This morning I’d like to keep the Exhibitor 2010 follow up going with a few notes from a session that I attended and found most interesting.  The topic covered was RFID tracking technology, and how Philips Healthcare used it to measure the behaviors of visitors within their exhibit at RSNA.  They were tracking everything from how many attendees visited specific displays/demos, how long they staid there and since the RFID was tied to registration, whether or not they had brought colleagues with them a later time during the show.

Jeff Masters, a senior marketing manager at Philips said that they had over 90,000 lines of excel data after the first use.  You can imagine that is a lot of data to sort through so they eventually developed a dashboard view to consolidate the data into windows of manageable information.

Now don’t get me wrong, this technology isn’t cheap and not every company has a special budget set aside each year for testing new technologies.  All that said, the Philips case study does provide some insight and ideas for how RFID technology might be used on a smaller scale.

After you get a chance to read through the case study below, let me know if you’re currently employing similar tools of measurement in your exhibit.

Exhibitor 2010: Afternoon Session
What: Profile in Excellence: Philips Healthcare Merging RFID with Research to Measure Beahvior and Results
Who: Jeff Masters, Sr. Manager, Global Event Marketing Group, Philips Healthcare and Skip Cox, CEO, Exhibit Surveys

Developing Measurement Plan

JM: It’s important that your metrics that align with and measure success of events in meeting overall corporate marketing objectives and initiatives.  Your methodology should be consistent across all shows to:

• Develop cost effective and efficient process
• Develop mormative data for benchmarking
• Use consistent tools
• Directly compare
• Summarize data periodically (by business unit, market, etc.)

JM: What you measure must be consistent with corporate business plans and objectives.  Your first step should be to develop a database to house key metrics and results.  They should be scalable and flexible measurement, practical for small and large events and provide multiple reporting tools to communicate results to different levels of internal stakeholders.

Case Study: RSNA Expo
Background: RFID program installed in 2007, which was when JM first arrived to Philips (RFID scanners provided by Alliance Tech).  How the scanners is work is that they automatically measure barcodes embedded in badge and can measure behaviors of attendees within an exhibit space.  Types of measurement:

• Traffic
• Time in booth
• Time in a specific area
• 

“A swipe is a swipe, is a swipe.  But a lead is a whole other deal.” -Jeff Masters, Philips Healthcare

JM: You need to be able to define differences between swipes, qualified leads and created opportunities.  Marketing is all math. If you want to talk the language of the board room, you’re talking about math.  If you’re interested in the numbers, find something interesting.

Finding ROO:
JM: Philips’ current Return On Objectives (ROO) expectation is 20:1 if new business is objective. That means that for every dollar spent on trade shows, he is accountable for a $20 return.  He uses a custom Corporate Opportunities System developed by Alliance Tech that pumps data into visualization software so that executives get a dashboard view of leads.  It allows him to follow every opportunity opened at show and tracking through it’s life cycle.

Key Elements of Measurment Plan:

1. Measurment Objectives Metrics & info required to meet objectives
2. Source(s) and/or methodology for collecting data
3. Analysis Plan

Objectives

Increase overall Net Promoter Score (NPS) at exhibit.  Use NPS because it’s a strong indicator of health of company, particular to its longterm growth, and it’s easy to measure.

• On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a colleague?
• On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend this exhibit to a company or colleague?

Increase pipeline opportunities.  This is a fairly common goal for exhibit marketers but the key is to make sure that you put the metrics in a language that your executives will understand/

Responsible to creating:

• A compelling event experience for all attendees
• We bring the Brand Home and Brand Promise to life
• By telling better storeis we activate sales and shorten selling cycles
• Opportunities prioritized and dashboarded to leadership
• Spend rationalization based upon metrics and insights
• Measured value to all stakeholders
• Global portfolio

Proving that creative marketing at events is just as important to the manufacturing world, ESAB North America launched a variety of actions to engage with their attendees at their most recent tradeshow.

ESAB  integrated social media into their tradeshow marketing strategy at the FABTECH International & AWS Welding show in Chicago, November 15-18 2009. Their goal was to market effectively while interacting more with attendees in a different manner.

ESAB launched their Social Media campaign by introducing their fan page on Facebook in March of 2009 and following up with their Twitter page shortly after, in May.

“Social  Media for us started as a curiosity, which then turned into an opportunity; an opportunity to connect with our customers in a way we never have and allow us to communicate directly with them,” says Carrie Godwin, Web Marketing Analyst at ESAB North America.

ESAB launched their campaign by sending out an e-newsletter in advance of the event, detailing products that would be on display. They also created a dedicated FABTECH event page on their website, which would serve as a portal for a variety of news and video updates throughout the show. In addition, they began posting to Twitter and Facebook a week before the event launch to generate buzz with giveaways and more product previews to followers.

The opening day of FABTECH, ESAB deployed frequent updates detailing product demos and more giveaways. ESAB passed out branded dogtags to visitors who attended the demos and throughout the day, sent “spotters” to award anyone wearing them with ESAB branded products, including welding helmets.

Within their own exhibit, ESAB set up kiosks for attendees to sign up to be a fan on Facebook. During the four day event, ESAB gained over 300 new fans.

Throughout the four day tradeshow, ESAB recorded video updates, including interviews and product demos, which were uploaded to the ESAB YouTube page and fed into the ESAB at FABTECH website. They utilized professional trade show presenter, Emilie Barta, to host the videos and conduct the on-camera interviews. In addition, Barta acted as a liaison to facilitate exhibit tours, product demos, and scheduled presentations, which reached over 1000 visitors during the show.

ESAB also used the power of others, including Barta, to convey their message further on Twitter. Barta, who also has implemented social media into her marketing strategies, used Twitter to convey her experience, promote ESAB’s presentations and product demos and retweet many of ESAB’s own updates. Together, they strategically broadcasted their messages to each individual’s group of followers. In addition, the exhibition organizers were retweeting any FABTECH-related news to create a buzz throughout the show, thus expanding their reach even further.

According to Barta, “ESAB recognizes the value of promotion and the value of students and is dedicated to connecting with them in a manner in which they are most apt to receive.”

Additionally, ESAB created a post-show video, which allowed those not able to attend a feeling of connection with the events that transcribed.

ESAB is extending their Social Media campaign far past tradeshows. They are using Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis to post educational and promotional materials, and more importantly, interact with their customers.

They are also in the works to launch a web video series entitled, “Jay & Jerry,” which will chronicle welding tips and advice by two of ESAB’s own employees.

Additional resources:

ESAB North America

ESAB on Facebook

ESAB on Twitter

ESAB on YouTube