Sacrifices to the Dragon

Back in medieval times, a combination of historical lore, ignorance and the desire to be safe, "just in case" caused the citizenry to offer gifts of food and trinkets to the "dragons" that lived in the surrounding areas.  Even today as part of the ritual new years celebration, Chinese shop owners leave offerings to the dragon as a talisman of good fortune in the year to come.

Tradeshow & conference managers along with encouragement and participation from sales and marketing professionals also engage in the modern equivalent of leaving offerings to the dragon.  They feel like they MUST give away printed marketing collateral and product literature in order to have successfully appeased the dragon of doing their job and giving attendees a "takeaway" item.  Unfortunately, just like dragon lore of old, this desire to hand out printed literature is based on tradition and fear much more than any kind of value/benefit equation.

Data from post show surveys clearly shows that over 93% of all literature handed out a tradeshows & conferences never leaves the hotel room.  So it doesn't get read by anyone but maybe the hotel maid on the way to her wastebasket.  So why do all of these smart people continue to feed the literature dragon?  Mostly because they don't know of an alternative and they are afraid to upset the tradition of handing out literature which is institutionalized to such a degree that sales staff and booth workers cannot conceive of NOT handing out literature because "it's what we have always done".

So companies that exhibit at tradeshows and run conferences continue to feed the dragon, paying printing charges, shipping, storage, management, drayage and other costs just to feed a dragon that immediately burns it all up with no benefits.

So how do we enter this new age of enlightenment?  By using Leadature from PRMconnect.  Leadature allows you to take ALL your literature to the show, electronically.  It delivers your messages and product information directly to the reader at a time and place where they are most likely to read it and it eliminates all the wasteful processes required to feed that literature dragon.  Stop feeding your literature dragons, it just gives them indigestion.

Face to Face Meets Cloud Computing - Where's the value?

The whole point of face to face marketing such as conferences, tradeshows etc. is to actually interact with peers and customers on a human level.  Conversations about industry trends and emerging products can and should move past the photos and specifications phase into in-depth discussions about usage, value and adoption.

Historically, those conversations were not documented at all or at best poorly described.  So after the event was over, people back at the home office had little or no data to work with in order to follow up on those meaningful conversations.  The value of those interactions was lost in translation between the event and the follow-up, rendering the often significant expense of attending or exhibiting at a tradeshow or conference virtually worthless.

Inserting cloud based software into the mix allows for an unprecedented ability to not only capture the essence of these conversations but enable real-time follow-up activities to be coordinated outside of the show site staff and constraints.  Cloud software for face to face events transforms the traditional "capture, merge & edit, qualify, distribute, follow-up action" process that can take weeks or months to complete into a seamless extension of the on-site interaction.  The PRMconnect Leadature software is a prime example of how cloud computing represents the "right way" to monitor, measure & monetize your face to face event marketing investments.

Dean