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Will BDMetrics’ personalization technology revolutionize the industry?
EXPO takes an inside look at the company and its plans to change the perceived value of trade shows.
By Danica Tormohlen and Cathy Chatfield-Taylor
For a company that once required a password to access its Web site — and still does no advertising — Baltimore-based BDMetrics has elicited a lot of talk. Even before the recent wave of press releases announcing new products and partners, event producers noted the growing popularity of BDMetrics’ You-Based personalization technology at their shows. To wit:
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The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) reported that 6,000 participants elected to keep their personal portals active after using “TIAnalytics” at SUPERCOMM 2004.
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When CMP Media brought “EEQuorum” back for asecond year at the Embedded Systems Conference 2005, they saw portal activation increase fourfold, and 82 percent of participants updated their profiles.
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An attendee who logged onto “MyCES” for the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was recognized as the one millionth user of the You-Based Portal.
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At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 2006 show, 60 percent of participants used their “MyNAB Show” portals to plan their activities.
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By the end of 2006, more than 2 million attendee portals and 75,000 exhibiting company portals were reportedly activated.
If the print publicity isn’t evidence enough, in a moment of unbridled enthusiasm at a recent industry event, producers of several market-leading events espoused the merits of BDMetrics’ products and their potential to “revolutionize” the industry and “radically change the perceived value of shows.”
“This technology is changing trade shows,” says Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). “It will make them more valuable. It capitalizes on what we’re good at — a live, interactive, face-to-face marketing experience — and makes the experience better for everyone at very little cost.”
How does one small, privately held company zoom from startup mode to endorsement by the producer of North America’s largest annual trade show in just five years? Some would say, by improving trade show performance one event at a time — reducing attendee attrition by 15 percent, increasing exhibit sales by 10 percent and generating up to $800,000 in new revenue.
A startup redirects
Founded in 2001 on an investment of $1.2 million by five partners with expertise in computer modeling and analytics, BDMetrics wasn’t originally destined for the trade show industry. The company’s name stands for “Business Development Metrics,” and its technology was designed to help build business relationships by recommending which deals a company should make.
According to Jack Chalden, a former TIA executive who joined BDMetrics in 2005 as Vice President, Business Development and Industry Relations, the company’s intent was to develop business development analytics industry by industry. But an “aha” moment occurred when the partners introduced their product at IAEM’s EXPO! EXPO! in November 2003. Show producers immediately saw the potential of a product that could transform show floor chaos into a connected community.
For the next 14 months, the team toiled away on product development, foregoing salaries to plow every dollar into the company. Early success at leading shows such as NAB and Embedded Systems Conference gave investors confidence in the startup company. In June 2004, BDMetrics received $3.5 million in venture capital. The company now has strong financial backing from Valhalla Partners, New Markets Growth Fund and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.
The initial hook for show producers was social networking — the ability to help attendees find each other and schedule time to talk. It soon became clear that the company’s powerful data-mining technology could crawl through multiple databases to find logical connections between people. With each new engagement came a round of innovation. In the first 12 months, the company introduced one new product every 17.5 days.
“We started with attendee-to-attendee relationships for the first NAB show, then it developed into attendee to exhibitor, attendee to products, attendee to articles, and attendee to social events,” says President and CEO Rick Geritz. “One keyword search will push attendees all the information they need to maximize their show experience.”
BDMetrics hit its stride in mid-2004 with “You-Based” personalization technology that finds relevant people, products, sessions and events for attendees and exhibitors weeks before the show. Likened to Amazon.com’s personalized recommendations, the portal suggests matches based on a participant’s profile and search history, as well as the history of others who have searched for similar items or share like profiles.
“The You-Based campaigns and personalized recommendations took us beyond being a matchmaking service,” says Don Mahoney, BDMetrics Chief Operating Officer and a founding partner. “That drove us from single-digit usage rates to consistently higher usage.”
Excerpt from "Will BDMetrics’ personalization technology revolutionize the industry?" EXPO, February 2007. Copyright 2007 Ascend Media, Overland Park, Kan. |
