How to Make Virtual Events More Engaging | Podcast
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Bill McGlade – Welcome back everyone to Victory Talks. We’re super excited for today’s guest Ryan Schefke. We’ll go into the topic in just a moment here, but I do want to take a moment and thank our sponsor Destination Virtual Tours, who is providing 3D virtual tours, aerial drone photography, and still photography for your destination to keep your marketing on the field. Thank you, Destination Virtual Tours. Please take a look at their website, it will be linked in the podcast information. So with that, let’s go ahead and jump into our topic today. Is your virtual event boring? And of course, how to make it fun. So today’s guest Ryan Schefke of Captello is gonna to have a little back and forth with me on how to make your virtual events fun and engaging because now they’re not live events and we need to make sure that our audience is, well, at least having some sort of fun. So with that, Ryan, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and Captello?
Ryan Schefke – Absolutely, well, first of all, Bill, thanks for having me and our company. So I really appreciate that. A little background on me. I’m the CEO and founder of Captello. We have some roots in sales and marketing automation. So we actually founded our company in 2014 and the whole idea around our existence was to help sales and marketers be very efficient with what they do. And found that lead capture was a key concept, and capturing leads at events was a missing piece for marketers. So that kinda got us into the event teams. And then in 2018, we basically created Captello and Captello is all about making it easier for exhibitors and trade show organizers to capture leads at their events. So, again, CEO and founder of the company, pumped to be here, based in Texas. We’ve got around 40 people in the company and things are jammin’. Obviously things are a little bit different right now. So as you and I talked Bill, there’s a little pivoting that has to take place, but we’re doing some really new and creative things that I think are helping to keep exhibitors going and have a presence in this virtual environment.
Bill McGlade – And I’m really excited to talk about that because I do think after putting on 50 virtual events so far, there needs to be some sort of additional level of engagement between the attendees, the exhibitors, and even the show organizers as well. So with that being said, let’s jump in with stating a little bit of the obvious here. How have things changed for show organizers in your point of view?
Ryan Schefke – Well, the obvious thing is, you know, the pandemic, right?
Bill McGlade – What pandemic?
Ryan Schefke – Right, exactly who knows? Where’d that come from? You know, if you look at what’s happening we’re six months into it, right? I think initially for exhibitors, trade show organizers, there was kind of that three month period where people were operating out of fear, right? They were really concerned with what’s going on and didn’t know what to do, events are getting canceled. People are getting furloughed and losing their jobs. And I think now over the past, maybe two months, we’re starting to kind of get settled a little bit, right? So I think, exhibitors and trade show organizers, it’s a little bit of a necessary evil, in a way, to do these virtual events. I think they’re here now as kind of the only option we’ve got. ‘Cause you can’t do physical events, but so we need to adjust, we need to adapt, we need to be creative, and find ways to make it work. And it’s not going away. You know, I think eventually we’ll have kind of a hybrid scenario where, you’ve got your live events and then you’ve got your virtual complementing the live event. So it’s a whole new environment. We talked earlier, you’ve got kids, I’ve got kids too. I’ve got two girls, a 14 year old and an 11 year old. And the 11 year old, I mean a sixth grader. And that is a totally new environment for my child. And instantly everything just became digital. So they’ve gotta adapt. They’ve gotta learn. And the school does as well. I actually am kind of relating what’s happening in school to what’s happening in the trade show industry right now. So students have to adjust. Attendees have to adjust, they’re kinda the students, if you will, and the exhibitors, trade show organizers, they’re kind of like the teachers. And things can go wrong. This morning exactly, the network went down in McKinney where we live. Kids couldn’t even do school. So what do you do? You know, they have to adjust and figure it out on the fly. So the landscape has totally changed, Bill. It’s a hundred percent digital. Trade show organizers are trying to figure out how can they make revenue? How can they keep themselves relevant? Things are very different. It’s kind of like right now, the trade show industry is flat. It’s all kind of the same. And you gotta find ways to be different and unique.
Bill McGlade – I 100% agree and since we’re talking about e-learning a bit here for the schools, what I’d like to point out something that you said was really, really interesting. Six year old has to adapt to a digital world. And here we are, you know, millennials, boomers, everybody, gen X’s, everyone saying, you know, the world’s that it is completely different already because everyone’s growing up with a phone in their hand or they’ve grown up with a computer. But the world that we’ve all been thrown into is still completely different, even for a sixth grader, which is something I didn’t even bother to think about until you said that now. And it’s extremely important and relevant for the industry, because what we’re going through as an industry, we have to adapt, we need to understand there’s going to be a lot of struggles that are happening that even those that are growing up in the digital age per se, are still having issues and challenges, adapting to it. So that’s really important. Thanks for pointing that one out. One thing that I do want to push back on is I don’t think that the fears are gone yet. We’ve been having a lot of conversations here at Victory, especially on the virtual side. And there’s a couple of different levels of fear. One was exactly what you said. I can’t have my live event. Ima cancel my event. And that was the immediate reaction.
Ryan Schefke – Yep, knee jerk reaction-
Bill McGlade – Exactly. Yeah. Knee jerk, completely canceled. It’s done. I don’t know what to do next. I’m freaking out, and so on. The next was okay, can I keep waiting or do I have to go virtual? And so the fear of actually making the decision. And so I think we’re almost at the plateau there where it’s, now they’re finally realizing, ah crap I have to go virtual. And then the last one is the fear of is this, and it’s probably, there’s probably more fears out there. But the last one I can think of right now is, is this going to take away from my live event? Are my people going to come back to my live event when I put it back on? And I think you agree with me in this, but we’ll talk about it, that no, it’s not going to take away, it’ll add to it. And there’s a lot of experiences behind live events, but there’s a way to engage them now that will help them understand the value that you’re providing.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah, and I think you gotta make sure that you try to have consistency. So, you ensure that people do come back when you do your live events. So don’t, you know, half ass, pardon my French. But you know, you can’t really half ass the virtual event. You need to do certain things, which again, I’m sure we’ll talk about, so you can have some consistency and you can have some excitement when you get ready for that live event.
Bill McGlade – This is a kid friendly zone. So don’t worry about it. By kid friendly, I mean, non kid friendly zone, keep the sailor mouth, there we go.
Bill McGlade – All right, so let’s jump into it… It was a pink beer. There we go. All right, so let’s jump into what everyone wants to hear. How the heck can they make their virtual event engaging?
Ryan Schefke – Yeah, well, engaging is certainly the key word. If we’re talking about exhibitors, exhibitors definitely want to make the event engaging. I was in a webinar yesterday and to get the specifics here, it was called The Success Metrics for Online Hybrid and In-Person Events, it was by Exhibitor Insight. I don’t know if you watch that, but there was one data point that jumped out and the data point is that only 9% of exhibitors feel that virtual events are effective. But the trade show organizers, they’re like three times that, four times that, it’s 36% actually. They think it’s effective for the exhibitor.
Bill McGlade – And that’s because they’re so focused on content delivery instead of giving the value full circle for the entire audience. So we won’t go into that too much. I’ve had so many arguments over this and Twitter wars, but we’ll go back into what you were saying about making it engaging, go ahead.
Ryan Schefke – So I think let’s back up a little bit because you just triggered a thought that I think is really important. To make it engaging you there’s multiple constituents. You’ve got sponsors. They don’t have the opportunities that they used to have. So how can you make it engaging, so to speak, attractive for a sponsor? How can you make it engaging for an attendee? Now in this virtual world, the attendees are at home the whole day, they’re in their home office, they’re on the computer more than they’ve ever been. They don’t have a chance besides runnin’ out for lunch or droppin’ their kid off at daycare. So do they really want to go to a virtual event and watch every session and visit every booth? You’ve got to make it fun and entertaining because they’re going to be fatigued being on the computer more than they’ve ever been. In the office environment, you can go talk to the person down the hall or in the cube or cubicle, or have somebody pop in-
Bill McGlade – Fatigued and distracted because they’re in their office. They’re not actually at your event.
Ryan Schefke – That’s right, yeah. Kids at home. Or, hey, I gotta make dinner or cook lunch for somebody, whatever it might be. That’s the reality of what we’ve gotten. So it’s got to be engaging for the attendee and for the exhibitor, it’s got to be engaging. That is one of the metrics I think that people look for, whether it’s a live event or a virtual event, you’ve got to make it engaging.
Bill McGlade – It’s funny because we’re so focused at live events on the experience and that experience was making it engaging. But the moment we jumped into the virtual world, it’s like the experience just went out of our minds. And we think that people walking into this avatar land is what’s going to make it engaging, but it’s not it’s so click, click, and click. So how do we make it engaging then?
Ryan Schefke – Yeah. So, you know, one simple solution from our perspective, is games. Everybody loves games. I’m going to give you a real life example. And then we’ll kind of dovetail into, the event environment, and how could you use games across your event? I got an email yesterday. And it was from Arby’s. The fast food restaurant. And it said, hey, play this marathon game. You could Google it. Arby’s Gyro Game. G-Y-R-O. Hopefully I’m pronouncing that correctly. I’m not Greek. And so you play this game and the whole goal is, you know, it’s online, right. Play the game. And you’re supposed to beat the world marathon record of two hours one minute and I dunno, 38 seconds, whatever it is, don’t quote me on that, but a little over two hours. So they want you to play this 8-bit Atari-like arcade game, graphics are horrible, but you know, you’re just pressing one key and they want you to go through it for two hours. Most people say the heck with this abort and they leave, but there’s different things, you know, throughout the game to kind of get your attention, get you to interact.
Bill McGlade – So what you’re telling us is you spent two and a half hours yesterday playing this.
Ryan Schefke – No, because remember, I mentioned my role in the company.
[Bill] Oh, that’s right.
Ryan Schefke – So I don’t have two hours to play the game. I’m the guy that aborted after two minutes, but here’s the thing. So if you are one of the top three in their contest, so they have a leaderboard, right, get that. Then they give you free gyros for the rest of the year. And a free sandwich for the rest of the year. I got the email yesterday, Bill. So guess what I had for lunch today?
Bill McGlade – You had Arby’s, didn’t you?
Ryan Schefke – I had Arby’s with my curly fries, but the point is, you know, whether the game was 8-bit and cheesy, it doesn’t matter. They made it engaging for me. They made it fun. And I think that’s also an important objective for exhibitors, and for trade show organizers. You want to make sure that you leave a good impression. You create something that is memorable for people so that they tie whatever it is that happens, a game, a way to engage with their experience, with your brand, so they’re making that connection. ‘Cause now when I go talk to somebody later today, or next week, hey, I did this Arby’s thing. That was kind of cool. Huh? That was fun. And I see games more and more everywhere. Starbucks has a Plinko game. They emailed it out. I went to a Panera, there’s a game at the front. I remember going to a pizza joint about a month ago and they had a game where they fanned out cards and you select a card, if it’s a joker you get a free pizza. So games are everywhere. And I think, you know, I mentioned earlier that these virtual environments that are now flat, right? It’s not like walking into a live event and oh my gosh, there’s the, you know, 80 by 50 booth and you know they’re a major player in this industry and they spent all this money and their name and logo is hanging from the ceiling. No, it’s a flat environment. So you gotta be different, make it engaging and putting a game… Now we’re talking more from the exhibitor perspective, but putting a game inside your virtual booth is a great way to make it engaging. And you’re satisfying a lot of people there.
Bill McGlade – So, talk to us a little bit about the types of games either that Captello has implemented or others that you have seen out there specifically for events.
Ryan Schefke – Sure, obviously we want to, I would like to keep this educational, but to give the shameless plug here.
Bill McGlade – What you’ve implemented is educational. ‘Cause you’ve had learnings from it and the value behind all of that.
– Yeah, so we’re seeing a lot of unique use cases emerge. We have, I like to call it our arcade. So we have 25 games within our arcade. We’re working to rapidly build out many more games, but these are games that like pick a winner, or crack the safe, or Blackjack where you could have tournaments, Whack-A-Mole. For us, we’ve actually created something that is very special. These are not games where you come to us and you say, hey, can you go build this game, this custom game? So we don’t do custom games, but we have a solution that is a self service. So an exhibitor or an organizer wanting to offer these games to exhibitors or in the virtual environment. They can go in online, configure their game, and take the game and embed it anywhere across the virtual experience. So where are we seeing these use cases? You could put a game, if you’re the show organizer, you could have it in the lobby, of your virtual environment. Anywhere where you could put a link, or a button, or iframe something, you could put a game. So could have it in your lobby where people could come and play. One campaign that we actually ran was we strung four games together, sort of like a scavenger hunt. So people would play each of the games, they’d get a letter, and on the very last experience, they get a number, excuse me, the very last game they would enter the numbers that they would get to crack the safe, and the cool thing is they have a chance to win a prize. So if you’re a trade show organizer and listening to this amazing podcast, that may be one cool thing that you could offer. You could have a game inside your virtual booth, you could have it at a happy hour. I mean, that’s a neat idea. You could do a Blackjack tournament. So you could say, hey, I want to allow everybody to play 20 hands. And however many points you get in your bank after 20 hands, you land on the leaderboard. And similar to the Arby’s example, the top three get the free sandwiches, you could do whatever you want as a trade show organizer, but you could do this through your happy hour. You could make your own arcade. You could have a page in your virtual environment and show images of 25 different games and have people play for fun.
Bill McGlade – I like that one a lot. I like that one a lot because we put on a lot of happy hours, cocktail hours, networking lunches, and especially for that type of event, this would be huge. A lot of them are doing the wine tastings with the sommelier and you have the attendees who, maybe they didn’t receive the actual wine, are sitting there watching either the sommelier or everyone else drink the wine and like, what the heck? I want this. So at least in this case, they’re able to participate and have some fun and be engaged. So tell me a little bit about the value that you see for exhibitors, attendees, and show organizers that are behind this. You touched on it briefly for each of them, but there’s more value to it besides it being a game itself.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah, from the exhibitor’s perspective, another key objective is you want to drive people to your booth. I keep hearing over and over, the traffic is a lot lower. And the expectation should definitely be that. People kind of have to seek you and try to look for you and go to you as opposed to in the live environment. And this is just occurring to me, you just walked down the hall and you physically have to walk by somebody. So you have to see them. It’s not like we’re seeing a stream or something in these virtual environments. You kinda have to know who you’re going after. So the point is, provide something that you could put in your pre-show marketing or advertise on your own. Do something to be unique and different, so you stand out in that ordinarily flat environment, to draw people to your booth. I talked about making an impression, that’s very important. The other kind of value add there for an exhibitor is… What we’ve done with our games is you can use these in this virtual environment, but also when things, it’s not if, but when we go back to live, you can take these same exact games, they’re cross platform, and you could have them on an iPad in front of your live booth for people to be playing these games. So, lots of benefits there. If you are an exhibitor, obviously you want to make things entertaining and you want to also teach people, this is another point. People come to the booth and you really want them to learn as well. So some of these games, like a trivia game, some of these games, you can customize it. So you take them down this experience through the form of trivia and they could potentially win something at the end, but through that process, you’re teaching them about your solutions, your services. So you’re kinda mixing fun and education to keep it engaging.
Bill McGlade – And you’re gaining valuable data and feedback to really personalize your outreach or your next outreach to them, which is exactly what they need. Everyone wants to say exhibitors are there to get as many leads as they possibly can or network or show off a new product and do all of that. Yeah, that’s great. But the number one thing that they want besides leads is sales. A lot of them aren’t going to make sales directly on the show floor but those qualified leads need to be able to lead into sales. And that’s a whole level of difference between live events and virtual. We’re talking in a video format here and it’s great, but it doesn’t compare to live events in the sense that there’s no human connection, or it’s just not as strong as a human connection as you are when you’re at a live event, no shaking of the hands or nothing like that, that actually forms that bond, that trust for everybody. So you need to be able to give the exhibitors something that’s going to, at least, one entice them, an attendee to, while they’re scrolling through the massive amounts of exhibitors you have at your event to randomly stop at one. Because like, as you mentioned, they’re not walking through and seeing everything, and then two, be able to collect information so that they have better, more precise data to reach out afterwards too.
Ryan Schefke – I want to touch on that point. ‘Cause it’s a very valid point, and these are… going back to the school environment. This remote and virtual school environment, there’s a hodgepodge of technology being used for that. Case in point again with schools, you’ve got some schools using Zoom, some schools using Microsoft Teams, you’ve got Charm. You’ve got all different ways to get alerts and notification people are going to go crazy. And it varies across each of the kids’ classes. And so it’s a hodgepodge, it’s a mess, it’s a mix of everything. To basically have control over what you’re doing is really important. If you’re an exhibitor and you need to collect the data that is pertinent to your business, these games, by the way, you can attach lead capture as part of it. And so you can show the capture, the data collection form, before you play the game or after you play the game. It’s all about what you want to collect and to have that data, go right into your CRM or your marketing automation system, so you don’t have to battle with the organizer. When do I get my leads? How do I get my leads? and all lead isn’t flat, look the same name, email, that’s it. You need that customization and control over the data. One thing that we didn’t really bring up, which is a value to the exhibitor, Bill, is there’s a prize element. You don’t have to offer prizes, but with games, think about the live environment. People love to go and you get the bag, and you fill it up, and you can bring your two year old whatever you want back home, a little toy helicopter, T-shirt, all that stuff. People like that. We have the same concept with our games, but here’s why I like it. I like the prizes feature because again, it adds that other element of excitement, cool, I might win something, this is awesome. But it’s an excuse for a follow up. So now we’re talking about beyond the booth, right? If I give away something, but maybe I need to follow up three days later, my followup is not, hey, thanks for stopping by my virtual booth or filling out my form. Like, are you interested? It’s not a good way to go. Well, it’s a very natural followup. Hey, I know you won this prize. Congratulations. I’d like to make sure you get it, oh, by the way. So it’s a good icebreaker if you will, and a reason to follow up.
Bill McGlade – So what you’re saying is you might have solved the plague in the industry of exhibitors not following up with their leads by giving them a real reason and a great reason to follow up. Some may call you a genius right now.
Ryan Schefke – I don’t know. Yeah.
Bill McGlade – Statistically it’s 80, 84% something like that. We talked about this last year, of exhibitors that don’t follow up with their trade show leads, which is astounding because that’s the reason why you’re going.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah, I agree. I kind of mentioned our roots, and founding the company in 2014, 2013, 2014. But you know, our roots are sales and marketing automation. So it is a fascinating process. Like, if you are an exhibitor and you truly want to kinda be hands off and set up a process that is very scalable from the point of lead capture, to distributing the lead, getting it into your CRM, marketing automation, the prize follow up, all that can be totally automated. It can be systemized. And that’s huge. And we’re not talking about doing something different. We’re talking about a uniform process that can be applied in a virtual environment and the same thing can be applied in the live physical environment.
Bill McGlade – And that’s huge for 10 by 10 organizations, small business, SMBs. You’ve got these larger, 20 by 20s and above that they have their own thing and they can do their own process at the trade show and after the trade show. But you know, these one, two, three person companies, automation processes for lead followup, lead capture all is huge. And adding in the excitement of gamification it’s to really draw in the attendance that they need in those leads, it’s a big thing and it’s something that’s completely needed. And it’s lacking to be honest right now in the virtual event space. So I want to ask the daring question here and probe ya a little bit on this one. I will say, years ago when event mobile apps were a big thing. And they still sort of are, but they’re almost kind of dying out depending on how you look at them. Gamification came up and gamification in the mobile app was all of a sudden the hottest thing since sliced bread. I thought it was a fad. Well, here’s gamification again. So is this a fad for only virtual events?
Ryan Schefke – I don’t think so. My take is no, certainly I hope not, but you know. My take on it is no, it’s just going digital is the way to go. To make sure that you’re not losing leads. I’m going to give you a very simple example, pick a winner. I mentioned that is, that’s one of our games. You could choose to have a business card, which I can’t see in the future, a lot of people using, especially after the pandemic.
Bill McGlade – Handouts, business cards, even the giveaways you were talking about before. All of the past.
Ryan Schefke – It’s actually a really good point. So that probably will change for the foreseeable future, but dropping your business card into a fishbowl, I think those, it’s just not a good way to go. So to do that digitally, have a big screen TV where you can announce a winner at the end of each day. And then you know that when people… When you capture the data electronically, again, it goes right in your backend system, you’ve got a process that’s here to stay for sure.
Bill McGlade – I would agree with you on that. And this coming from someone who called gamification a fad years ago, and the reason I say that is because virtual is not going away. And when we move to hybrid events, your virtual exhibitors, your virtual attendees are going to need something, one on the exhibitor side to stand out and two on the attendees side to be engaged and not be distracted by the 10,000 emails that they’re getting in their inbox on the screen right next to them, or their second screen, their phone, their iPad or whatever it is. So I think I’m with you. And I can’t believe I’m saying it, but gamification is here to stay. You all can quote me on that now. It’s live, it’s there. So I would definitely agree with you. It’s something that really does add a lot of value. And for our last question and this feeds perfectly into it, how can you generate revenue from it?
Ryan Schefke – That’s a great question. And when you say that, I’m really thinking more about the show organizer. Because the show organizer is not getting revenue from sponsors, putting their name on a lanyard or their logo on a badge. You don’t have a lanyard, you don’t have a badge typically. You can sponsor and sponsor a lunch or a social event.
Bill McGlade – Now we’re speaking for virtual events right now.
Ryan Schefke – True. Yes. And I’m talking, yeah, that’s right. So how can you generate revenue? Well, as a show organizer, you have really two forms of revenue, two streams of revenue I think. Number one is the exhibitor. You could provide a game for use within your booth, your virtual booth, and you know what, there are creative ways that you could provide them. You can sell it standalone, maybe mark up the price of your virtual booth a little bit and include it. Hey, here you go, here’s a game that you can use. A value added service that as a show organism needs to look good, so there’s additional revenue there. Also from sponsors. That’s key. So how would you make money from a sponsor? Well, because games are so versatile, you’ve got a lot of options. You could put a logo from the sponsor on the corner of a game. So our games are customizable like I said, and you upload a logo. And so now anywhere in the game, top left, top right, anywhere you can have a logo. We have Whack-A-Mole, for example. I’ve seen using our game they’ve spun versions. We actually were working with Fox on a project, and we made Whack-A-Moe from The Simpsons. So you can do anything with the things that pop up, you can change the background. So my point is maybe a sponsor, you want their logo to be something that pops up through the game. If you’re the show organizer and using, and it across the event, you could have it that way in the lobby or happy hour or anything like that. Or potentially inside the exhibitor booth. And the sponsor component is there. You could make money that way. The leaderboards, those are customizable. The leaderboard is a webpage that you could show anywhere in your virtual event, or even on a big screen in the live event and imagine that. Because it’s customizable, you could have multiple sponsors and their logos and presence on the leaderboard. So there’s revenue opportunity for that. I mentioned other games like, so there’s Blackjack. Memory Match, that’s another game. So like the back of the card-
Bill McGlade – Brings me back to my childhood.
Ryan Schefke – Well, you’re the one that showed the picture of your boy and all his toys. So yeah.
Bill McGlade – It’s like I’m reliving it all over again, just with new cooler toys.
Ryan Schefke – On the Memory Match, when you flip it over, those could be potentially sponsors right there. So you could add a lot of sponsors in just one game. Also prizes. Maybe if you’ve got a game, we’ve got a spin the wheel. Spin to win, kinda like, on Price is Right. You get up there and spin that wheel. And you’ve seen that at all the live events, but we have a digital version. So you could have a sponsor offer a specific prize or giveaway as part of the wheel. So if it lands there then the sponsor has an opportunity to provide something to promote their brand.
Bill McGlade – [Bill] You’ve made me think of one.
Ryan Schefke – Okay.
Bill McGlade – Drive a little mystery, a little bit of intrigue for the attendees. We’ve moved into a world where ads are the sponsorships there’s ad space everywhere on the digital platforms, virtual platforms, your landing pages, wherever. Don’t tell your attendees where the game is. Have them around to find from those ads where the game is and put them in multiple places so that people can play ’em. And that way your ad sponsors are also now your game sponsors and they’re clicking through to find it. So it’s a treasure hunt, almost like when you’re at a live event and people go around to different exhibitor booths, well now just make your ad spaces into your treasure hunts and put the game behind a few of them with a chance to win a really cool prize.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah. I think the possibilities there-
Bill McGlade – I like that one.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah, it’s a good one. Absolutely. And I think that’s the key. We’re looking forward to seeing more use cases come out of this. There’s a lot of opportunity there. Health and wellness is kind of a cool thing, where people could connect up their pedometer or their health app. And you could have competitions and leaderboards and talk about those over happy hour. And so there’s lots of options for that. Back to how you make money. You can include these games, or certain ways to attract people to exhibitors, in your pre mailers. Keep in mind that in this virtual environment, nothing has changed. A lot of the pre marketing, pre show marketing concepts are maybe more important than ever. Because again, they’re not gonna… Attendees aren’t gonna notice you just walking down the hall like they used to, you’ve got to stand out. So if anything you’re going to really have to promote more on social media. You’re going to have to promote more digitally through email and those are all sponsor opportunities. You can’t forget that, to make money.
Bill McGlade – Spin to win a free registration. That’s your new outbound email marketing right there. And each time a registration is won, that’s one sponsor. The next one is a new sponsor and you can get a ton of sponsors to take part in that.
Ryan Schefke – Yeah. That’s a good idea for sure. Yeah.
Bill McGlade – Good. All right, Ryan, we are coming to the end of our discussion today and I appreciate it. What I’d like to ask is, is there any last bit of advice that you would like to share with our audience today?
Ryan Schefke – Well, for the trade show organizers out there, my advice is you have nothing to lose on games. And here’s what I mean. We’ve been the preferred gamification provider for many organizers here in this virtual world. So they’ve got an opportunity to use this. We’re not going to charge the organizers, so it’s actually no investment, it’s free. So they could take advantage of that. And ultimately if the exhibitor uses it, there will be a fee, but it costs nothing, to partner up with us or a Victory, and then be able to provide an option to use this premium capability that will drive everything we’ve talked about. So that’s gonna cost nothing for the organizer, unless they want to use it in the lobby and happy hour. That’s a little different than-
Bill McGlade – It’s still all sponsorable still can cost nothing. So everything can be offset.
Ryan Schefke – Can be subsidized, yeah, you bet.
Bill McGlade – And I look at it this way, right? When we can get back to it, we go back to the live world, the living world. Have you ever gone to a real experience for free?
Ryan Schefke – True yeah.
Bill McGlade – Most experiences we go to are paid. You pay for concerts, you pay for mini golf, you pay for going out to restaurants. You pay for everything, whether it’s $1 or $2, 30, 100, 1,000, your attendees are paying for experiences because they want to pay for experiences. So keep that in mind. Everything doesn’t need to be subsidized by exhibitors as well. Attendees can pay for experiences, even if it’s 50 cents, $1 per attendee, they’re still going to, as long as the experience is worth it.
Ryan Schefke – The last thing I would offer up and back to you to close us out there, Bill is, we, together actually, we’re working on this universal lead capture certification program. So that is something that is forthcoming. We’re all crazy excited about it. And it’s going to be an opportunity for both organizers and exhibitors, to really become an expert on lead capture and a lot of the concepts we’re talking about here, I’m sure it will be applicable and how to market and sell, before your event and after. And so we’re pumped. So look forward to that.
Bill McGlade – I’m pumped too, not because you’ve invited me to take part in it, but I got a sneak peek into the content. And I’ve got to tell you, your team is full of insightful information. And I know it’s going to be a huge value for everybody out there. So I’m as excited about delivering that out to everybody. When we do, I won’t give the date yet just in case it changes, but… I know how that goes.
Ryan Schefke – This podcast is going to last forever, so-
Bill McGlade – Forever.
Ryan Schefke – Well thank you man, I appreciate it.
Bill McGlade – Ryan, thank you for your time today. Thank you, Captello. If you all have never heard of Captello, please check them out. We’ll put their link in the description below. That way you can go ahead and engage your attendees and engage your exhibitors with some pretty fun games. I have played a few of them as well, and I’ve enjoyed them and they have been engaging. So thank you, Ryan, thank you, Captello, and thank you to our sponsor, Destination Virtual Tours, a 3D virtual tour experience, aerial drone photography, and still photography for your destination. Thanks all for joining us. We’ll see you next time.
Ryan Schefke – Game on.
Bill McGlade – Yeah, I’m going to keep game on in there.
Captello provides cloud-based marketing and sales automation solutions that help businesses worldwide attract, convert and close leads.
Lead capture enthusiasts, such as trade show coordinators, retail marketers, and event marketers directly benefit from improved lead retrieval workflow, in particular, being able to send marketing qualified leads to an endless array of CRM and marketing automation platforms. The solution empowers enthusiasts to do their job better by effectively measuring results, capturing crucial sales insights, and supercharging their organization with a seamless lead flow process from capture to close.
