PCMA Convening Leaders 2025: Conversation with Swapcard’s CEO Baptiste Boulard

Event Tech Saturation: Framing the Problem

Event tech is becoming a bit saturated. It makes it very difficult for planners and organizers to kind of figure out where to go for what.

So tell us about Swapcard, and more importantly, tell us the problem that Swapcard is solving in the industry.

I agree with you. The industry has been saturated by new player coming during COVID, and everyone say we're an all in one, and we can do virtual in person hybrid.

Swapcard’s Niche & Value Proposition

I think since two years, people are trying to find a niche. And Swapcard has a specific niche and a specific value. So I think for the planners, it's always a very interesting question to ask is What value do you really deliver? The value of Swapcard is to generate qualified leads to exhibitor and sponsor.

Connection-First Philosophy

To do that, as events, it's all about connection. So it's all about creating network interaction between the attendees and the exhibitor. And to do that, you need to have an amazing platform that people actually likes to use.

The benefit of technology like Swapcard is the connective tissue that you create across the entire journey.

One Platform for Lead Gen (Capture, Hosted Buyer, App)

Yeah. We're trying to provide all the lead generation capacity in one platform. Very often, you will have your lead capture powered by your reg Yeah. Which is not integrated to your hosted buyer program, neither to your event mobile app.

So then you as an exhibitor, you will have lead spread in three different platform. Yeah. We kind of gather all these leads. Yeah.

AI-Powered Scoring & Advanced Networking

One platform and use AI that listen to who you network with, who is a really true sales qualified leads when you score leads. So it's like an advanced networking solution for for a sponsor and exhibitor. But to make sure that they have leads, you need to make sure you have an amazing strength to your attendees as well.

Scale & Behavior: What We’ve Seen Across 3,000 Events

The way we interact at events is quite the same across the world. Yep. Last year, we've done around three thousand event. Okay. We actually released an industry report about the way people interact or events using technology.

Key Finding #1: 65% of Networking Happens Pre-Show

And we found something really surprising that sixty five percent of all the networking element is happening before the show. Yeah. Okay. No matter where you are. Wow. So in this report Wait.

I wanna repeat that for everybody. Sixty five percent of of networking is happening before the show. Where's the camera? Sixty five percent Yeah. Of networking is happening before the show. Sorry. Go ahead.

Key Finding #2: 75% of Leads Are Outside Lead Capture

And seventy five percent of all leads collected by exhibitor are outside of lead capture. Lead capture enables to collect only twenty five percent of your leads.

Organizer Takeaway: Prioritize Pre-Show Engagement

So as a show organizer, what you want to make sure is to make sure that your attendees and exhibitor engage before the show, so they have successful experience during the show, and they should not do the networking on-site. They should plan before.

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