How to accurately scan attendees into sessions when hundreds to thousands of people could be flowing through the door when it opens. Many organizations have the need to track and record which attendees are attending sessions so they can award continuing education credits and other meetings just want to track who attended which session. Problem solved using one of Lead liaison’s latest feature updates:
Rapid Scan!
When Rapid Scan is enabled in the app a door monitor is able to quickly scan the badge of everyone who enters without any additional steps like hitting submit or answering questions in the normal lead retrieval screen. Simply focus the camera on the badge, beep and move on to the next badge. The app will continue scanning until the submit button is pressed at which point all of the scanned data will be uploaded into the system. Quick and accurate!
Need to report if an attendee stayed for the entire session?
Event managers can also scan badges using rapid scan as they exit the room and the system will time stamp both the entrance and exit of the attendee.
The system makes it easy to report which attendees were in which sessions because the Lead liaison software OneFocus creates an “attendee journey” in their profile so an event manager can easily see and export each session attended. We also integrate with many different software platforms if you want to have an automatic sync of the data.
Short on staff?
The app can also be configured for kiosk mode which will allow an attendee to scan as they enter the room. If the attendees are trained that they need to scan in and out to be awarded the continuing education credit then rest assured they will make sure to scan properly.
Contact Lead liaison today to learn more about how easy it is to track your session attendance using rapid scan in the Lead liaison app.
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 2,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.
Give me 50 seconds of your time and watch this 1980’s video of the song YYZ. Begin at about 3:20 in:
YYZ is a seven minute showcase of musical talent composed and created by musicians who harnessed and refined their talent, forging it over time with discipline and practice. Much like Neil Peart’s drum solo, a rhythm is a pattern or sequence of sounds (or events in our case) that combine to create a beautiful symphony.
The Symphony of Rhythms By combining all the automations and the rhythms and the calculations that the SaaS Platform Lead liaison is executing for us and our customers every day, you will not just have a mishmash of noise or actions; you have a showcase of synchronized talent that originates with your thoughts, plans, and words, and then launched out like an arrow to strike at the heart of who? Not just people, but unique individuals who just so happen to be called prospects to us.
This is why when we sit down to create a rhythm, we don’t just bang drums. We focus on the uniqueness of the individual and we try to reach them with solutions that accomplish their goals… Because honestly, every corporation wants their products to be SuperNova stars like Neil Peart…
And so when we sit down to create, or dream, or design a rhythm, we take the same position as an artist. We want to create something that reaches the heart of the reader. This process is the process of keeping it relevant to the person that we’re communicating to.
Just as we all watched Neil play and we all may recognize his talent, there are some of us to whom RUSH just is not relevant and in the same way, your message, as finely crafted as it may be, is not going to be relevant to everybody without focusing on their unique traits, their needs and their affinities. So focusing on the individual means we are searching for the unique factors that make Lead liaison relevant to the people that we’re reaching out to.
Pulling Prospects from Data Sources When I pull new prospects, I have a large list of criteria that can include geography, experience or position within the company, and so on. Prospect companies can be filtered by employee headcount, annual revenue, and so on. I want to tune these search criteria to make sure we’re always in the butter zone when we pull lead lists. Once we download our leads, we further cull them until we have a list that says, “These are the people we need to talk to.” Always pull lead lists based on criteria that allows you to communicate to the right people, right where they are.
Personalization How can I further drill down from here and really communicate to a specific segment of people? For certain rhythms, we pull lists of people based on job changes or professional transitions. If data indicates that they were hired at a new job with titles matching our ICPs, and within a one year period, then we send them to a rhythm called, “The New ICP Less Than One Year Rhythm.”
This rhythm is really cool and unique. We’re actually sending an email straight from our CEO, Ryan Shefke, congratulating these people on their recent new position, which is highly relevant to them. It gets their attention and it does something else for us too… It gives us a reason to incentivize them for a conversation.
Because these rythems are focusing on a professional life event, we get much higher response rates than other more broadly targeted rhythms
And these rhythms are the basis of our Ghirardelli Incentive campaigns, or in the UK our Hotel Chocolat campaigns. So in marketing we offer incentives whenever we feel it’s right to do so, and Ghirardelli / Hotel Chocolat have been some of our all time high performing campaigns in terms of getting new demos. From the very inception of Capello, Ghirardelli incentives have really helped us to introduce our brand to people out there in the events industry.
Let me flip to a different rhythm in which I have targeted event professionals… I was browsing social media one day and I noticed that there was a post in the UK where they were congratulating people for making the corporate A-list, and they were listing all the top winners; some 20 winners were all total event professionals who made it on C&IT corporate list.
So I created a special rhythm that spoke directly to that experience and congratulated them for their achievements. I wished them a wonderful stay in Scotland, the destination all the winners received a free trip to. I offered all of them a complimentary gift card and a fun gamification experience as our way of saying congratulations.
So now these winners are winning even more free stuff! They know Lead liaison is benevolent and appreciates their professional development. And guess what? This approach with only 12 ICPs in the rhythm eventually led to a deal with AstraZeneca.
Adding Value to Build Relationships If you’ve done everything you can to get information about people and you’re still falling a bit short in your personalization, rather than just solicit them with a straightforward approach, you should earn your right to approach them. Try to romance it some. Earn the right to approach them.
How do you do that? Offer something they find value in, like a case study, video, or blog article that speaks to their interests and needs. As a general rule, don’t be pushy in your outreach emails. Keep it to a few carefully planned steps.
In this rhythm, we have a day-1 email scheduled first. Then we have a day-7 email, then day-10. We’re not going Day-1, Day-1, Day-1, Day-2, Day-5.
TIPS:
1: Keep your messages spaced out. Give your prospects a little time to breathe. Don’t be too salesy, and don’t be selfish in your outreach.
2: On the other hand, don’t be shy or passive. People want to know: why are you contacting them? You can let them know that you care and how you can help them, and you can do it in short and concise words or sentences.
3: Make your second message a follow up (reply to) to the first email you sent to keep the conversation alive. If you’re trying to reach out to somebody, would you create a brand new email each time and compose a new message every single time? No, you would go into your sent box, find the message you already sent, and build a history with a reply-to message. Build on that communication.
4: In your final email message, it’s ok to be less formal. This indicates you’re going to discontinue bothering them unless they show interest. You can even add a notice instead of a signature at the bottom: sent from my iPad. It’s obviously a little trick, but you want to come across as very human.
Important Note:
Rhythms are not marketing emails. Rhythm emails should be composed as if you had drafted them from your Gmail inbox or your Outlook inbox.
5: Another thing that has proven to be very effective in final messages is to offer choices to the recipient so they can quickly provide you with feedback, such as:
Choose one of these options:
1: I’m interested. Let’s talk soon.
2: I’m interested, but too busy right now.
3: I’m not interested at all.
Look to get closure on that last message, and keep it very brief.
A quick question came up during this session: 1: How does GDPR privacy law affect outreach to leads imported from LinkedIn Sales Navigator? GDPR allows for cold email outreach if it is directly related to a business opportunity that is relevant to the recipient. So they need to be your ICPs, and it’s important to check that box before sending out any rhythm emails. These messages are going one to one, so it’s not sending in bulk like a marketing list. Rhythms are that totally personalized approach.
What happens if they haven’t responded? Since you know your prospects best, it’s totally up to you how you deal with them. But I would give them a cool down period and then add them to a nurture campaign that educates them more about the brand and the offering so they can begin to understand their need for your solutions.
What we want to do in marketing is to create a reality for them. In order to create a new reality for a person, you have to present a relevant message to them from multiple different channels. They have to recognize that message coming from your brand within a specific timeframe. For example, within a one week period they hear your ad on the radio, then they see it on TV, and a few days later they receive a postcard… Now it’s becoming real to them.
This is why it’s important to add calls as part of a step in your rhythm. Ideally you would send an email, make a call, send an email, reach out with a handwritten letter… You’re mixing it up.
“People that send an email and call a few days later or a day after and say, “Hey, I sent you an email,” and they leave me a little message. Holy cow, it feels so much more real. I realize they’re human. I feel like they’re taking the time to prospect me, which I appreciate. And then if they send me another email, I might reply to that email, but mixing it up is very important. And I’m saying that as a recipient.” Ryan Schefkle, CEO – Lead liaison
Merge Fields: Use merge fields to get more personal, to get more specific. In this example, we’re reaching out to event organizers who had recently had an event and we populate the merge fields with their show data. So it speaks directly to the organizer about the recent show and congratulates them on having a successful show. This one has been successful: 1: Because merge fields allow us to speak specifically to their situation. 2: Our sales team is great at following these up. I’ve seen some real conversations come from these outreaches, and to get an entire organization or event on onboard is a huge win. That’s gonna take time.
Email Formatting You’ll notice that the formatting in the email on the right is extremely simple… It is very basic with minimal formatting at all other than the signature at the bottom of the email, which makes it appear as a hand typed one-off email.
In the example on the left, you have considerable formatting:
1: The use of sections and dividers to create a professional look and feel.
2: Prominent placement of the company logo.
3: The use of bullets
4: Appropriate bolding. Never over do it on the use of bolding. You’ll eventually slip into spam just as you will if you use too many capital letters in your emails.
5: Make sure you have good paragraph spacing to break up your content.
6: Hyperlinks. Please don’t use more than three hyperlinks, especially if they’re unique hyperlinks, per email as a general rule.
7: Graphics are fun to include, but always keep ’em under 400 kilobytes. Less than that, if possible.
8: If graphics link to a video, make sure you’re adding an image hyperlink and a play button indicating that they should play the video.
Both formatting approaches are perfectly acceptable depending on the image and approach you use. Just make sure you have thought this part through prior to committing.
Testing: Add yourself. So how would I do that? How would I add myself? I would click Actions, then Add Prospects. I’m going to add myself to the rhythm and the system is going to send rhythm content to me within the next 24 hours. I’m gonna to review how that email looks in my inbox. I want to send it to my Gmail and my Outlook inbox… multiple platforms so you can compare how the formatting looks across platforms. Outlook is just known for ruining good emails. You can have a beautifully formatter email and Outlook will ruin it. So be careful there.
Get another set of eyes on your email before you send it, because we all need an objective point of view to catch errors that we might have missed. You can really get creator’s fatigue where you think you’ve proofed it 400 times and it’s perfect, but there’s a glaring error and you just can’t see it.
Frequency: In a rhythm you have to carefully plan out your timing between steps. Here are a few statistics about the best times to send out emails for good open and click through rates:
Emails that are sent on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday get the most engagement.
Statistically, marketing emails sent between 9:00 AM and noon on Tuesday get the most engagement, followed by Monday and Wednesday at the same time.
The weekend is a bad time to send business related emails. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday have the lowest open end click through rates on the calendar. So, even on Fridays when I’m still anxious to send out my marketing campaigns, I usually send about 50% of the volume that I normally do on weekdays.
Monday, remember everybody gets to work and deletes the first 400 emails in their inbox that look like spam. So for Mondays I will typically wait till after they’ve cleaned their inbox and send emails late morning or in the early afternoon, or even sometimes after they get home at 5:30pm. Sometimes people will recheck their work emails real quick before dinner.
I hope you found these tips helpful. For more information about sales enablement solutions, marketing automation, CRM, universal lead capture and user-customizable activations, reach out to us here at Lead liaison
We can help you make the most of your events through all stages of event planning and execution.
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.
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Cultivating Quality Interactions on the Event Show Floor
Not all events are the same, but a few attributes all events should have in common are positive community building experiences, conversations that increase knowledge and breadth of opportunity, and positive ROI.
The direct path to ROI is one beset with quality interactions. When preparing for your next event, plan to engage with your prospects. What is your plan for brokering new conversations?
What impression would you like to make as a company?
Here are a few takeaways to help you make the most of your events:
1: Give people a reason to visit your exhibit space.
Is your booth well built? Good! You’re halfway there. Is it interesting and staffed with a well equipped events team? Now we’re getting there…
Let’s talk engagement:
Event activations are becoming the new norm for enhancing interaction at in person and hybrid events. Activations, also known as Gamification, connect attendees with activities that combine fun with education and brand impression. Activations launch anywhere, including on personal devices, so they can go anywhere providing incentives to visit sponsored booths and important locations, attending sessions, reviewing presentations and more.
All this activity and involvement nets increased event revenue, additional intentional interaction, and as a result – more conversations leading to business transactions.Lead liaison’s suite of over 60 event activations helps event organizers and exhibitors drive engagement at their events and provides exhibitors with better lead capture processes. The intuitive Activation Builder makes it extremely easy for anyone to customize games with branding of any kind.
2: Be inviting
Now that you know how to draw additional traffic to your booth, don’t forget to converse with your attendees as soon as they arrive. Smiles and good body language are well received and can increase opportunities for conversations.
3: Flex your customer service muscle
Oftentimes you will have booth traffic that won’t lead to a direct sale. That doesn’t mean you should cut down on your customer service skills. An attendee could have questions that require you to refer them to someone else. Offer a quality experience and they will remember that. If they know how good you are at taking care of them, the positive experience will provide an opportunity for future word of mouth referrals.
4: Listen
Customers come to trade shows for the opportunity to have conversations and understand more about certain products and services offered by exhibitors. The in-person conversation is the most valuable sales tool there is. If a prospective customer is at your event and stops by your booth, they have something to say. FIRST, LISTEN to their questions, understand their needs, and give them your attention. Sales take time, this is just the reality. The more listening you do from the start, the better. Create that positive experience on your first meeting!
5: No PDE (Public Displays of Exhaustion) allowed!
Sit only if you can do so out of public view. When prospects walk by a booth, they expect to see energy and excitement. Nothing is more deflating in the eyes of an attendee than walking the floor to see people sitting behind a table at a booth showing no energy.
6: Have fun!
If it takes an extra cup of coffee or a candy bar, find energy to have fun. Look, staffing a booth at a trade show is tough. Travel, setup, long days, we know it isn’t always glamorous. Why go through all that just to be upset on event day? If you need it, give your booth staff a break or two during the day to recharge. It is so important everyone in the booth is in good spirits when any attendee drops by, even on day three of an event.
During 2020 so many of us missed the in-person experience when we had to move to online events.
Today, in-person experiences are back in full force with tons of attendees excited to make those in person connections again. Appreciate every opportunity, and always look to build upon every handshake or fist bump.
We hope these simple tips were helpful to you as you plan for upcoming events. If you need creative ideas and resources to make your next event more engaging, contact Lead liaison!
We’re here to help YOU make every event a huge success.
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 3,000integrationsfor 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!
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Best Practices for Transcribing Business Cards and Contact Information
Companies struggle finding easy and fast ways to transcribe contact information from documents such as business cards, trade show badges, resumes, and handwritten notes. In this article we discuss these solutions and examine the trade-offs for why you would use one method over the other.
Lead liaison invented two proprietary methods of transcription which are far superior than traditional optical character recognition (also known as “OCR”) methods commonly used today. These methods are called:
Human AI and Pure AI
Both are very distinct methods that have their own advantages. Relative to standard OCR, the methods have a 63% higher accuracy rate. OCR is an older technology that does not learn from its mistakes (no machine learning) and uses hard-coded programmatic code that doesn’t adapt. It typically runs inside an app and on a device, making it inflexible. As a result, OCR is hard to update and has quickly become irrelevant when compared to other methods.
“I’ve used OCR apps from the App Stores and they always frustrate me. I tried dozens of them, over and over, really looking for the right solution. I determined they’re not very accurate, constantly require fixing and tweaking, lack integration with sales and marketing systems, and don’t fit the needs of marketing teams. They’re meant for individual sales people who have time on their hands to correct data – says nobody. Our engineering team pounded the innovation drums giving us industry-leading solutions that fit numerous use cases. We’re super excited to introduce our newest method, which we call Pure AI.”
Lead liaison CEO Ryan Schefke
Lead liaison’s study of 10,687 business cards and documents requiring transcription determined standard OCR was accurate 60.34% of the time. In comparison, Lead liaison’s methods were 98.6% accurate on average. That’s a 64% improvement in accuracy resulting in better quality contact information, more precise lead data, and improved lead management workflows.
HUMAN AI:
Lead liaison’s classic method, known as Human AI, uses an operations team of several hundred people. The workforce transcribes the contact information while artificial intelligence processes the data to find matching information and discards bad information. The result is a highly accurate process ideal for multiple use cases.
PURE AI:
The second, and newest method, is called Pure AI. Pure AI uses a sophisticated process that combines machine learning, image analysis, data intelligence, and artificial intelligence to perform its magic. The best method for your business depends on your use case.
In the tables below we’ve highlighted six (6) use cases for transcribing contact information from documents, all of which Lead liaison supports. If you need help transcribing business cards, badges, or handwritten notes at trade shows or marketing events Lead liaison can help. Similarly, if your company does door-to-door sales or has sales processes that use contact cards in any form, we can help. Whatever you use, ditch OCR as it’s a thing of the past. Use Human AI or Pure AI to leap into the next generation of transcription.
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.
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Exhibitor Media Group reports that in 2023 companies expect to exhibit at an average of 47.2 in-person events per year (6% more than in 2019).
As trade shows and marketing events start to fill up the calendar, event organizers need creative solutions to bring in more attendees and drive value to sponsors and other stakeholders. In this article we outline five solutions for event organizers to bring life to their events.
Scavenger Hunts
The classic scavenger hunt, or treasure hunt, was historically run using a piece of paper and stamps. Attendees would visit booths or prime destinations in an effort to complete their card. It’s sort of like playing a lottery ticket or bingo. Tick off all the squares and you win! In an age where digital dominates, organizers have an opportunity to move a scavenger hunt experience from physical to digital, while going green at the same time. Solutions exist that leverage QR codes as the destinations while attendees load a progress report that tells them what stops they’ve completed and where they need to go next. This is an excellent way for event organizers to drive traffic to key areas, exhibitors, or sponsors – getting them to do what you want them to do. Event organizers can also monetize each stop thereby creating additional revenue streams for their event.
Two Truths and a Lie
This event experience encourages attendees to network with each other. I’ve been to many events in my career. Although the events industry is rather “clicky”, it never fails that I’m walking around the show floor introducing myself to people. Sometimes it feels awkward as people are almost suspicious of “nice guys”. Why should it be that way? Event organizers can give attendees a reason to connect with one another . Two truths and a Lie is one of the best ways to do that. Prior to the event attendees answer three questions about themselves, with two answers being truthful and one answer being a lie. Event organizers can program how the experience works, and whether one attendee needs to guess the truth or the lie of another attendee. If they get the correct answer the attendee earns points and a chance to be atop the leaderboard.
Speed Networking
We’ve all seen the popularity of dating websites grow over the past decade. The concept is great. Match people up, have them go on a date, and if there’s a good match then the rest is history. These concepts can also be applied to business through speed networking to help event organizers. Solutions exist where groups of people can join “rooms”, which might be dedicated to common interests. Attendees meet in the room at a specific time and are matched with another person where they have a time limit to network. Once the networking session is over, the attendees are matched to another person. This is a great opportunity to connect buyers and sellers together, like-minded buyers together, attendees with common interests, and more.
Digital Activations
Exhibitors spend lots of time and money hauling in giant spin the wheels, whack a moles, or Plinko to their live event hoping the aid acts like a minno to hungry fish, attracting attendees in swarms. Event organizers have enough to worry about and can’t spend the time bringing in physical activations. Instead, solutions exist for digital activations that can be run on tablets. Event organizers can brand digital activations, sell sponsorships, and use them to deliver a message or preview content. When attendees engage with the digital activations they earn points. Points accumulate over the course of the event as attendees vie for a spot on the top of the event leaderboard. Attendees can be incentivized to participate if prizes are awarded for people that finish in the top X position on the leaderboard.
Session Surveys
Event organizers often offer educational sessions at their event. Although, most organizers miss out on the opportunity to collect data, feedback, and further engage attendees with the use of surveys or polls. Surveys or polls can be displayed using a branded QR code at the beginning or end of a session – or even somewhere in between. Attendees can scan the QR code with their smartphone to take the quiz/poll. Data is aggregated for event organizers to use and provide feedback to the speaker while improving the experience for the following year. When attendees participate they can earn points and get a spot on the leaderboard – encouraging them to participate at deeper levels.
We hope these five creative solutions for event organizers give you some ideas for your next event! Contact Lead liaison at www.Leadliaison.com if you’d like our help in providing any of these five solutions. We can help!
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.
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We have all been there. Your company has spent tens of thousands on your booth, staff presence, and extramentals.
How can you make sure you get the most of it?
Email.
From start to finish, Email can be the easiest to use, and also the best tool in your arsenal.
How, you ask? Let’s go into the details…
Pre-show
Many shows provide, either for purchase or as part of your registration, a list of attendees. Use this list to send out pre-show emails inviting people to a special experience or intentional meeting at your booth. If the show provider doesn’t provide such a list and you have been to the show previously, you can pick out previous attendees linked to that event in your database who are likely to return to the show based on previous years’ attendance.
If you’re running a contest or incentive to visit your booth experience, detail it in your pre-show email. It’s also a good idea to offer calendar scheduling for people to arrange time to meet with you.
Offer PDF documents teasing incentives, special offers, or explanations of your unique products and solutions to build interest. Pre-show email is your first touch, and provides a gateway to building interest. Be sure to include your booth number and a simple map or illustration so people can easily find you. This can even include downloading a show floor map indicating your location to make your booth easier to find.
During the Show
People will often request documentation about your products or solutions. Why burden them with paper they might lose or damage when you can offer digital content that they will receive right away in their inbox for them to preview at their convenience? This has a secondary effect of reminding them about the topic of your conversation, which can be handy as they speak with dozens of exhibitors throughout the day.
When to send such an email varies and is up to your professional discretion. Sending the email right away when prospects are still on the show floor indicates that you deliver what you promise while it is still fresh on their minds, but this approach may also result in reduced open rates since it is unlikely they will see the email until they get back to their hotel room, or return from the event to sort through – and delete unwanted emails. Our suggestion is to include follow up email timing as a key question that you ask when discussing the material you will send them.
If you’re using a Universal Lead Capture platform such as Lead Liaison, you can ask them if they want the documents immediately, at the end of the day, or after the show, or any other time frame as a qualifier for sending the email. This way prospects get the documentation exactly at the time they specify.
On average, trade show attendees spend 8.3 hours visiting booths and displays…
So the courtesy of showing that you value their time can go a very long way in building relationships.
End of Show
The post-show email is likely the most important email you can send out. Personalize it with discussion recaps and send out thank you messages for spending time at your exhibit. The work week following an event is generally the best time to send post-event emails, as people will be back in the office and a simple reminder can do wonders to keep the conversation alive.
If you did not schedule meetings during the show, make sure to offer a calendar link in post show follow up. Toss out a meeting link and invite the people you met to connect again and discuss in further detail how you can help them.
On average, event attendees will tell 6 other people about their experience at the event.
If you were memorable, this is a great way to increase word of mouth marketing.
Carefully planning pre-show, during the show, and post show emails is a vital step that is guaranteed to help increase those valuable post-show conversation, and overall show ROI; and will also help with brand awareness as they see – and remember – your company’s brand and solutions.
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.
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In the sales world, you have a lot to keep track of: new leads, existing leads, who needs follow-up, who still needs a touch, contracts sent, contract returned, and so much more! With multiple prospects and stages to track simultaneously, sales professionals need convenient ways to stay organized and focused on the target ahead. This is why Lead liaison has developed the new Lead Analyzer!
The primary function of the Lead Analyzer is to sort leads and keep track of sales stages from the point of lead assignment to deal closed.
Say you’ve just returned from a trade show. All of your leads are sent to the lead analyzer where they can start the journey through your sales funnel. The Lead Analyzer places leads in customizable stages. Leads travel from stage to stage based on what the sales professional deems most appropriate for follow-up.
For instance, after a recent trade show, we set these stages: Captured, Assigned, Outreach, Demo Booked, Demo Complete and Done. As we worked through qualified leads by priority (Urgent, Hot, Warm, Cold), we were able to move prospects visually through the sales funnel from stage to stage until either a demo was complete, or they completed all of the sales stages.
This alleviated the need for our sales team to keep track of leads on a spreadsheet, or a piece of paper! Using the Lead Analyzer, we are also able to understand what stage every lead is in at a glance, and we can quickly reassign prospects to the next stage with a simple drag and drop. From the lead analyzer, we can quickly view or play audio notes, and take actions such as:
Adding a note or task reminder to the prospect record in our CRM.
Adding prospects to automated workflows such as nurtures and rhythms or cadences.
Adding prospects to segments and lists.
Creating deals and tasks related to the lead.
Sending letters, emails and postcards to the prospect.
Another interesting use case for Lead liaison’s Lead Analyzer is to help me manage leads that haven’t come from a specific event (the best practice is to keep event leads separate so you can track ROI on each show).
I have different stages defined: First Outreach, Second Outreach, Demo Booked, First Follow-Up Post Demo, Second a Follow-Up Post Demo, Order Form Sent, and Order Form Received.
This helps in keeping my leads straight, So I can instantly see who needs an additional touch to get a demo booked, when I need to follow up post-demo, and it helps me keep track of those order forms I have sent out for a signature.
Lead Analyzer is part of Lead liaison’s Sales Enablement platform, which includes a free CRM called OneFocus. If you’d like more information about these topics, please Contact Us.
I’m sure once you experience the Lead Analyzer, you’ll figure out the best stages for your sales team. But overall, it’s going to make keeping track of where the leads are in the sales funnel much easier.
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.
https://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.png00Lead Liaisonhttps://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.pngLead Liaison2022-11-22 08:28:582022-11-22 08:28:58The Lead Analyser: Get Your Leads In Order
Demystifying Engagement: How to Connect with Your Audience
Connecting with your audience is vital to demystifying any form of engagement when it comes to event management. Liz King graced InEvent’s 360° event to shed more light on how to connect with your audience.
Liz King Caruso started her business on Twitter, but after connecting with like-minded individuals via social media, her Twitter account blossomed into a fully-fledged events business. Liz has experience in virtual and hybrid events for about ten years. Her expertise in virtual platform strategy and the monetization of virtual events is well sought after in the industry.
At InEvent’s 360° event, Liz left us with pearls of wisdom to help event planners engage audiences in a way that better serves virtual and hybrid objectives. If you missed it, you could catch her session on-demand here.
360° Key Takeaways from Liz King Caruso – Events specialist and consultant at Liz King Eventsent
Event engagement has changed significantly over the past few years. According to Liz, a good starting point is to re-imagine what in-person, virtual and hybrid events will look like in the future.
“I believe that hybrid is the future, and it is critical that we get ourselves out there and try it.” – Liz King caruso
Sometimes hybrid events simply look like a live stream where the audience is watching remotely. There would be a great in-person event, and people are watching virtually, but the event’s main focus would always be the in-person event.
CTRL ALT DLT event in 2017
Liz King Events produced an event called CTRL ALT DLT a few years ago, where they had a virtual program and had hubs of people participating from all around the world. According to Liz, that was the closest example they had to the type of events being produced today in 2021, in 2017.
Liz reiterates that these event models have existed, and today we see that people want to interact with each other in a different way, which calls for a new way to look at the engagement at virtual and hybrid events.
While there is Zoom fatigue, there is no such thing as Netflix fatigue.
In Liz’s experience, she found that audiences are selective about what they spend their time virtually, which begs the question as to why people were getting tired of Zoom, but not of Netflix.
This is valuable insight for events planners because it suggests that event producers are doing something wrong.
“We have to be more entertaining. We have seen that people’s time attention span for anything virtual is really short unless you design a TV show. People don’t have the attention span to sit and watch educational content or to network for long periods,” says Liz.
Virtual events are great for introverts.
Whenever event planners talk about the engagement metric, they usually refer to how many people are on screen. In the beginning, event planners were asking questions like “are their videos on?” or “Are they participating in conversations?” To determine engagement, but in the last year and a half, she realized that maybe that approach is not the key to determining engagement anymore.
Different audiences
“A true hybrid event is an event with two different audiences, and they have all the perfect touchpoints.”
Liz King Caruso
Over this time, Liz has come to understand that the virtual audience and the in-person audience are two very different experiences and therefore should be treated as such, especially regarding engagement.
“When we are at a virtual event, we don’t have handshakes and hugs. The breaks are awkward because we don’t have a person to turn to on the right and introduce ourselves to. We are sitting in our home offices, and every second feels like 6 minutes”, says Liz.
With that in mind, event planners need to create two completely different engagement experiences for both audiences.
Ask yourself: To what extent do people want to connect when they are a part of two completely different audiences?
Think about the ways that you can connect your audiences to the content. Virtual event platform features like chat options, live Q&A, and upvoting questions are helpful for this purpose.
Liz suggests thinking about whether you can have your virtual attendees networking with each other in one way and your in-person attendees having a different networking experience with each other.
“I don’t think we should be that obsessed with these two audiences connecting with each other, but I do think we need to think about how those two experiences are and should be different.”
Liz King Caruso
Agenda
Does someone virtual want to attend an 8-hour day? Probably not. Event planners need to look at how we plan the agenda to be more meaningful for both audiences.
Think about how you can make the agenda about your attendees. With the TechsyTalk Global conference, most content was designed around what the attendees wanted to talk about. “We’re not even choosing topics until part of the event has started. We had a few sessions, and we asked attendees what they wanted to talk about. Then we had some breakouts where they became part of the conversation,” remarks Liz. “I think that’s critical, especially as people are getting tired of watching way too much content. Whether it’s live or pre-recorded, it’s too much content. They want to be part of that experience, so making the agenda about the attendees is really important.”
Shorter formats
Liz suggests having sessions of about 10-15 minutes long.
“People can get a ton of content in a small amount of time.”
Liz King Caruso
“Rethink the most important content for your session, make it a hitlist, and maybe do the Top 5 points. Those are always our best sessions,” says Liz. “We see even with in-person, people are there to network, they want to see each other, they want to experience all the things that they haven’t been able to experience. Content is not necessarily one of those things. They skip out on the mainstage sessions, so we may want to think about mixing up our agenda as well, to see how that works for the hybrid model.”
Production value
Better technical production is imperative, and investing in the right cameras and lighting will yield better results. “We have been talking in the events industry about TV production quality,” says Liz. “We have to be TV producers, we have to make events that flow and have an entertainment factor like survivor or whatever show that makes you wanna binge-watch, and we have been obsessed with that concept for a while now.”
Events are significantly different from TV because they are live, and they have a lot of other components.
“Access to better technology will make a big difference to your attendees when it comes to engaging them” – Liz King Caruso
Accessibility
The best way to engage our attendees is to make the event accessible so that they can attend. You can do this by offering:
Translations and ASL (American Sign Language) – there are many different tools and technologies at in-person or virtual events that can make our events easier to access, especially as we have audiences worldwide.
Different formats of events – people are tired of being online all the time, and with the increase of audiences on Clubhouse, there is a demand for other content formats.
A 365 experience – event planners have been talking about this concept more and more over the past few months. A 365 experience allows you to share content throughout the year and keep our audiences engaged by using fresh formats like on-demand content.
American Sign Language (ASL)
“It’s not just about this one-time experience, but thinking about how we can build that out.”
– Liz King Caruso
Entertainment
Offer entertainment breaks instead of coffee breaks. Try digital gamification experiences which might include virtual puzzles, trivia or jeopardy games with content relating to a presentation, company or solution, a fun game of BINGO, PacMan or Candy Crush with uniquely branded game elements to create excitement and really drive brand and message retention. “I recommend mixing that up in your agenda. Where an in-person audience will have lunch or bathroom breaks, fill that space with entertainment for virtual audiences, and that is how you will differentiate between audiences again,” suggests Liz.
Networking
People attend events for content and networking, but people want networking with the overload of content. InEvent has the new networking roulette feature for virtual audiences that allows attendees to be randomly paired with another event attendee.
But what does networking look like for an in-person audience? People want most of the event to be about connecting with other people, and we need to think about that for both audiences.
Engagement is constantly evolving, what one may understand by the word engagement may be different from another, but it comes down to really knowing your audience. Be more inventive with your event agendas. Think about the benefits for your event attendees and how you can facilitate the absolute best experience for them.
InEvent is a dynamic audio-video solution that has the ability to create, recreate and customize a variety of virtual interactions ranging from Webinars, to live broadcasts, panel discussions, summits, networking sessions, conferences, and spanning across the pharmaceutical, educational, corporate, and event tech industries.
The platform has cutting-edge mobile technology to make interactions and engagements with your attendee’s whole new levels with quizzes, gamification, interactive newsfeed questions, networking, and agenda.
Users can edit real-time videos in simultaneous collaboration without uploading files or using any external software. Its cloud-based platform will host your files and enable your access from anywhere.
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.
https://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.png00Lead Liaisonhttps://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.pngLead Liaison2022-11-17 10:14:242022-11-17 10:29:49Demystifying Engagement: How to Connect with Your Audience
It’s 2022, we are a full two years out from the complete shut-down of our world with COVID-19. During that time, we were forced to change. The buzz words during the past few years have been “innovation” “new normal” “hybrid” “creative”. We saw the birth of virtual events, the growth of zoom meetings, the influx of Slack / chat between colleagues, and more.
Everything was digital, everything was convenient and accessible, but somehow, nobody felt truly satisfied with all this “innovation”.
Those of us in the event industry understood what was truly missing – authentic connection. The opportunity to build relationships with a handshake, the ability to read body language by standing in proximity to each other. Put plainly – We simply missed the warmth of another soul. The good news – Excitement around face-to-face events continues to build. Booths are being rebuilt, and attendance is growing. However, what seems to be missing during this time is perhaps the best idea that was generated during the shutdown… innovation.
While forced innovation did not necessarily excite us during 2020, truly inspired innovation, organic creativity, and a fiery passion to create something new is something that is needed in today’s society. Specifically, we need this “innovation” in today’s events and seminars. Speaking with clients from around the world, we hear stories of how clients are still dragging in clunky, heavy Prize Wheels, outdated logo’d swag, flimsy paper documents, collecting business cards in a fishbowl that are easily lost, and writing down leads on a sheet of paper and waiting weeks to finally receive leads from event organizers.
Hence Lead Liaison, a solution dripping with innovation that is changing the way we all experience and execute events. Since the return of in-person events, Lead Liaison has electrified exhibit spaces and entire event floors with activity, increased collaboration and event lead capture, and excitement around attending and participating in event activities including training sessions, presentations and educational courses for those working on event credentials.
Lead Liaison true SaaS platform provides everything event professionals need, from an uber flexible premium lead capture app that gives users complete control of their forms and data to the digital activations that launch on any device anywhere making everything from scavenger hunts to self guided tours and educational gamification an instant gratification for attendees, exhibitors and organizers alike. Bottom line – There is a better way to engage attendees and collect leads at trade shows. If you’d like to learn how LeadLiaison has been innovating the industry the past few years, we’d be glad to set up a time to speak with you. I know that the phrase “new normal” brings back tough memories, but together, as an industry, we can work to truly create a new normal that brings about positive change and provides room for continued growth.
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!
In the sales world, you have a lot to keep track of: new leads, existing leads, who needs follow-up, who still needs a touch, contracts sent, contract returned, and so much more! With multiple prospects and stages to track simultaneously, sales professionals need convenient ways to stay organized. This is why Lead Liaison has developed the new Lead Analyzer!
The primary function of the Lead Analyzer is to sort leads and keep track of sales stages from the point of lead assignment to deal closed.
Say you’ve just returned from a trade show. All of your leads are sent to the lead analyzer where they can start the journey through your sales funnel. The Lead Analyzer places leads in customizable stages. Leads travel from stage to stage based on what the sales professional deems most appropriate for follow-up.
For instance, after a recent trade show, we set these stages: Captured, Assigned, Outreach, Demo Booked, Demo Complete and Done. As we worked through qualified leads by priority (Urgent, Hot, Warm, Cold), we were able to move prospects visually through the sales funnel from stage to stage until either a demo was complete, or they completed all of the sales stages.
This alleviated the need for our sales team to keep track of leads on a spreadsheet, or a piece of paper! Using the Lead Analyzer, we are also able to understand what stage every lead is in at a glance, and we can quickly reassign prospects to the next stage with a simple drag and drop. From the lead analyzer, we can quickly view or play audio notes, and take actions such as:
Adding a note or task reminder to the prospect record in our CRM.
Adding prospects to automated workflows such as nurtures and rhythms or cadences.
Adding prospects to segments and lists.
Creating deals and tasks related to the lead.
Sending letters, emails and postcards to the prospect.
Another interesting use case for Lead Liaison’s Lead Analyzer is to help me manage leads that haven’t come from a specific event (the best practice is to keep event leads separate so you can track ROI on each show).
I have different stages defined: First Outreach, Second Outreach, Demo Booked, First Follow-Up Post Demo, Second a Follow-Up Post Demo, Order Form Sent, and Order Form Received.
This helps me keep my leads straight, and I can instantly see who needs an additional touch to get a demo booked, when I need to follow up post-demo, and it helps me keep track of those order forms I have sent out for a signature.
Lead Analyzer is part of Lead Liaison’s Sales Enablement platform, which includes a free CRM called OneFocus. If you’d like more information about these topics, please Contact Us.
I’m sure once you experience the Lead Analyzer, you’ll figure out the best stages for your sales team. But overall, it’s going to make keeping track of where the leads are in the sales funnel much easier.
https://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.png00Lead Liaisonhttps://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lead-Liaison-Logo5.pngLead Liaison2022-08-22 11:38:262022-08-22 11:40:23The Lead Analyzer: Get Your Leads In Order
