Imagine a world in which your exhibitors created robust targeted marketing campaigns that start months before your show and extend long after the show was over.

Imagine a world where your attendees paid attention to those campaigns because they spoke directly to their needs and interests. Imagine this is also a revenue source for your organization.

The Association for Manufacturing Technology didn’t just imagine it. They created an application for exhibitors at IMTS2012 (International Manufacturing Technology Show) that would deliver all of that. They call it MTInsight.

MTInsight is an add-on exhibitors at IMTS can purchase to enhance their sales and marketing before during and after the show.

AMT, like many organizations, traditionally had given their exhibitors access to the registration database in the form of a one-time use list rental.

AMT noticed 95 percent of their exhibitors didn’t use the list and most of those who did rent it used it only once before the show.

AMT wanted their exhibitors to create marketing campaigns for the show, but they recognized how difficult and expensive a list rental made it. 

“One of the biggest things we did was take that [one time use] restriction off when we created the IMTS app,” said Mark Kennedy, MTInsight sales director. Now, instead of exhibitors using the shotgun approach one time, exhibitors were creating campaigns and very targeted ones at that.

Those targeted campaigns also helped market the show for IMTS. Kennedy said a lot of exhibitors not only marketed to the show database, but also included their company’s in-house database in these campaigns.

MTInsight provides exhibitors with much more than just registration data for the current show. AMT pre-loaded the app with lead data and traffic analysis from the 2010 show. This allowed exhibitors at IMTS2012 to compare their performance to the previous year.

Some exhibitors reported, while their overall lead count went down, the leads they collected specifically in the industries they were trying to target went up by 8-10 percent. Exhibitors attributed this to their ability to create a targeted marketing campaign.

The traffic analysis provided information on when the show floor was the busiest and when traffic was light. Exhibitors could use this information to better plan their booth staff assignments. IMTS is careful to keep a consistent schedule from year to year so exhibitors are comparing apples to apples. 

MTInsight also aggregates all leads collected at each show. Exhibitors not only have access to lead data they collected in their booth, but they can access all lead information taken in their pavilion. Kennedy refers to this information as opportunities. He is quick to explain, “they could not break it down by leads taken by their competitor but by all leads in a specific quadrant of the pavilion.”

While a particular exhibitor may have collected 500 leads during the show, it was likely there were many attendees interested in their product category that just didn’t have time to stop. Now that exhibitors have access to that aggregate data, they may have 4500 opportunities in addition to their 500 leads collected.

Exhibitors opting in to use MTInsight have access before during and after the show. Once registration opens, the data is updated every night. Kennedy said one exhibitor told him he got a call from a sales rep that just happened to be driving by a company in Chicago. They got into the app, looked the company up and got him a contact so he could go in the front door with a name.

The MTInsight app was created in-house with a user group of exhibitors involved throughout the development. Are their exhibitors getting spoiled?

“Our exhibitors go to other events saying ‘hey, we have this great tool at IMTS, how do we get it here.’” Kennedy said. He added that AMT is hoping that down the road they will be able to help other shows make an offering like this.