference, April
MRO Americas Miami, April
2010 Jobs
2010 IHG Americas Investors & Leadership Conference
Rolled out our new registration interface product allowing all online registraion companies to offer onsite integrated services.
COPSWEST 2010
The premier law enforcement show in California. Supported registration, badging and lead retrieval.
Aviation Week MRO Asia 2010 - Singapore
We support all Aviation Week conferences worldwide for badging and registration integration.
2010 Canon Expo
Supported the 93,000 sq. ft. Canon booth by purchasing 12 servers, configuring and delivering for running VLANS for Canon product groups.
2010 World Business Forum @ Radio City Music Hall
Managing badging for the HSM Group and the largest gathering of senior executives in North America.
Aviation Week MRO events in London, England - Dubai - Phoenix
We support all Aviation Week conferences worldwide for badging and registration integration.
Aviation Week Laureates Awards in Washington DC
The Aviation Week Laureate Awards recognize individuals and teams for their extraordinary accomplishments in aviation and aerospace.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Customer Quotes on LeadWare Advantage
"Steve, I feel compelled to drop you a note and say thank you for your support and continued efforts at helping us work smarter and more efficiently. As you know, we have enjoyed a mutually beneficial working relationship for the last few years. Your products have been supportive to our needs and helped us better align ourselves through data based information and decisions.
While your products are both user friendly and easy to work with, your customer support is even better. I know that on a few occasions when your folks needed, have responded quickly, knowledgeably and with enthusiasm. In fact, we are just now working with Chris and Barbara to better understand the hardware we need to further our efforts. Their input has been invaluable and I know will compliment your software.
These are all good reasons I continue to promote your products and your team when talking with my contacts throughout our National Shows and Events. Thank you for partnering with us and for your diligence to detail and customer satisfaction."
Steve Detrick, Project Manager-National Shows & Events
John Deere/Deere & Company
"I have managed trade shows for 15 years and LeadWare is the best show floor lead capture solution that I have ever used. Before the show or during, LeadWare gives me the functionality and flexibility to easily customize targeted tradeshow surveys. LeadWare lets me immediately respond to leads with HTML emails complete with our product information right from show floor. LeadWare’s excellent solution service and support allows me to focus on the event and not worry about my lead capture system."
Geol Yeadon, Focus Enhancements
Sr. Marketing and Sales Operations Manager
“Capture LeadWare provided us the opportunity to track booth visitors and collect important contact information in a simple and effective manner. The LeadWare program was very easy to use and greatly helped us increase our return on investment by enabling us to gain commitment from customers and generate orders on the spot at the show. The Capture Technologies team was great to work with and was always available”.
Todd Graven, Senior Sales Manager – East, BIC Consumer Products USA
I have worked with HP as a tradeshow support vendor for years. As a result, I have worked with your products for years as well. You folks have some of the best support I have ever seen and you folks have ALWAYS provided superior service. It is unheard of in today’s climate to have a support organization respond, almost immediately, at any given time, most especially after hours and on weekends. You seem to understand that when I/we call, we are usually under pressure to perform and we’re stuck. You have always come through. So…Thank you!
Hoyt Hagens, Vice President, ProMission Projects, Inc.
"Thanks ... – this tool is GENUIS!!!"
Archie Messersmith, International Institute for Learning
Director of Global Events Management
"I have been using LeadWare for just over a year. The LeadWare tool makes it very easy to track leads at shows. It is more robust than the tools that I've been offered for rental at several shows in that it allows me to capture more than just basic personal data---I can collect answers to specific questions that I have. This has been invaluable for our post-show follow-up, providing our internal sales team with qualified warm leads that have asked to be contacted or asked for specific information.
On the support side Capture has been terrific. They are always available and are patient and clear when explaining various steps. They have great follow-up--calling after a show to see how things went. They also check in before shows and keep us up-to-date on new developments and uses for the tool! I'm very impressed with the level of service that Capture Technologies provides. They aren't just selling you a product; they are selling you a whole new way to think about your tradeshows and leading you towards improvement at your own particular pace."
Nora Jenkins, CMP Lincoln Financial Group, Senior Planner
"For Bayco, the financial benefit was simple...number of shows each year, times the cost to rent, verses owning...no brainer. For my sales staff...they have a consistent interface to work with at every show they go to, and it works EVERY time...one less thing for them to worry about. For me, I get the same format of lead data every time in a form that makes my job and the job of following up on our show leads simple. Bottom line, we get 100% consistent usage, better quality data at a lower annual cost. Why wouldn't we use it?"
Kevin Kirkman, Bayco, Trade Show Manager
"CareFusion’s use of the Capture Leads online browser edition tool has made a major difference in reducing the time and man hour cost necessary to build, edit, obtain final approval, launch lead retrieval files for our shows. It allows us to develop final reports for our sales divisions in near real time after the shows closes and the user controlled LeadBlast capability has sharply reduced our time from show closing to releasing the LeadBlast to potential clients."
Ron Gripon, Distinctive Tradeshow Services
Hey Steve – we had our initial meeting yesterday and I’ve shared all of the information on options for lead systems at Graph Expo 2008. I can tell you that wonderful things were said about the mobile system and Chris’ support onsite during On Demand 2006…Steve – we’ve made a decision to go with Capture’s LeadWare Pocket Edition systems for Xerox at Graph Expo 2008. We’re going to want onsite support (we need to discuss this because we have little caveats…don’t think we need someone on the last day but want to discuss with you prior to finalizing this.).
Robin Crawson, Xerox
Global Event Marketing Exhibit Manager
"Love the product and looking forward to seeing how our colleagues from Europe can make it work there."
Marc E. Green, National Starch Food Innovation, CBC, Senior Manager
“LeadWare allowed the efficient capture of promotional orders on the tradeshow floor; National Association of Convenience Stores is now a selling show and that is a paradigm shift in our tradeshow thinking. We caught the major competitors sleeping but I can guarantee that will change quickly!”
C. Scott Lowe, MARS Chocolate North America, LLC
Sr. National Account Manager
As the global trade show, exhibits and events manager at National Starch and Chemical Company for six years, I introduced my team to a new and more efficient process of collecting information using LeadWare software from Capture Technologies. This software platform proved to be far superior for identifying and communicating with high potential leads than previous efforts with business cards, show lead retrieval or with hand written lead forms.
With LeadWare I was able to provide viable well qualified lead information to the sales force within 24hours, which enabled them to begin the sales process in a more timely manner with the competitive advantage of having the exact information from face to face meetings in the booth. Earlier efforts resulted in starting the qualifying process with essentially a cold call with illegible hand-written lead information.
The power of LeadWare is threefold; LeadWare offers the opportunity to begin a relationship with the person visiting the booth during the survey process, to add additional information based on face to face conversations after the survey process and allows an immediate response by the sales team with the accurate business needs of the booth visitor. In my opinion, Capture Technologies offers, by far, the best software tools for trade show managers from the standpoint of cost, time and effort.
Will Nicholas CME CMP, National Starch and Chemical
Global Tradeshow, Exhibits and Events Manager
As a strategic consultation company, we strive to find the right solution for our clients with an ongoing goal to improve upon existing processes and take out expense. When reviewing the lead capture options available for a Pharmaceutical company's event management, Capture Technologies LeadWare was the obvious, cost-effective solution. Its powerful functionality would allow outdated or inept processes to be discontinued; ensuring prospects receive the exact and up-to-date information that was requested at the show.
Investing in the turnkey LeadWare product enhances trade show lead capture without causing an undue burden on our sales force--in fact it becomes a welcome tool the team can respect and use even beyond the trade show events. Competitively priced, we recommended this solution to convert from poor, cumbersome methodology and expensive trade show rentals.
While we were initially seeking an interim solution until the CRM decision was finalized, LeadWare gave us the ability to improve trade show ROI while positioning the client for the future since it is compatible with any CRM solution selected. What a win! And the final aspect of our goal was cost take out. With LeadWare capabilities such as list management, document storage and others, the client can eliminate spend on its eCampaigns.
Thank you, Steve, for making it our job so easy, this solution exceeded our client's expectations and did we look good!
Laura Woods, Office A.R.T.S., Strategic Consultant
While your products are both user friendly and easy to work with, your customer support is even better. I know that on a few occasions when your folks needed, have responded quickly, knowledgeably and with enthusiasm. In fact, we are just now working with Chris and Barbara to better understand the hardware we need to further our efforts. Their input has been invaluable and I know will compliment your software.
These are all good reasons I continue to promote your products and your team when talking with my contacts throughout our National Shows and Events. Thank you for partnering with us and for your diligence to detail and customer satisfaction."
Steve Detrick, Project Manager-National Shows & Events
John Deere/Deere & Company
"I have managed trade shows for 15 years and LeadWare is the best show floor lead capture solution that I have ever used. Before the show or during, LeadWare gives me the functionality and flexibility to easily customize targeted tradeshow surveys. LeadWare lets me immediately respond to leads with HTML emails complete with our product information right from show floor. LeadWare’s excellent solution service and support allows me to focus on the event and not worry about my lead capture system."
Geol Yeadon, Focus Enhancements
Sr. Marketing and Sales Operations Manager
“Capture LeadWare provided us the opportunity to track booth visitors and collect important contact information in a simple and effective manner. The LeadWare program was very easy to use and greatly helped us increase our return on investment by enabling us to gain commitment from customers and generate orders on the spot at the show. The Capture Technologies team was great to work with and was always available”.
Todd Graven, Senior Sales Manager – East, BIC Consumer Products USA
I have worked with HP as a tradeshow support vendor for years. As a result, I have worked with your products for years as well. You folks have some of the best support I have ever seen and you folks have ALWAYS provided superior service. It is unheard of in today’s climate to have a support organization respond, almost immediately, at any given time, most especially after hours and on weekends. You seem to understand that when I/we call, we are usually under pressure to perform and we’re stuck. You have always come through. So…Thank you!
Hoyt Hagens, Vice President, ProMission Projects, Inc.
"Thanks ... – this tool is GENUIS!!!"
Archie Messersmith, International Institute for Learning
Director of Global Events Management
"I have been using LeadWare for just over a year. The LeadWare tool makes it very easy to track leads at shows. It is more robust than the tools that I've been offered for rental at several shows in that it allows me to capture more than just basic personal data---I can collect answers to specific questions that I have. This has been invaluable for our post-show follow-up, providing our internal sales team with qualified warm leads that have asked to be contacted or asked for specific information.
On the support side Capture has been terrific. They are always available and are patient and clear when explaining various steps. They have great follow-up--calling after a show to see how things went. They also check in before shows and keep us up-to-date on new developments and uses for the tool! I'm very impressed with the level of service that Capture Technologies provides. They aren't just selling you a product; they are selling you a whole new way to think about your tradeshows and leading you towards improvement at your own particular pace."
Nora Jenkins, CMP Lincoln Financial Group, Senior Planner
"For Bayco, the financial benefit was simple...number of shows each year, times the cost to rent, verses owning...no brainer. For my sales staff...they have a consistent interface to work with at every show they go to, and it works EVERY time...one less thing for them to worry about. For me, I get the same format of lead data every time in a form that makes my job and the job of following up on our show leads simple. Bottom line, we get 100% consistent usage, better quality data at a lower annual cost. Why wouldn't we use it?"
Kevin Kirkman, Bayco, Trade Show Manager
"CareFusion’s use of the Capture Leads online browser edition tool has made a major difference in reducing the time and man hour cost necessary to build, edit, obtain final approval, launch lead retrieval files for our shows. It allows us to develop final reports for our sales divisions in near real time after the shows closes and the user controlled LeadBlast capability has sharply reduced our time from show closing to releasing the LeadBlast to potential clients."
Ron Gripon, Distinctive Tradeshow Services
Hey Steve – we had our initial meeting yesterday and I’ve shared all of the information on options for lead systems at Graph Expo 2008. I can tell you that wonderful things were said about the mobile system and Chris’ support onsite during On Demand 2006…Steve – we’ve made a decision to go with Capture’s LeadWare Pocket Edition systems for Xerox at Graph Expo 2008. We’re going to want onsite support (we need to discuss this because we have little caveats…don’t think we need someone on the last day but want to discuss with you prior to finalizing this.).
Robin Crawson, Xerox
Global Event Marketing Exhibit Manager
"Love the product and looking forward to seeing how our colleagues from Europe can make it work there."
Marc E. Green, National Starch Food Innovation, CBC, Senior Manager
“LeadWare allowed the efficient capture of promotional orders on the tradeshow floor; National Association of Convenience Stores is now a selling show and that is a paradigm shift in our tradeshow thinking. We caught the major competitors sleeping but I can guarantee that will change quickly!”
C. Scott Lowe, MARS Chocolate North America, LLC
Sr. National Account Manager
As the global trade show, exhibits and events manager at National Starch and Chemical Company for six years, I introduced my team to a new and more efficient process of collecting information using LeadWare software from Capture Technologies. This software platform proved to be far superior for identifying and communicating with high potential leads than previous efforts with business cards, show lead retrieval or with hand written lead forms.
With LeadWare I was able to provide viable well qualified lead information to the sales force within 24hours, which enabled them to begin the sales process in a more timely manner with the competitive advantage of having the exact information from face to face meetings in the booth. Earlier efforts resulted in starting the qualifying process with essentially a cold call with illegible hand-written lead information.
The power of LeadWare is threefold; LeadWare offers the opportunity to begin a relationship with the person visiting the booth during the survey process, to add additional information based on face to face conversations after the survey process and allows an immediate response by the sales team with the accurate business needs of the booth visitor. In my opinion, Capture Technologies offers, by far, the best software tools for trade show managers from the standpoint of cost, time and effort.
Will Nicholas CME CMP, National Starch and Chemical
Global Tradeshow, Exhibits and Events Manager
As a strategic consultation company, we strive to find the right solution for our clients with an ongoing goal to improve upon existing processes and take out expense. When reviewing the lead capture options available for a Pharmaceutical company's event management, Capture Technologies LeadWare was the obvious, cost-effective solution. Its powerful functionality would allow outdated or inept processes to be discontinued; ensuring prospects receive the exact and up-to-date information that was requested at the show.
Investing in the turnkey LeadWare product enhances trade show lead capture without causing an undue burden on our sales force--in fact it becomes a welcome tool the team can respect and use even beyond the trade show events. Competitively priced, we recommended this solution to convert from poor, cumbersome methodology and expensive trade show rentals.
While we were initially seeking an interim solution until the CRM decision was finalized, LeadWare gave us the ability to improve trade show ROI while positioning the client for the future since it is compatible with any CRM solution selected. What a win! And the final aspect of our goal was cost take out. With LeadWare capabilities such as list management, document storage and others, the client can eliminate spend on its eCampaigns.
Thank you, Steve, for making it our job so easy, this solution exceeded our client's expectations and did we look good!
Laura Woods, Office A.R.T.S., Strategic Consultant
Thursday, May 27, 2010
LeadWare Strategic Program
The LeadWare platform is a web-based tool that bridges the gap between Marketing and Sales. LeadWare Browser is the first fully functional web application providing a lead management tool for exhibitors to design and control their interactions with booth attendees before, during and post-show. Our platform offers best practice functionality to support the strategic intent of a diverse customer base.
Given the high cost to scan an attendee badge with show lead retrieval systems, we are often called by companies trying to save on the cost of lead retrieval. We believe this focus on the dollar cost of lead retrieval is misplaced; the focus should be achieving your strategic objectives and realizing a robust Return on Objective (ROO).
The purpose of a tradeshow is the matching of buyer and seller to achieve marketing and sales objectives. Marketing strives to meet defined goals e.g. accurate data, branding and the enhancement of the attendee purchase intent; on the other hand, sales needs accurate information to rapidly determine the business potential of a booth visitor. The first step in meeting the marketing and sales objectives is the primary qualification process. The effectiveness of the qualification process will have a direct impact on the ROI / ROO of the tradeshow.
A show lead retrieval system is an ineffective tool for meeting marketing and sales objectives. Show lead retrieval companies offer no ability to accelerate the sales cycle, leverage brand exposure to tradeshow attendees or reduce pressure on budgets by offering economies of scale or the ability to electronically correct the critically important badge information i.e. email address and phone numbers.
Embarrassingly, having to use a pencil or pen to correct information collected electronically calls attention to the archaic design architecture of the show lead retrieval systems. Also, show lead retrieval companies will often charge an exorbitant amount of money to give you access to your scanned badge information before the end of the show. Essentially, you are paying twice for your information. At the end of the show, you leave with little else but a text or excel file of, at best, poorly qualified contact information.
The Power of Branching Questions
Research shows that asking questions to a respondent outside of their business responsibility is aggravating. Consequently, asking the same questions of all booth attendees ensures that you will aggravate some portion of your visitors during the initial qualification process; there are hundreds of exhibitors taking your attendee through the same potentially aggravating process and using the same process is not the best first impression of your company’s uniqueness.
Research also shows that new client acquisition is the primary focus of the 76% of tradeshow exhibitors in 2010. The use of branching questions to qualify booth attendees is a critical step to meeting the primary strategic objective for sales: the delivery of the specific client business needs to the sales team.
The scanning of a badge is the first step to document a visit to the booth. It is quite common to have 4 to 8 different types of show attendees’ enter the booth. If you ask each attendee type six unique questions, your staff needs to remember and document as many as 24 to 48 questions and the associated answers. Without the use of LeadWare, this would be a very difficult task to accomplish for the booth staff.
The second step is asking meaningful questions to gather predetermined information for the marketing and sales team. In order to ask the meaningful survey questions to all of your booth visitors, you must utilize branching questions. The ability to document job specific answers will provide actionable knowledge to the sales organization to accelerate the sale to a successful conclusion. For marketing, branching questions gives you the ability to gather thousands of consistent data points across your events.
Clearly, not properly qualifying attendees and possibly aggravating them in the process is counterproductive. The use of branch/skip logic survey questions allows the surveyor to send respondents down different paths depending on how they respond to a question. To gather accurate and succinct information, qualifying questions can be based on job responsibilities and what information the sales team requires within the various job responsibilities or specific information about a stated product interest.
The Delivery of Sales Information
Within the booth, the optimal scenario would be a “meaningful interaction” followed by the delivery of the customer’s accurate business needs and product interests to the sales organization by an efficient booth team.
The sales team’s ability to review the salient details of the attendee interaction in the booth is critical to accelerating the sale. It is often frustrating to an attendee to discuss their needs in the booth only to have to start from scratch with a salesman on the phone 1500 miles away. You can be the perfect booth person but your value and hard work can be diminished if the needs of the customer are not effectively transmitted to the sales team.
The salient points of a 10 minute conversation in a booth can be electronically captured in 30 seconds and up loaded to a CRM in 30 seconds. Companies gain considerable competitive advantage when quality information is immediately available for action steps. It is quite common for our customers to have a qualified booth attendees information in a CRM before the close of a show day or at the least first thing in the morning. Your sales team can be talking to decision makers on a specific project with a strong competitive advantage within hours of a booth visit.
However, without delivery of the aforementioned business needs to the company sales organization, a “meaningful interaction” is tantamount to a tree falling in the forest. More importantly to your sales organization, without the qualifying information, the contact information now amounts to a cold call: a very, very expensive cold call.
Currently, the average industry cost of a face-to-face meeting in a booth is $203; the medical industry cost is $500 to $600. High quality contact information from a list company costs approximately one dollar per name. Let’s assume 50 quality face-to-face meetings in the booth. Without the information from the “meaningful interaction” collected and delivered to the sales team, you will pay $10,150 for information that would cost only $50.
And yet, we still get calls because someone wants to save $50 on lead retrieval.
Electronic Media Delivery Systems
Based on the ability of the seller to effectively qualify the customer as a buyer, the next task is to provide the requested product information. There are multiple methods to deliver product information; many clients prefer to deliver product information electronically in the form of retention e-mails. Retention emails are sent with the recipient’s permission and, as such, will continue to replace paper communications and will account for more than 30% of all marketing messages in consumers’ in-boxes by 2014.
The electronic medium supports a positive environmental statement by eliminating paper production and fossil fuel shipping costs with the additional benefit delivering information immediately to the desk of the requesting customer.
Currently, there is no cost effective lead retrieval solution provided by a tradeshow that offers branching questions and electronic product delivery system except for the shows managed by Capture Technologies.
The LeadWare Annual License
The annual license from Capture Technologies is the only true “economy of scale” offering in the tradeshow industry. The ability to reduce the cost of lead retrieval is directly linked to the number of tradeshows attended and savings realized due to the functionality of the LeadWare™ Browser platform. For a fixed fee you can use LeadWare™ an unlimited number of times during a calendar year on a computer. So as the number of events attended increases, the cost of lead retrieval decreases. When adjusted for savings realized because of the software functionality, you are actually returning dollars to your budget.
LeadWare™ Annual License offers substantial savings over standard tradeshow lead retrieval priced at a conservative cost of $300 per unit.
LeadWare™ Annual License Savings
20 Events 16%
30 Events 44%
40 Events 58%
50 Events 66%
The annual license can be the easiest and most economical approach for companies exhibiting at multiple events. You retain the badge scanning equipment during the period of your annual license. Your inventory of badge readers and a business card scanner can be moved from show-to-show in our custom shipping container by your Exhibit House or Tradeshow Team. CRM compatible event files can be uploaded to LeadWare™ Browser for immediate access.
Browser Edition is a fully functional web application providing a lead management tool for exhibitors to design and control their interactions with booth attendees before, during and post-show. Survey questions, product catalog, corporate graphics, online surveys and e-mail blast can now be controlled from the web. Tradeshow managers can design their event from any computer connected to the web and deliver an event file to a booth captain or exhibit house. Achieve superior functionality at a substantial savings.
A Step-by-Step Strategic Plan
To improve your ROI, the first step is implementing a streamlined cost structure for lead retrieval by taking advantage of LeadWare. For companies doing fewer shows, the software can be used on a show by show basis for either $250 for the basic version and $500 for the professional version. The reduction in staff hours alone will cover the cost of using LeadWare™.
The second step is the elimination of the production, shipment and drayage of onsite paper marketing materials. That savings could be as little as $300 to $3,000 per show (some ship pallets of marketing materials). Our LeadWare™ product catalog ensures the optimum in after-show contact to drive sales with dynamically merged custom HTML documents with specifically selected product URL's sent daily. This allows potential customers to push product information back to corporate stakeholders and decision team members for review which often promotes follow up visits to your booth.
This also makes a very positive environmental statement for an event. Plus, the harsh reality is this: 70% of this product information is thrown away before the attendees leave the hotel. It is clear that the use of paper marketing materials at tradeshows is dying. Imagine an environmental solution that protects your budget and leverages sales.
The third step is the efficient qualification of potential customers visiting your booth. Today’s exhibitor, small or large, wants to gather specific client information with branching questions and deliver specific product information electronically to accelerate their sales cycle
The fourth step is providing marketing teams the tools to generate pre-show and post-show HTML brand extension documents and online surveys that present a sophisticated image for their company. The ability to data-merge the attendee information into HTML documents for e-mail campaigns is an important function of LeadWare™ software. Electronic information is a competitive weapon in business and Capture Technologies offers you the tools to compete.
Finally LeadWare™ is the only unified lead retrieval software platform in the industry that offers custom surveys and a product catalog integrated with e-mail capabilities to send HTML product centric documents via a web application. Attendees can now be qualified to a much deeper extent than current show lead retrieval offerings available to show organizers. A common platform also saves considerable staff time and allows a single event file to used across multiple technologies such as laptops and mobile wireless devices. The Total Cost of Ownership of LeadWare is very low based on multiple cost reduction opportunities provided by the software.
We save companies tens of thousands of dollars on lead retrieval not because they were trying to save money but because they wanted to be efficient in meeting their strategic intent.
Call me and take the first step to an effective strategic plan powered by LeadWare™.
Steve McWilliams, VP Sales
smcwilliams@captureleads.com
973-890-7600 ext 117
Given the high cost to scan an attendee badge with show lead retrieval systems, we are often called by companies trying to save on the cost of lead retrieval. We believe this focus on the dollar cost of lead retrieval is misplaced; the focus should be achieving your strategic objectives and realizing a robust Return on Objective (ROO).
The purpose of a tradeshow is the matching of buyer and seller to achieve marketing and sales objectives. Marketing strives to meet defined goals e.g. accurate data, branding and the enhancement of the attendee purchase intent; on the other hand, sales needs accurate information to rapidly determine the business potential of a booth visitor. The first step in meeting the marketing and sales objectives is the primary qualification process. The effectiveness of the qualification process will have a direct impact on the ROI / ROO of the tradeshow.
A show lead retrieval system is an ineffective tool for meeting marketing and sales objectives. Show lead retrieval companies offer no ability to accelerate the sales cycle, leverage brand exposure to tradeshow attendees or reduce pressure on budgets by offering economies of scale or the ability to electronically correct the critically important badge information i.e. email address and phone numbers.
Embarrassingly, having to use a pencil or pen to correct information collected electronically calls attention to the archaic design architecture of the show lead retrieval systems. Also, show lead retrieval companies will often charge an exorbitant amount of money to give you access to your scanned badge information before the end of the show. Essentially, you are paying twice for your information. At the end of the show, you leave with little else but a text or excel file of, at best, poorly qualified contact information.
The Power of Branching Questions
Research shows that asking questions to a respondent outside of their business responsibility is aggravating. Consequently, asking the same questions of all booth attendees ensures that you will aggravate some portion of your visitors during the initial qualification process; there are hundreds of exhibitors taking your attendee through the same potentially aggravating process and using the same process is not the best first impression of your company’s uniqueness.
Research also shows that new client acquisition is the primary focus of the 76% of tradeshow exhibitors in 2010. The use of branching questions to qualify booth attendees is a critical step to meeting the primary strategic objective for sales: the delivery of the specific client business needs to the sales team.
The scanning of a badge is the first step to document a visit to the booth. It is quite common to have 4 to 8 different types of show attendees’ enter the booth. If you ask each attendee type six unique questions, your staff needs to remember and document as many as 24 to 48 questions and the associated answers. Without the use of LeadWare, this would be a very difficult task to accomplish for the booth staff.
The second step is asking meaningful questions to gather predetermined information for the marketing and sales team. In order to ask the meaningful survey questions to all of your booth visitors, you must utilize branching questions. The ability to document job specific answers will provide actionable knowledge to the sales organization to accelerate the sale to a successful conclusion. For marketing, branching questions gives you the ability to gather thousands of consistent data points across your events.
Clearly, not properly qualifying attendees and possibly aggravating them in the process is counterproductive. The use of branch/skip logic survey questions allows the surveyor to send respondents down different paths depending on how they respond to a question. To gather accurate and succinct information, qualifying questions can be based on job responsibilities and what information the sales team requires within the various job responsibilities or specific information about a stated product interest.
The Delivery of Sales Information
Within the booth, the optimal scenario would be a “meaningful interaction” followed by the delivery of the customer’s accurate business needs and product interests to the sales organization by an efficient booth team.
The sales team’s ability to review the salient details of the attendee interaction in the booth is critical to accelerating the sale. It is often frustrating to an attendee to discuss their needs in the booth only to have to start from scratch with a salesman on the phone 1500 miles away. You can be the perfect booth person but your value and hard work can be diminished if the needs of the customer are not effectively transmitted to the sales team.
The salient points of a 10 minute conversation in a booth can be electronically captured in 30 seconds and up loaded to a CRM in 30 seconds. Companies gain considerable competitive advantage when quality information is immediately available for action steps. It is quite common for our customers to have a qualified booth attendees information in a CRM before the close of a show day or at the least first thing in the morning. Your sales team can be talking to decision makers on a specific project with a strong competitive advantage within hours of a booth visit.
However, without delivery of the aforementioned business needs to the company sales organization, a “meaningful interaction” is tantamount to a tree falling in the forest. More importantly to your sales organization, without the qualifying information, the contact information now amounts to a cold call: a very, very expensive cold call.
Currently, the average industry cost of a face-to-face meeting in a booth is $203; the medical industry cost is $500 to $600. High quality contact information from a list company costs approximately one dollar per name. Let’s assume 50 quality face-to-face meetings in the booth. Without the information from the “meaningful interaction” collected and delivered to the sales team, you will pay $10,150 for information that would cost only $50.
And yet, we still get calls because someone wants to save $50 on lead retrieval.
Electronic Media Delivery Systems
Based on the ability of the seller to effectively qualify the customer as a buyer, the next task is to provide the requested product information. There are multiple methods to deliver product information; many clients prefer to deliver product information electronically in the form of retention e-mails. Retention emails are sent with the recipient’s permission and, as such, will continue to replace paper communications and will account for more than 30% of all marketing messages in consumers’ in-boxes by 2014.
The electronic medium supports a positive environmental statement by eliminating paper production and fossil fuel shipping costs with the additional benefit delivering information immediately to the desk of the requesting customer.
Currently, there is no cost effective lead retrieval solution provided by a tradeshow that offers branching questions and electronic product delivery system except for the shows managed by Capture Technologies.
The LeadWare Annual License
The annual license from Capture Technologies is the only true “economy of scale” offering in the tradeshow industry. The ability to reduce the cost of lead retrieval is directly linked to the number of tradeshows attended and savings realized due to the functionality of the LeadWare™ Browser platform. For a fixed fee you can use LeadWare™ an unlimited number of times during a calendar year on a computer. So as the number of events attended increases, the cost of lead retrieval decreases. When adjusted for savings realized because of the software functionality, you are actually returning dollars to your budget.
LeadWare™ Annual License offers substantial savings over standard tradeshow lead retrieval priced at a conservative cost of $300 per unit.
LeadWare™ Annual License Savings
20 Events 16%
30 Events 44%
40 Events 58%
50 Events 66%
The annual license can be the easiest and most economical approach for companies exhibiting at multiple events. You retain the badge scanning equipment during the period of your annual license. Your inventory of badge readers and a business card scanner can be moved from show-to-show in our custom shipping container by your Exhibit House or Tradeshow Team. CRM compatible event files can be uploaded to LeadWare™ Browser for immediate access.
Browser Edition is a fully functional web application providing a lead management tool for exhibitors to design and control their interactions with booth attendees before, during and post-show. Survey questions, product catalog, corporate graphics, online surveys and e-mail blast can now be controlled from the web. Tradeshow managers can design their event from any computer connected to the web and deliver an event file to a booth captain or exhibit house. Achieve superior functionality at a substantial savings.
A Step-by-Step Strategic Plan
To improve your ROI, the first step is implementing a streamlined cost structure for lead retrieval by taking advantage of LeadWare. For companies doing fewer shows, the software can be used on a show by show basis for either $250 for the basic version and $500 for the professional version. The reduction in staff hours alone will cover the cost of using LeadWare™.
The second step is the elimination of the production, shipment and drayage of onsite paper marketing materials. That savings could be as little as $300 to $3,000 per show (some ship pallets of marketing materials). Our LeadWare™ product catalog ensures the optimum in after-show contact to drive sales with dynamically merged custom HTML documents with specifically selected product URL's sent daily. This allows potential customers to push product information back to corporate stakeholders and decision team members for review which often promotes follow up visits to your booth.
This also makes a very positive environmental statement for an event. Plus, the harsh reality is this: 70% of this product information is thrown away before the attendees leave the hotel. It is clear that the use of paper marketing materials at tradeshows is dying. Imagine an environmental solution that protects your budget and leverages sales.
The third step is the efficient qualification of potential customers visiting your booth. Today’s exhibitor, small or large, wants to gather specific client information with branching questions and deliver specific product information electronically to accelerate their sales cycle
The fourth step is providing marketing teams the tools to generate pre-show and post-show HTML brand extension documents and online surveys that present a sophisticated image for their company. The ability to data-merge the attendee information into HTML documents for e-mail campaigns is an important function of LeadWare™ software. Electronic information is a competitive weapon in business and Capture Technologies offers you the tools to compete.
Finally LeadWare™ is the only unified lead retrieval software platform in the industry that offers custom surveys and a product catalog integrated with e-mail capabilities to send HTML product centric documents via a web application. Attendees can now be qualified to a much deeper extent than current show lead retrieval offerings available to show organizers. A common platform also saves considerable staff time and allows a single event file to used across multiple technologies such as laptops and mobile wireless devices. The Total Cost of Ownership of LeadWare is very low based on multiple cost reduction opportunities provided by the software.
We save companies tens of thousands of dollars on lead retrieval not because they were trying to save money but because they wanted to be efficient in meeting their strategic intent.
Call me and take the first step to an effective strategic plan powered by LeadWare™.
Steve McWilliams, VP Sales
smcwilliams@captureleads.com
973-890-7600 ext 117
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
