BLOG
Interactive Tech for Events
The fuss over GDPR has shown one thing: mailing lists are a serious business. In the past, businesses have built lists using all kinds of creative methods, many of which are now illegal under the new law. Building mailing lists is now more challenging than ever. You can’t just add people to your list; you’ll have to confirm that they’ve given you permission.
Collecting Leads on Paper Doesn’t Cut It
At a trade show, collecting leads can be difficult at the best of times. Thanks to GDPR, it’s potentially even more time-consuming and awkward than it used to be:
- You need specific, explicit permission for legitimate use of a lead’s email address. If you just have a list of names on a clipboard, that’s quite hard to prove
- Each person needs to understand exactly what they’re signing up for. Explaining this to each person is likely to be time-consuming for your team at the event.
- If you’re collecting leads on paper, you also have the headache of securely storing and managing that personal data, or destroying it securely once you’ve transferred it manually to a secure digital system.
- You then have the problem of a double opt-in email arriving well after the event is over. By that time, they might have forgotten who you are.
For all these reasons, signing leads up on paper is no longer practical. But with a digital system, you can ease most of these problems.
Touchscreen sign-ups are geared towards collecting data very quickly, and that’s ideal when you factor in all of the additional consent you need under GDPR. Using a touchscreen kiosk — or several — it’s easy to invite people to complete the form and read the details in their own time. This frees up your team to chat with other delegates while also ensuring you’re covered when you need to provide proof of consent.
You also don’t have paper records; you can send new sign-up data directly to your email marketing platform. This minimises the risk of data loss or theft, since you won’t have lists of names and email addresses getting lost on the way back to the office. You also don’t have the hassle of transferring them into your system, securely disposing of paper lists later, or going through lists to remove data under the right to be removed clause.
Finally, the touchscreen sign-up process can instantly trigger the double opt-in email, because all of the details are being transmitted to your email marketing system in near real-time. Your staff can use this as an opportunity to chat with the new lead, and explain that they’ll need to confirm the opt-in. Often, getting someone to quickly confirm a sign-up is better than leaving it until several days later, when it’ll seem less pressing, or get lost in a crowded inbox.
Getting the Touchscreen Kiosk Experience Right
Interactivity is the name of the game when it comes to the kiosk interface. Fortunately, we all have plenty of experience in developing pleasing user interfaces for the web, and users are typically very comfortable with touchscreen hardware.
There are a few key points to bear in mind. You should ensure that your touchscreen sign-up page renders in a touchscreen-friendly size. Form fields and buttons need to be big enough to see and tap without accidentally hitting the wrong element on the page, particularly when your new lead may want to fill in the form quickly.
Additionally, you’ll need ensure that you have all of your GDPR information front and centre. And, importantly, to comply with the GDPR, none of your opt-in boxes should be pre-checked — even if you’re just trying to be helpful. Instead, make the boxes large enough to check quickly with a finger.
Simple processes like lead generation lend themselves perfectly to touchscreens at business events. And with GDPR now in full force, your business needs to avoid fines for non-compliance — something that a touchscreen can really aid with.