WO2001011520A1 - Systems and methods for contacting prospective customers - Google Patents

Systems and methods for contacting prospective customers Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2001011520A1
WO2001011520A1 PCT/US2000/021188 US0021188W WO0111520A1 WO 2001011520 A1 WO2001011520 A1 WO 2001011520A1 US 0021188 W US0021188 W US 0021188W WO 0111520 A1 WO0111520 A1 WO 0111520A1
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WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
customer
vendor
prospective customers
information
data
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PCT/US2000/021188
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French (fr)
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WO2001011520A9 (en
Inventor
Eric Sommer
Original Assignee
Icapture
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Publication date
Application filed by Icapture filed Critical Icapture
Priority to AU66201/00A priority Critical patent/AU6620100A/en
Publication of WO2001011520A1 publication Critical patent/WO2001011520A1/en
Publication of WO2001011520A9 publication Critical patent/WO2001011520A9/en

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    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00Commerce
    • G06Q30/02Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Definitions

  • This invention relates to systems and methods for generating and following up on specific customer leads created in anticipation of or in response to organized marketing/informational meetings such as tradeshows and product fairs.
  • the customer leads are collected from a variety of sources. Data collected from these customer leads is matched up with prospective customers and forwarded to these customers in a timely fashion.
  • One of the best ways for a vendor to attract and retain customers is by displaying and demonstrating products and services to prospective customers. Events such as tradeshows and product fairs occur around the world for just this purpose. Hundreds, if not thousands and even tens of thousands of prospective customers attend these events where individual vendors participating in these events set up booths and/or demos to facilitate personal interaction with these prospective customers. This interaction results in highly relevant and useful exchanges of information that are invaluable to the vendors. In the business community, these are referred to as leads. Unfortunately, tradeshows are often extremely crowded and overwhelming. Prospective customers often do not recall exactly with whom they spoke with regarding certain products and/or services. This is due to the fact that the prospective customers encountered so many people, products, etc.
  • the current invention includes a system and method for collecting, filtering, and reconciling various types of data from both a customer and a vendor, into a datafile which is composed of at least one datapage in the form of, for example, a hyper text mark-up language (HTML) page or an e-mail.
  • the datafile is compiled and appropriately updated by an independent third party referred to herein as the contact management team, for distribution before and/or after a tradeshow or other similar marketing event wherein multiple prospective customers have the capability to explore the products and/or services offered by at least one vendor.
  • the contact management team When the compilations and updates are complete, the finalized datafile is distributed either directly to the customer by the contact management team or is distributed to the vendor for further distribution by the vendor to specifically targeted customers and to marketing and sales teams. Additionally, in the case where the contact management team distributes the finalized datafile directly to the customers, the contact management team retains a list of the customers to whom they distributed the datafile and the respective contact points to whom the datafile was directed, and forwards this list
  • the invention disclosed herein provides a vendor with a mechanism for screening prospective customers based on pre-established qualifications and providing the selected prospective customers with targeted information.
  • the invention disclosed herein provides prospective customers with direct web links to multiple on-line sites, allowing the prospective customers to view and download collateral materials in order to fulfill a prospective customer's request for more information.
  • Figure 1 shows the relationship between relevant parties
  • Figure 2 shows the tradeshow format for gathering on-site customer data
  • Figure 3 shows an exemplary first datafile datapage
  • Figure 5 shows an exemplary third datafile datapage
  • Figure 6 is a flowchart representing a first method for practicing the invention.
  • FIG. 1 is an overview diagram of a system in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • Vendor 1 is a corporation, partnership or individual in business to sell goods, services or both to customers 2.
  • the exchange of goods/service for money between vendor 1 and customer 2 is represented by path A.
  • Contact management team 3 either initiates the connection between vendor 1 and customer 2 or it adds value to this system by providing more efficient means of exchanging data between vendor 1 and customer 2. More specifically, vendor 1 provides data, along with service fees, about its goods/service to the contact management team 3 along pathB.
  • the contact management team 3 formats this data, selects specific customers 2 from a population and passes the formatted data to the customers 2 along path C. In exchange for this data, the customers 2 provide data about themselves such as attendance at specific tradeshows to the contact management team 3 along path C.
  • the contact management team 3 organizes this data regarding these customers into a specific and usable format and forwards it to vendor 1 via path B.
  • the data accumulation process begins with the vendor 1.
  • the vendor 1 provides the contact management team 3 with all relevant vendor data such as product and/or service data, vendor personnel contact data, and website/URL data. Additionally, the vendor 1 provides the contact management team 3 with any data regarding prospective customers that is already in its possession. This could be in the form of, for example, a list of prospective customers compiled from a previous tradeshow or a list compiled based on previous course of dealings with the prospective customers. This data may be provided to the contact management team 3 in any suitable form including electronic, written, or oral.
  • a second source of data for possible inclusion in a pre-tradeshow vendor datafile is the tradeshow organizers.
  • tradeshow organizers will compile and continuously update a list of registrants for the upcoming tradeshow. This list includes the vendors who plan to present at a designated booth or table as well as those who plan to attend the tradeshow strictly as prospective customers. It is important to note that fellow vendors are often prospective customers themselves and thus should be considered as such when finalizing a list of prospective customers for a particular vendor pre-tradeshow datafile.
  • the data accumulation phase taps the sources discussed with reference to the pre-tradeshow datafile accumulation phase but, additionally, invaluable prospective customer data is galhered from the actual tradeshow itself as described below.
  • Figure 2 illustrates a more detailed implementation of the diagram of the system shown in Figure 1.
  • Figure 2 also adds the feature of a tradeshow.
  • a tradeshow is held at a large convention hall 10 with a plurality of vendors 1 maintaining a plurality of vendor booths 11a and lib.
  • prospective customers 2 go to each vendor's booth 11a and lib inside the convention center 10, they register with that vendor by having unique data associated with each customer collected by data collector device 12a or 12b.
  • data collector devices 12a and 12b include a magnetic, optical or smart-card reader, a computer terminal where either the customer 2 or a vendor employee types in the customer's data or a simple piece of paper for obtaining the customer's data.
  • Customer data includes, but is not limited to, name, company name, address, phone number, e-mail address (or universal resource locator (URL)) or it may be a unique customer identification number
  • customer ID that correlates to a database (not shown) that stores data like that listed here.
  • customer data may include information regarding the specific product and/or service needs of a customer as gleaned from, for example, the customer or from the type of business in which the customer is engaged.
  • a vendor ofe.g., fiber-optic cable may target e.g., large telecommunications companies.
  • data collecting devices 12a and 12b also tag each customer entry with vendor data so as to form combined data. In this manner, the visit of a specific customer 2 with a specific vendor 1 is recorded uniquely.
  • Tag data may be as simple as a header at the top of the sheet of paper where every customer places his customer identifying data or it may be, for example, a four or five digit extension onto a customer ID number.
  • the customer ID number is either read off of, for example, a smart card issued to the customer at a tradeshow by an appropriate reader or entered into a computer or on a piece of paper at, for example, a trade booth by vendor personnel. All customer data is organized under this customer ID number for ease of retrieval.
  • a unique vendor ID number is attached to the customer ID number forming a combined ID, such that the contact management team 3 is able to track which customers visited which vendors. Under this combined ID, the particulars of the customer's visit to the vendor's booth is recorded for later retrieval and use.
  • Data collection devices 12a and 12b operate in multiple ways.
  • the devices can collect customer identifying data throughout the duration of the tradeshow and perform a data dump of all collected data at the end of the tradeshow along with vendor identifying data.
  • the data collection devices 12a and 12b periodically forward the customer identifying data along with vendor identifying data at defined intervals, e.g., every hour, every day or, the data is provided continuously to the contact computer, in an on-line, real-time scenario. Whichever method of collecting and period of transmission is used, eventually the combined data e.g., vendor plus customer data, arrives at a contact computer 13 maintained by the contact management team 3.
  • the combined data is transmitted over network 14 to contact computer 13.
  • a data entry operator types the data into the contact computer 13 (not shown).
  • the contact computer 13 retrieves from databank 15, pre-composed vendor datapages, e.g., HTML pages or e-mails (see Figures 3-5) which generally consist of text messages from an upper-level manager of the vendor 1, images of products seen at the trade show, text messages describing the products in the images, an electronic brochure, a contact list of the vendor 1, including e-mail addresses and Web URLs, a map to the nearest product distributors, electronic product and/or service ordering forms and a blank reply card/survey for the prospective customer to complete upon receipt and inspection of the personalized datafile.
  • the pre-composed vendor datapages may contain, by way of example, information about new or upcoming releases, new services, or upgrades.
  • Images or photographs of products may be used on the datapages, as well as audio and video links.
  • the contact computer 13 will compose a custom made datapage to target the particular customer based on the reconciliation results.
  • the database would contain information that would identify the idiosyncrasies of this customer, e.g., an operator at the tradeshow booth may have spent some time discussing a certain product with the customer and in all likelihood entered a special message along with the customer's identification data to the contact computer noting the customer's interest in that product.
  • the contact computer uses this additional data to select the specific datapage for that product and inserts the selected datapage into the personalized datafile. In this manner, the customer only receives specific data for specific products.
  • the contact computer 13 then forwards the vendor specific datafile to the customer 2.
  • the datafile could be a hardcopy that is mailed to customer 2 or an electronic version that is transmitted to the customer's computer 16 via network 14.
  • the contact computer 13 forwards the customer identifying data to a vendor computer 17 via network 14. This data allows the vendor 1 to contact the customer 2 in the future regarding certain products/services.
  • the contact management team 3 in addition to database management and datafile configuration, also offers personal interaction with prospective customers on behalf of the vendors. Referred to herein as product advocates, these individuals serve multiple functions at multiple stages of the sales lead generation and follow-up process.
  • Product advocates may perform cold calls to prospective customers based on old or new leads and are able to schedule appointments for more involved sales calls or private demos between vendor and prospective customer personnel, either before, during or after the trade-shows take place or the datafiles are sent out.
  • the product advocates may also perform a screening function, to weed out non- buyers.
  • the product advocates are versed in the generalities of the products and services of particular vendors and can quickly answer weed out questions from prospective customers via telephone, e-mail, fax or the like.
  • the product advocates then relay information that they obtain about prospective customers to the appropriate vendor databases that are compiled and maintained by the contact management team 3 so that this information may be used to decide, for example, whether or not to follow up on this lead and which datapages to use in following up on the lead.
  • Figures 3-5 are examples of datapages within the datafile which the customer receives.
  • Figure 3 is a letter written by for example, a company executive. In one embodiment, this letter is only addressed to the customer 2 while the text of the letter is generic so that it applies to every customer. As shown in Figure 3, this datapage looks like an actual paper letter with the vendor's letterhead appearing on the datapage and optionally including, contact addresses, the customer's address, the text from the company's executive and a signature block, which contains a digital copy of the executive's signature.
  • Figure 4 is a datapage of text and images that describe a product or service either presented by the company at the trade show or discussed with customer 2 at the trade show.
  • the datapage contains an image of the product, if applicable, as well as a description of the product in the text next to the image.
  • the text also provides contact data within the company or perhaps a list of local sales agencies who can assist the customer in buying that product (alternatively, this data is located on the customer survey datapage discussed below and shown in Figure 5).
  • this data is located on the customer survey datapage discussed below and shown in Figure 5.
  • Figure 5 shows a datapage containing a survey to be completed by the customer 2 for use by the creator of the datafile e.g., contact management team 3.
  • Figure 6 is a flow chart in accordance with a method of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • the contact management team 3 obtains a database of prospective customers for a particular vendor's goods/services.
  • This database for example, may be a list from the vendor 1 in one embodiment and/or a database purchased from an independent source in another embodiment (not shown).
  • the prospective customer database is scrubbed so as to remove those prospective customers that might not belong or might otherwise appear to be less likely to purchase from this vendor. Areas such as the size of the customer's company and its competitors are such factors that are considered in determining the likelihood of a successful sale to this customer.
  • vendor identifying data is added to form combined data and this combined data is forwarded to the contact management team's computer 13 as described above.
  • the contact management team's computer processes this combined data in two ways.
  • computer 13 again narrows the list of customers for a particular vendor by discarding those customers that have certain characteristics such as poor capitalization or remote location compared to the vendor's location.
  • the collected vendor identifying data from the combined data is used as a search key to search the database of datafiles to match up the vendors with potentially interested customers.
  • each customer 2 who visited only specific vendor booths as determined by the customer's registering at that booth via customer identifying data collection methods described above, receives datafiles specific to those vendors 1.
  • the vendor specific datafiles are then specialized to each specific customer at step S66 as described above.
  • the specialized vendor datafiles are transmitted to the customers 2.
  • the customer list for each vendor is transmitted to two entities within the vendor organization at steps S68 and S69.
  • the customer list is transmitted to the management/marketing teams of vendor 1. This data informs these teams as to the relative success of the booths at the tradeshow.
  • the same or similar customer list is sent to the vendor's sales team to continue contact with the customers in the hopes of making a sale.
  • the process for generating and following up leads continues even after the datafiles are initially distributed to prospective customers.
  • the contact management team 3 continually refreshes data and consequently lead information for prospective clients already targeted by the vendors.
  • the prospective customer data is continually compared with incoming data in order to purge duplications, wrong contact information, incorrect address, phone numbers, and the like.
  • the databases are updated with new management information and keep track of mergers, acquisitions, and/or expansion information. This type of information is crucial to the efficient target marketing needed to follow up on leads with prospective customers.
  • vendors are able to dynamically alter and continually update the datapages contained within the prospective customer datafiles to offer the most useful combination of vendor products and/or services to individual prospective customers. Further, using this continual database management technique allows vendors to track the changes in the business practices and markets of prospective customers in order to effectively target prospective customers with vendor products and/or services, potentially even before the prospective customers realize the directions their businesses are heading. With the right lead, the power of suggestion can result in an extremely beneficial situation for the vendor, the prospective customer, and ultimately the consuming public.
  • While the above system and method are given with reference to obtaining the majority of the customer data at the tradeshow and then compiling the datafiles, it is within the scope of the present invention to collect customer data prior to the tradeshow and provide datafiles to prospective customers in anticipation of, for example, a tradeshow. In this manner, a particular vendor may give a prospective customer a preview of the products the vendor will be displaying at the tradeshow.
  • the tradeshow organizers obtain a list of potential participants via registration before the tradeshow. The tradeshow organizers may sell or otherwise make this list available to vendors.
  • the registration list contains, for example, the names, addresses, title, employer data and e-mail address of the customers.
  • the contact management team prepares a pre-tradeshow datafile based on the registrant list released by the tradeshow officials and any additional customer specific data provided by the vendors e.g., based on past course of dealings, and sends the personalized datafile to the customer a week or so before the tradeshow.
  • This process provides the vendor with a headstart on reaching the prospective customer and it provides the customer with some preliminary knowledge so that he will be able to ask more in- depth questions from the booth support staff.
  • Another method involves establishing a second database that associates company titles with specific products the vendor is offering.
  • a specific customer is an information technology (“IT”) professional and receives only the three datapages associated with IT issues and not the end user products or the marketing products. In this manner the personalized datafile is more customized to each particular customer.
  • IT information technology

Abstract

A system and method for collecting, filtering, and reconciling data from both a customer and a vendor, into a datafile. The datafile is compiled and updated by an independent third party referred as the contact management team (S60) for distribution before and/or after a marketing event wherein prospective customers (S62) have the capability to explore products and/or services. When the compilations and updates are complete, the finalized datafile is distributed either directly to the customer (S67) by the contact management team (S68) or is distributed to the vendor for further distribution by these vendors to targeted customers and to marketing and sales teams (S69). Additionally, where the contact management team distributes the finalized datafile directly to the customers the contact management team retains a list of the customers to whom they distributed these datafile and contact points to whom the datafile was directed and forwards this to the vendor.

Description

SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTACTING PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to provisional application no. 60/147,401 entitled
"SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTACTING PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS" filed August 6, 1999 which is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention
This invention relates to systems and methods for generating and following up on specific customer leads created in anticipation of or in response to organized marketing/informational meetings such as tradeshows and product fairs. The customer leads are collected from a variety of sources. Data collected from these customer leads is matched up with prospective customers and forwarded to these customers in a timely fashion.
Description of Related Art
Vendors cannot survive without customers. One of the best ways for a vendor to attract and retain customers is by displaying and demonstrating products and services to prospective customers. Events such as tradeshows and product fairs occur around the world for just this purpose. Hundreds, if not thousands and even tens of thousands of prospective customers attend these events where individual vendors participating in these events set up booths and/or demos to facilitate personal interaction with these prospective customers. This interaction results in highly relevant and useful exchanges of information that are invaluable to the vendors. In the business community, these are referred to as leads. Unfortunately, tradeshows are often extremely crowded and overwhelming. Prospective customers often do not recall exactly with whom they spoke with regarding certain products and/or services. This is due to the fact that the prospective customers encountered so many people, products, etc. during the tradeshow and it is difficult to remember and associate each product and/or service with the correct vendor. Further, prospective customers often receive competing messages from different vendors, resulting in visual and aural overload. Both small and large vendors alike lose many of these leads or do not act on these leads in a timely fashion, resulting in the loss of significant business opportunities. Using conventional technology, prospective customers are issued identification cards having information thereon which may be swiped or scanned through readers located at the booths of the individual vendors. At this point, it is up to the vendors to collect and respond to the perspective customers. Vendors often take weeks, assuming they ever do respond, to get back with prospective customers. There is therefore a need for a system and method for retaining information produced from these events and acting upon the information in a personalized manner so as to ultimately gain customers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The current invention includes a system and method for collecting, filtering, and reconciling various types of data from both a customer and a vendor, into a datafile which is composed of at least one datapage in the form of, for example, a hyper text mark-up language (HTML) page or an e-mail. The datafile is compiled and appropriately updated by an independent third party referred to herein as the contact management team, for distribution before and/or after a tradeshow or other similar marketing event wherein multiple prospective customers have the capability to explore the products and/or services offered by at least one vendor. When the compilations and updates are complete, the finalized datafile is distributed either directly to the customer by the contact management team or is distributed to the vendor for further distribution by the vendor to specifically targeted customers and to marketing and sales teams. Additionally, in the case where the contact management team distributes the finalized datafile directly to the customers, the contact management team retains a list of the customers to whom they distributed the datafile and the respective contact points to whom the datafile was directed, and forwards this list to the vendor.
In the case of post-tradeshow distributions, for example, the invention disclosed herein provides vendors with a system and method for contacting prospective customers within hours of contact during a tradeshow, exhibition, conference, or the like. The invention disclosed herein provides a custom-made visual solution for prospective customers who have expressed interest in a vendors product or service, increasing the amount of Internet traffic to a vendors website.
The invention disclosed herein provides a vendor with a mechanism for screening prospective customers based on pre-established qualifications and providing the selected prospective customers with targeted information.
The invention disclosed herein provides prospective customers with direct web links to multiple on-line sites, allowing the prospective customers to view and download collateral materials in order to fulfill a prospective customer's request for more information. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In the drawings:
Figure 1 shows the relationship between relevant parties;
Figure 2 shows the tradeshow format for gathering on-site customer data;
Figure 3 shows an exemplary first datafile datapage;
Figure 4 shows an exemplary second datafile datapage;
Figure 5 shows an exemplary third datafile datapage; and
Figure 6 is a flowchart representing a first method for practicing the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Figure 1 is an overview diagram of a system in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Vendor 1 is a corporation, partnership or individual in business to sell goods, services or both to customers 2. The exchange of goods/service for money between vendor 1 and customer 2 is represented by path A. Contact management team 3 either initiates the connection between vendor 1 and customer 2 or it adds value to this system by providing more efficient means of exchanging data between vendor 1 and customer 2. More specifically, vendor 1 provides data, along with service fees, about its goods/service to the contact management team 3 along pathB. The contact management team 3 formats this data, selects specific customers 2 from a population and passes the formatted data to the customers 2 along path C. In exchange for this data, the customers 2 provide data about themselves such as attendance at specific tradeshows to the contact management team 3 along path C. The contact management team 3 organizes this data regarding these customers into a specific and usable format and forwards it to vendor 1 via path B.
In order to facilitate the accumulation of all necessary data by the contact management team 3, there are multiple sources of data that are tapped into, including but not limited to the vendors, the customers, the tradeshow databanks, and outside sources. The order in which these sources are contacted varies to some extent on the vendor's choice as to dissemination of the compiled datafile to the targeted customers.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention where a pre-tradeshow datafile (discussed below) is disseminated to selected prospective customers, the data accumulation process begins with the vendor 1. The vendor 1 provides the contact management team 3 with all relevant vendor data such as product and/or service data, vendor personnel contact data, and website/URL data. Additionally, the vendor 1 provides the contact management team 3 with any data regarding prospective customers that is already in its possession. This could be in the form of, for example, a list of prospective customers compiled from a previous tradeshow or a list compiled based on previous course of dealings with the prospective customers. This data may be provided to the contact management team 3 in any suitable form including electronic, written, or oral. In addition to the vendor and prospective customer data provided by the vendor 1, a second source of data for possible inclusion in a pre-tradeshow vendor datafile is the tradeshow organizers. Typically, tradeshow organizers will compile and continuously update a list of registrants for the upcoming tradeshow. This list includes the vendors who plan to present at a designated booth or table as well as those who plan to attend the tradeshow strictly as prospective customers. It is important to note that fellow vendors are often prospective customers themselves and thus should be considered as such when finalizing a list of prospective customers for a particular vendor pre-tradeshow datafile.
The designated booth information is particularly relevant in the case of the pre-tradeshow datafiles since prospective customers will be informed as to the location of the vendor at the upcoming tradeshow. Finally, a third source of prospective customer data for the compilation of a vendor's pre-tradeshow datafile is commercial databases and/or other outside sources which in some way dictate the product and/or service preferences of prospective customers.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention where a post-tradeshow datafile is disseminated to the selected prospective customers, the data accumulation phase taps the sources discussed with reference to the pre-tradeshow datafile accumulation phase but, additionally, invaluable prospective customer data is galhered from the actual tradeshow itself as described below.
Figure 2 illustrates a more detailed implementation of the diagram of the system shown in Figure 1. Figure 2 also adds the feature of a tradeshow. Typically a tradeshow is held at a large convention hall 10 with a plurality of vendors 1 maintaining a plurality of vendor booths 11a and lib. As prospective customers 2 (only one is shown in Figure 2 for the sake of clarity) go to each vendor's booth 11a and lib inside the convention center 10, they register with that vendor by having unique data associated with each customer collected by data collector device 12a or 12b. Examples of data collector devices 12a and 12b include a magnetic, optical or smart-card reader, a computer terminal where either the customer 2 or a vendor employee types in the customer's data or a simple piece of paper for obtaining the customer's data. Customer data includes, but is not limited to, name, company name, address, phone number, e-mail address (or universal resource locator (URL)) or it may be a unique customer identification number
("customer ID") that correlates to a database (not shown) that stores data like that listed here. Further, customer data may include information regarding the specific product and/or service needs of a customer as gleaned from, for example, the customer or from the type of business in which the customer is engaged. For example, a vendor ofe.g., fiber-optic cable may target e.g., large telecommunications companies. In addition to collecting customer data, data collecting devices 12a and 12b also tag each customer entry with vendor data so as to form combined data. In this manner, the visit of a specific customer 2 with a specific vendor 1 is recorded uniquely. Tag data may be as simple as a header at the top of the sheet of paper where every customer places his customer identifying data or it may be, for example, a four or five digit extension onto a customer ID number. For example, in an embodiment of the present invention, the customer ID number is either read off of, for example, a smart card issued to the customer at a tradeshow by an appropriate reader or entered into a computer or on a piece of paper at, for example, a trade booth by vendor personnel. All customer data is organized under this customer ID number for ease of retrieval. Additionally, as discussed above, a unique vendor ID number is attached to the customer ID number forming a combined ID, such that the contact management team 3 is able to track which customers visited which vendors. Under this combined ID, the particulars of the customer's visit to the vendor's booth is recorded for later retrieval and use.
Data collection devices 12a and 12b operate in multiple ways. For example, the devices can collect customer identifying data throughout the duration of the tradeshow and perform a data dump of all collected data at the end of the tradeshow along with vendor identifying data. Alternatively, the data collection devices 12a and 12b periodically forward the customer identifying data along with vendor identifying data at defined intervals, e.g., every hour, every day or, the data is provided continuously to the contact computer, in an on-line, real-time scenario. Whichever method of collecting and period of transmission is used, eventually the combined data e.g., vendor plus customer data, arrives at a contact computer 13 maintained by the contact management team 3. For electronic types of data collecting devices 12a and 12b, the combined data is transmitted over network 14 to contact computer 13. For manually collected customer identifying data, a data entry operator types the data into the contact computer 13 (not shown).
All of the vendor and customer data that has been collected is stored in at least one database, represented by database 15. Contact computer 13 processes the data from database 15 through a reconciliation program which is capable of using keyword or phrase type searching of all of the compiled data to match-up prospective customers with particular products and/or services offered by the vendor. During the reconciliation process, many of the customers are filtered out based on, among other things, their lack of need for the products or services of the particular vendor. Similarly, some vendors offer a variety of products and/or services, where only a few or even one of which would be useful to a prospective customer. Once the reconciliation process is complete, the contact computer 13 retrieves from databank 15, pre-composed vendor datapages, e.g., HTML pages or e-mails (see Figures 3-5) which generally consist of text messages from an upper-level manager of the vendor 1, images of products seen at the trade show, text messages describing the products in the images, an electronic brochure, a contact list of the vendor 1, including e-mail addresses and Web URLs, a map to the nearest product distributors, electronic product and/or service ordering forms and a blank reply card/survey for the prospective customer to complete upon receipt and inspection of the personalized datafile. The pre-composed vendor datapages may contain, by way of example, information about new or upcoming releases, new services, or upgrades. Images or photographs of products may be used on the datapages, as well as audio and video links. In the case of a vendor with numerous products and services, it may be inefficient to pre-compose datapages containing every combination of product or service offered. Consequently, the contact computer 13, will compose a custom made datapage to target the particular customer based on the reconciliation results.
For example, suppose a vendor comes to a tradeshow with nine different products where three products are for data technology specialists, three products are designed as end user applications and three products are designed for marketing analysis. Clearly these products are of interest to different customers such that a very specialized customer would only be interested in three of the nine products. During the reconciliation step, when the search is performed in the database to select specific datapages for specific customers, the database would contain information that would identify the idiosyncrasies of this customer, e.g., an operator at the tradeshow booth may have spent some time discussing a certain product with the customer and in all likelihood entered a special message along with the customer's identification data to the contact computer noting the customer's interest in that product. The contact computer uses this additional data to select the specific datapage for that product and inserts the selected datapage into the personalized datafile. In this manner, the customer only receives specific data for specific products.
The contact computer 13 then forwards the vendor specific datafile to the customer 2. The datafile could be a hardcopy that is mailed to customer 2 or an electronic version that is transmitted to the customer's computer 16 via network 14. In addition to contacting the customer 2 with a vendor specific datafile, the contact computer 13 forwards the customer identifying data to a vendor computer 17 via network 14. This data allows the vendor 1 to contact the customer 2 in the future regarding certain products/services. In an alternative embodiment, the contact management team 3, in addition to database management and datafile configuration, also offers personal interaction with prospective customers on behalf of the vendors. Referred to herein as product advocates, these individuals serve multiple functions at multiple stages of the sales lead generation and follow-up process. Product advocates may perform cold calls to prospective customers based on old or new leads and are able to schedule appointments for more involved sales calls or private demos between vendor and prospective customer personnel, either before, during or after the trade-shows take place or the datafiles are sent out. The product advocates may also perform a screening function, to weed out non- buyers. The product advocates are versed in the generalities of the products and services of particular vendors and can quickly answer weed out questions from prospective customers via telephone, e-mail, fax or the like. The product advocates then relay information that they obtain about prospective customers to the appropriate vendor databases that are compiled and maintained by the contact management team 3 so that this information may be used to decide, for example, whether or not to follow up on this lead and which datapages to use in following up on the lead.
Figures 3-5 are examples of datapages within the datafile which the customer receives. Figure 3 is a letter written by for example, a company executive. In one embodiment, this letter is only addressed to the customer 2 while the text of the letter is generic so that it applies to every customer. As shown inFigure 3, this datapage looks like an actual paper letter with the vendor's letterhead appearing on the datapage and optionally including, contact addresses, the customer's address, the text from the company's executive and a signature block, which contains a digital copy of the executive's signature. Figure 4 is a datapage of text and images that describe a product or service either presented by the company at the trade show or discussed with customer 2 at the trade show. The datapage contains an image of the product, if applicable, as well as a description of the product in the text next to the image. The text also provides contact data within the company or perhaps a list of local sales agencies who can assist the customer in buying that product (alternatively, this data is located on the customer survey datapage discussed below and shown in Figure 5). In a typical datafile, there may be two or more product descriptions, discussed on multiple datapages. In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, several products may be described on a single datapage. Figure 5 shows a datapage containing a survey to be completed by the customer 2 for use by the creator of the datafile e.g., contact management team 3. It asks such questions as if the customer found the datafile useful and if contact data for the company was complete (i.e. phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Web URL's etc.). Should the customer complete this survey, it is automatically returned to the datafile creator via e- mail so that the datafile creator will design more appealing datafiles.
Further, in any of the datapages in Figures 3-5 comprising the datafiles, the vendor may choose to incorporate additional features such as animation, audio and realtime audio and real-time video data streams as marketing tools. The use of real-time video data streams allows the vendor to do such things as incorporate product demos within the datapage. Similarly, for an even more personalized approach, the text from the company executive could be in the form of a video clip of the executive himself actually speaking.
Figure 6 is a flow chart in accordance with a method of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. At step S60, the contact management team 3 obtains a database of prospective customers for a particular vendor's goods/services. This database, for example, may be a list from the vendor 1 in one embodiment and/or a database purchased from an independent source in another embodiment (not shown). At stepSόl, the prospective customer database is scrubbed so as to remove those prospective customers that might not belong or might otherwise appear to be less likely to purchase from this vendor. Areas such as the size of the customer's company and its competitors are such factors that are considered in determining the likelihood of a successful sale to this customer. Once the prospective customer list is compiled, the contact management team 3 makes contact with these prospective customers prior to the tradeshow at stepS62. Parallel to steps S60-S62, the contact management team 3 prepares and builds the vendors' datafiles at step S63. As noted above, the datafiles are comprised of different datapages that are linked together.
After initial contact S62 and datafile construction S63 are completed, the tradeshow is held. During the tradeshow, vendors 1 collect customer identifying data from the customers as described above at step S64. In addition to customer identifying data collection, vendor identifying data is added to form combined data and this combined data is forwarded to the contact management team's computer 13 as described above. Once the contact management team's computer has the combined data, it processes this combined data in two ways. At step S65, computer 13 again narrows the list of customers for a particular vendor by discarding those customers that have certain characteristics such as poor capitalization or remote location compared to the vendor's location. Once the improved customer list is generated it is stored in database 15 to be distributed to the vendor 1 later.
After the improved list of customers is generated and stored, the collected vendor identifying data from the combined data is used as a search key to search the database of datafiles to match up the vendors with potentially interested customers. In this manner, each customer 2 who visited only specific vendor booths, as determined by the customer's registering at that booth via customer identifying data collection methods described above, receives datafiles specific to those vendors 1. The vendor specific datafiles are then specialized to each specific customer at step S66 as described above. At step S67, the specialized vendor datafiles are transmitted to the customers 2. Parallel to transmitting the specialized datafiles, the customer list for each vendor is transmitted to two entities within the vendor organization at steps S68 and S69. At step S68, the customer list is transmitted to the management/marketing teams of vendor 1. This data informs these teams as to the relative success of the booths at the tradeshow. In addition, at step S69, the same or similar customer list is sent to the vendor's sales team to continue contact with the customers in the hopes of making a sale.
This initial process ends at step S70 when the customers who receive datafiles fill out a survey /reply card that is transmitted back to the contact management team 3. The reply card contains data that 1) aids the contact management team 3 in building improved datafiles in the future and 2) supplies the vendor with invaluable feedback from prospective customers 2 regarding the vendor's products and/or services and the vendor's marketing tactics used at the tradeshow.
Additionally, using the compiled datafiles as the basic component of the system and process, vendors 1, either themselves or through the services of the contact management team 3, are able to track leads to determine, among other things, how many resulted in direct or indirect sales. Similarly, in the case of datafiles posted on the Internet, the vendors are able to track the number of hits to a particular website containing the datafiles to determine possible customer interest, giving the vendor 1 an opportunity to contact the customer directly (e.g., through e-mail or telephone), knowing that there is some interest already there based on the number of hits to the datafile. The website hits to the datafiles may be monitored and reported by the contact management team 3 through for example, a gateway counter.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, the process for generating and following up leads continues even after the datafiles are initially distributed to prospective customers. Through the efficient database management which is a subject of the present invention, the contact management team 3 continually refreshes data and consequently lead information for prospective clients already targeted by the vendors. The prospective customer data is continually compared with incoming data in order to purge duplications, wrong contact information, incorrect address, phone numbers, and the like. Similarly, the databases are updated with new management information and keep track of mergers, acquisitions, and/or expansion information. This type of information is crucial to the efficient target marketing needed to follow up on leads with prospective customers. By continually updating the databases, vendors are able to dynamically alter and continually update the datapages contained within the prospective customer datafiles to offer the most useful combination of vendor products and/or services to individual prospective customers. Further, using this continual database management technique allows vendors to track the changes in the business practices and markets of prospective customers in order to effectively target prospective customers with vendor products and/or services, potentially even before the prospective customers realize the directions their businesses are heading. With the right lead, the power of suggestion can result in an extremely beneficial situation for the vendor, the prospective customer, and ultimately the consuming public.
While the above system and method are given with reference to obtaining the majority of the customer data at the tradeshow and then compiling the datafiles, it is within the scope of the present invention to collect customer data prior to the tradeshow and provide datafiles to prospective customers in anticipation of, for example, a tradeshow. In this manner, a particular vendor may give a prospective customer a preview of the products the vendor will be displaying at the tradeshow. In this embodiment of the present invention, the tradeshow organizers obtain a list of potential participants via registration before the tradeshow. The tradeshow organizers may sell or otherwise make this list available to vendors. The registration list contains, for example, the names, addresses, title, employer data and e-mail address of the customers. The contact management team prepares a pre-tradeshow datafile based on the registrant list released by the tradeshow officials and any additional customer specific data provided by the vendors e.g., based on past course of dealings, and sends the personalized datafile to the customer a week or so before the tradeshow. This process provides the vendor with a headstart on reaching the prospective customer and it provides the customer with some preliminary knowledge so that he will be able to ask more in- depth questions from the booth support staff.
In addition to this variation from the first process embodiment, changes to the datafiles and particular datapages are also possible. The datapage shown in Figure3 may be personalized beyond the address block for each prospective customer, such that the salutation line as well as select sentences in the text of the letter are also personalized.
Another method involves establishing a second database that associates company titles with specific products the vendor is offering. As a simple example, a specific customer is an information technology ("IT") professional and receives only the three datapages associated with IT issues and not the end user products or the marketing products. In this manner the personalized datafile is more customized to each particular customer.
The current invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments set forth above, these embodiments are merely exemplary. Once skilled in the art recognizes the many variations of the systems and processes described above which remain within the scope of the invention.

Claims

I Claim:
1. A process for generating and following sales leads comprising: collecting customer data on prospective customers from at least one source; comparing the customer data with vendor data to determine a preferred set of prospective customers based on pre-determined criteria set forth by the vendor through the vendor data; compiling an individual datafile for each of the prospective customers within the preferred set, wherein the individual datafiles contain vendor specific information pre-selected for distribution to each of the prospective customers based on the customer data; and making the individual datafiles available to each of the prospective customers..
2. The process according to claim 1, wherein the at least one source is the vendor.
3. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one source is the prospective customers.
4. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one source is a tradeshow database.
5. The process according to claim 1, wherein the at least one source is a commercial database.
6. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the vendor data includes at least one of the following group consisting of vendor product information, vendor service information, vendor contact information, and vendor URL.
7. The process according to claim 1, wherein the customer data includes at least one of the following group consisting of customer name, customer company name, customer address, customer telephone number, customer fax number, customer e-mail address, customer URL, customer service needs, and customer product needs.
8. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the vendor specific information includes at least one of the following group consisting of text messages from vendor management, product images, product descriptions, service descriptions, vendor contact information, product release information, service release information, product upgrade information, service upgrade information, audio links to vendor information, and video links to vendor information.
9. The process according to claim 1, wherein the individual datafiles are available to each of the prospective customers via the Internet..
10. The process according to claim 1 , wherein the individual datafiles are available to each of the prospective customers via e-mail.
1 1. The process according to claim 1 , further comprising: collecting additional customer data at a pre-planned information gathering event from at least one of the prospective customers.
12. The process according to claim 1 1 , further comprising: updating the individual datafiles after the pre-planned information gathering event for the at least one prospective customer; and providing the updated individual datafiles to the at least one prospective customer within 24 hours of collecting the additional customer data at the pre-planned information gathering event.
13. The process according to claim 1 1 , wherein the additional customer data is collected electronically.
14. The process according to claim 1 1 , wherein the pre-planned information gathering event is a tradeshow.
15. A method for contacting pre-selected prospective customers after a trade event comprising: establishing a customer database containing customer information about prospective customers; establishing a vendor database containing vendor information; comparing the customer information for each of the prospective customers to the vendor information to establish a set of pre-selected prospective customers; constructing datafiles for each of the pre-selected prospective customers based on the comparison of the vendor information and the customer information for each of the prospective customers, wherein each of the datafiles is specific to an individual pre-selected prospective customer; and providing the datafiles to each of the pre-selected prospective customers within 24 hours of constructing the datafiles.
16. The method according to claim 15, wherein establishing a customer database includes: retrieving customer information from multiple sources, wherein the multiple sources include the vendor, commercial databases, private databases, and the prospective customers.
17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the private databases are tradeshow databases.
18. The method according to claim 16, wherein retrieving customer information from the prospective customers occurs at a trade show, wherein the prospective customers provide information to the vendor at the trade show using customer identification numbers that are associated with and unique to each of the prospective customers.
19. The method according to claim 15, wherein providing the datafiles to the pre-selected prospective customers comprises posting the datafiles on a website of the vendor.
20. The method according to claim 15, wherein providing the datafiles to the pre-selected prospective customers comprises e-mailing the datafiles to the pre-selected prospective customers.
21. A system for generating and following sales leads comprising: means for collecting customer data on prospective customers from at least one source; means for comparing the customer data with vendor data to determine a preferred set of prospective customers based on pre-determined criteria set forth by the vendor through the vendor data; means for compiling an individual datafile for each of the prospective customers within the preferred set, wherein the individual datafiles contain vendor specific information pre-selected for distribution to each of the prospective customers based on the customer data; and means for making the individual datafiles available to each of the prospective customers.
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