Hi everyone - I'm brainstorming ideas for the engagement and advocacy booth at our annual customer event, and I'd love your input. I'm thinking of setting up a station with laptops where customers can complete various actions to earn points redeemable for cool swag. These actions could include: Registering for the Community or joining a forum, signing up for the Advocacy program, leaving a review, sharing a customer quote, recording a quick video testimonial, posting a selfie on LinkedIn with a specific hashtag. All the activities would be completed within the booth area. More completed actions = more points = better swag.
Has anyone tried a similar approach at an event before? I'd love to hear your feedback!
Do you know of any platforms that can help us track the activities and points? We're not interested in a long-term gamification platform, just something to streamline things for the day.
Thanks for the tag ! We've done it. Wildly successful. We did this with G2. Happy to share our approach and results. I'm on PTO next week but can also fill you in. We opted NOT to do this with TrustRadius (even though they offer the service as well) because their review entry is so much more detailed for reviewers. We didn't want to take them away from the conference too much. I think we paid $5K for the booth and it included a person from G2, some swag, charity donations per review, etc. They bring all the equipment.
This is great! I'd love to hear more about your approach and results. Is this something you can post, or would you prefer I grab time with and/or you when you are back?
Hey Melissa! Thanks for the tag, Shannon. This is something I've done but not to the exact scale and format. We've had both review options and testimonial options at conferences, but never as a swag marketplace. I think it sounds like a great idea if you know your audience is motivated by your swag offerings!
I've found review collection to always be successful. I like the option of offering a few different engagement choices (QR code and on-site tablet, for example). This helps to appeal to the different kinds of conference attendees. Some really want to engage with a person and make a connection - others are looking for an opportunity to <i>not</i> have to talk to someone for a change. Also, the DIY method allows you to collect reviews for multiple platforms.
Testimonials should rely on a big feeling of FOMO to really drive interest, in my experience (as you're competing with the wild world of the conference floor with distractions and attractions everywhere). Really try to make participating <i>look</i> fun! Also, I highly recommend your interviewer be someone experienced with customer interviews and creating soundbites. I've found that sometimes the energy of the conference floor can bleed into your testimonials with the interviewer chiming in during responses (with phrases like "yes" "of course" "that's so cool", etc.). Not the end of the world if this happens, but makes it a whole lot easier if you have someone who asks a question, waits for the response to be completed, and then engages in conversation about the response.
You might also consider using a platform like UserEvidence on an iPad with a short survey (offer an incentive). As part of the survey: #1 ask the nps question, for all those who provide the highest ranking, you can follow up with them to invite them to complete the Gartner/G2 surveys. #2 include a question on the survey about what types of reference opportunities they would be interested in participating in. Check with his team can set you up. I am a big fan of UserEvidence. Easy to use. Quick results. Great support. Cost effective.
Hey - great idea!
This is our bread and butter at Zealot.
Happy to chat and see if we can be helpful. If not, can refer you to other players that may be better suited.
Honestly, I'd see if you can do this with a very basic survey tool using logic. Collect the person's info first, ask them what they'd be interested in doing right now, and based on each response, send them to another page to complete activities. You can validate responses with screenshots, links, etc. and then have whomever is awarding swag look at the responses on the backend. That way you can do some testing and experimentation with the choices without a big commitment.
Wow, you all showed up! I love all these ideas I'm already researching a few of them. I'll keep you all posted on which route we go!
