Checking In at Supplier Booths, for Credit

Afflink uses Poken at its Preferred Buyer trade-shows to allow Buyers to track visits to Supplier booth, gaining credit for connecting with Exhibitors

QuickStats

•  42% reduction in paper and energy consumption measured by the organizer
•  61’000 digital business-card exchanges
•  12’360 meetings scheduled and tracked using digital tags and pokens
•  Green Metric: Afflink can boast being closer to its goal of running sustainable events

The client

Afflink is one of the biggest and most successful member-driven sales & marketing
organizations, linking Preferred Suppliers to the largest group of Distributors found anywhere in the marketplace. Through its tradeshows, Afflink connects its members according to their business objectives, effectively driving purchasing behavior to deliver better results.

More than a “Buying Group”, Afflink has developed a winning strategy that combines leading-edge digital tools and real-world meetings.  Using targeted technologies to help its members achieve their meeting objectives, Afflink has managed to outpace the industry by more than double digits.

“At AFFLINK, we’re always looking for ‘what’s next’ to make our events more valuable for our Members and Suppliers,” says Michael Wilson, Director of Marketing at AFFLINK.

“Giving every attendee the ability to connect electronically removed the need for traditional tote bags, business cards and breakout session handouts, allowing them the flexibility to upload information to the cloud and retrieve it once they returned to their offices.”

Measuring Continuing Education

Using check-in and check-out tags for break-out sessions allowed the client to efficiently track session popularity, and also measure the membership organizations’ continuing education class attendance.  To improve organization efficiency, members are given the opportunity to attend classes, and obtain credit for the trainings.

The flexibility afforded by Poken’s “touch marketing” platform and the use of NFC+ pokenTAGs in conjunction with poken USB devices resulted in a far more effective solution than Afflink had used in the past.  Deploying easy-to-use self-contained, adhesive, pokenTAGs was a hit with attendees and staff alike.

Afflink’s sustainability efforts, through reduction of paper waste and the introduction of energy-reducing technology, obtained them a very favorable mention on Cleanlink!