The Future Is Gaming
Yet, we can make strides to get close. Automatic lead capture systems are popping up left and right, offering an abundance of options. From the comfort of your cell phone or tablet, these capture systems can take pictures of business cards and transcribe them instantly, integrate with conference API kits to capture badge barcodes, scan QR codes, and more to innovate your in-person lead interactions. When choosing one of these systems to adopt, it may require some Goldilocks browsing for you to decide what is “just right” for your company’s needs, and even then, it will come at quite a cost, as these lead capture systems are incredibly expensive.
However, a universal capture system on busy trade show floors is quite valuable and will soon be the standard for all event marketing occasions. With this cutting-edge technology, say goodbye to manual transcription and delayed follow-up, and step into the 21st century to make your team’s time at the booth futuristically efficient.
Get ready for this word straight out of the sci-fi future: Gamification. Does it sound fun? Good, because that’s exactly what it is! Trade show booths across the globe are adopting gaming to increase booth traffic and overall engagement. Gamification is getting increasingly popular due to its innate ability to liven up customer interactions and leave lasting impressions.
The diversity of gaming options is quite endless and consistently expanding. Traditional backyard games, such as cornhole, mini golf, or basketball, can make quite an impact in your space without digging too deep in your marketing budget’s wallet. Meanwhile, more expensive and revolutionary examples of gamification can include digital options of classic games and more like Connect 4, claw machines, Jeopardy, and beyond.
With all these gaming options, the initial attention-grabbing moment is already conquered; it’s just up to the booth staff to solidify the connection. Not to mention, these more high-tech gaming systems can even collect contact information for you. If not, you make the rules: “Before you play my game, give me your information.” Maybe add a please at the end, too.
Best Things Are Free
While we’ve dove into some of the cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow that are now today, we’ve racked up quite the bill. It’s about time we explored some of the free technological advancements that are quite valuable if you know where they are and how to use them.
It seems like just yesterday, social media was the be-all end-all way to secure the modernization of your company. As long as there is a social presence, engaging with your audience, your company stays hip and relevant. But we’re people of the future now; it’s time to push the envelope and elevate the role of social media marketing even further. The addition of the “live streaming” option across various social platforms dominates our TikTok and Instagram feeds but remains somewhat of an underused feature in our space.
Unlocking the potential of “going live” and communicating with your audience in real-time could be just the social media innovation your team has been looking for. Whether capturing discussions among industry experts, live-streaming from a bustling trade show floor, or showcasing your energetic employees from the comfort of the office, each instance creates the opportunity to connect directly to the watchful eyes of your audience and engage with them in a new and immediate way. With the addition of interactive Question and Answer sections at the tail end of these streams, viewers will also have the privilege of receiving answers instantaneously.
The modern element of live streaming has transformed into a space for you to create immediate, accessible, and free content straight to your customer base, all with just one click of a button. Removing any room for an editing floor or any additional filters also adds the unique benefit of adding a layer of transparency to your brand and enhances consumers' trust and confidence. Better yet, not only do the streams contribute to your usual content, but these videos can be saved on your page as permanent content for those who missed the streams. It’s no Princess Leia “You’re-Our-Only-Hope”-hologram, but it’s pretty darn close.
Don’t Overlook AI
It wouldn’t be an all-encompassing article about the future of marketing technology if we didn’t dip into the conversation of artificial intelligence. Potentially a fragile buzzword for some of us marketers, AI, whether we like it or not, is becoming a very necessary tool across all industries. Instead of being annoyed or afraid, now is the time to slowly incorporate it into your team’s routines. This doesn’t need to be the overtaking AI depicted in those sci-fi thrillers, slowly making its way into our lives and soon after plotting humankind’s demise, but it can be a nice way to alleviate some of the burdens of your day-to-day workflows.
