Electronic Matching: Revolutionizing The Industry!
By Becky Stanley, Director of Marketing Communications, CGS

Ask any show manager for a list of their top show goals, and increasing attendance, selling more exhibit space, and providing more value for attendees and exhibitors will almost certainly make every list. Ask exhibitors and attendees the same question and you will most likely hear making contacts that lead to business deals and realizing the full value of participating in trade shows and meetings.

Although these are important goals, organizers, exhibitors and attendees have traditionally had a limited number of tools at their disposal for meeting them individually—much less realizing all of them simultaneously. Today they have a new method called Business Relationship Optimization.

By combining predictive and behavioral modeling technologies with show registration and related data into a powerful business analytics engine, show organizers now have tools that dramatically change the dynamics of business conducted on the trade show floor.

The business relationship optimization process begins seamlessly weeks before the show opens, while the organizer collects demographic information from attendees’ registration forms. During registration, the software automatically creates a personal, online “networking and business development portal” for each attendee. This secure and private Web portal gives attendees the capability to discover other attendees’ demographics. In effect, each visitor gets a personal online “matching service.”

Based on mutual interests, attendees can connect with each other and with exhibitors through their private Web portals. By consent, they can communicate, set show appointments, perform initial research, and even begin negotiating business deals.

Meanwhile, as more and more attendees connect via their Web portals, the business relationship optimization software examines the data generated, looking for relationships and trends, and reports its findings. The software then “feeds” that data, in the form of recommendations, to attendees’ private portals.

ExpoExchange introduced show organizers to business relationship optimization through their new SmartEvent™ product at the IAEM Annual Meeting & Expo in December, 2003.

Trade show industry speaker, consultant and writer, Corbin Ball, CMP, MS, saw the demonstration and wrote, “One of my favorite products at the show was the SmartEvent product. This system has a number of evaluation features that, through using the product, people can connect with potential clients or colleagues of like interest that will help potential attendees and exhibitors justify going to a meeting. I have long been a proponent of using technology to improve trade shows and other meetings. This product definitely fits into this category.”

ExpoExchange will run 25 SmartEvent-powered shows this year that will translate huge databases of trade show transactions into meaningful statistics to provide the missing link between buyers and sellers, channel partners, and technical allies.

For more information on SmartEvent or how ExpoExchange can bring you one step closer to meeting your ultimate show goals, contact Mike Godsey at 800-448-1883 or email productinfo@expoexchange.com.