Insight: Robin Carlisle and Frank Wainwright -Data Collection and Event Sharing

Following last months FMBE symposium, Frank Wainwright, FMBE Awards Director and Robin Carlisle Managing Director of Mobile Promotions, discuss data collection and event sharing.

Frank Wainwright

B2B events are certainly on an experiential growth curve. Blue screens are gone. There is more and more emphasis on content sharing, networking, emotional connection and collective thought.

The emotional impact of a great speaker or a good presentation is made far greater by sharing the experience.
When amplifying content from a B2B event, Twitter and Instagram offer a possible easy start and should not be overlooked, but building a shared network meaningfully is more ‘relationship’ than that.
Via May’s FMBE Symposium we have found that one of the most useful aspects of our get together has been to establish the common ground through content and debate and then keep the conversation going. With help from Mobile Promotions we collected data and insights pre-event from attendees, and the platform allowed delegates to share their contact details in a meaningful way. It also allowed us to communicate pre and post event with delegates in a way that was personal and individual. Importantly, we then used it to help most delegates to choose to do the same.
Long after the business card deck has been reshuffled our Symposium guests can continue to know each other via their preferred method of contact – LinkedIn, Twitter, Email or a combination. It is just the start, but already we have been able to start building a series of industry leader profiles that connect with this event attendance, adding value to the online profiles of our panellists and contributors –and the audience.
In fact scratch that. Audiences are so yesterday. I don’t think anyone attending FMBE Symposium came as a passive observer and every attendee has since helped the event to have a lasting impact.

Response from Robin Carlisle

One thing it’s important to remember is that everyone’s audiences are different and unique to them. This brief to set the scene and begin collecting information from the FMBE Symposium audience for example is very different to the way in which our corporate clients might like to interact with their contacts.

Both however have the same end goals; to share a message, gain useful insights and most importantly create the start of a wider, personalised experience.

We are witnessing the dawn of a new ethos of brand communication where people are only responsive if they are being communicated with about things that will enrich their lives, rather than preached at with sales messages.

Brands need to understand that the people on their data lists are real so they need to approach virtual conversations as if they are on a journey to building a friendship. Likewise, the brands also want their customers to perceive them as real, so effective communication needs to see them portraying the traits of friends, good neighbours or even mentors.

Over time, accurate portraits of an audience are built up, from where they live to where they work, shop, eat and what they like to do in their leisure time. By creating real people that brand can talk with them and demonstrate how they can be relied upon as a ‘brand buddy’.

The cyber bank, or database of information becomes the basis for personalised interaction for ‘chatting’ with the person in the future. As long as the information is recorded correctly, brought together centrally, kept secure, controlled and developed, it can be used to ensure trust and loyalty, help people make informed decisions, share real time insights and help keep people away from the nasties in life.

The more brand and lifestyle touch points are kept, the more brands will become trusted allies. This is what we strive to achieve though our Mobile DMT, which everyone experienced a taste of in the build up to the FMBE Symposium.