It does take a lot to get me excited sometimes but I have just come from a meeting with a new strategic partner for our business Vidcom NZ and I am pumped!
Sometimes it really sucks when you are an exhibitor. You, along with every other exhibitor are fighting for a point of difference to entice the throng of people into your stand and get a return on the substantial cost of just being there let alone grow your business!
What I was shown was proximity (location based) marketing services that we could offer to event, exhibition, trade show and conference organisers.
This premium service utilises blue-tooth technology to send messages, advertisements or video files to blue-tooth enabled devices such as mobile phones in the proximity. Effectively what this will mean is that people with mobile phones entering an exhibition can receive messages driving them to particular areas, or exhibitors.
Imagine being able to directly target every person attending an event via blue-tooth message as they get out of their cars or enter the building promoting an event specific special or giveaway to drive them to your stand. What would the response rate be? How about the ROI for the show? Personally I think this is one of the biggest innovations in attracting prospective clients at shows for years!
With Vidcom being a leader in the audio visual rental market we can see the technology will give exhibition organizers an additional revenue stream in what is a very tight market and will appeal to many exhibitors. The technology will most likely be its own biggest form of advertising as exhibitors will want to get in on the action when they see the messages come out especially if they see the exhibitors stands that utilize the service have increased traffic.
The technology does have huge potential internationally as well - imagine walking down the street and as you approach a cafe receiving a message with a discount code for a coffee or todays lunchtime special. In New Zealand this particular strategy may be in breach of the unsolicited electronic messages act (anti spam legislation) so a tough break for those looking at using it here. However there have been a number of leaps forward with GPS based technology in mobile devices and proximity marketing such as Placecast in the US using location marketing software in an "opt in" situation for mobile users and it is only a matter of time before this type of service is available here.
I don't profess to be a guru in this area but boy it excites me and would be keen to learn more on it if anyone has info on location based or proximity marketing technology and strategies I would love to hear from them.
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