TSMI's Trade Show Marketing Report

Maine Man, Clint Pierce

Have some notes to put up on the last morning session from ECEF last week.  I had to leave unexpectedly due to a sudden illness immediately after lunch - one that saw me in an ER in Bedford, PA around midnight.  All better now.  So I wasn't around to blog the afternoon sessions, sorry Mike and Sam.

But before we get to that, for those of you who don't get Event Marketer magazine (and why not?), this month's cover feature was on Pierce Promotions, the Portland, ME, corporate event management company founded by ex-Reed, ex-Diversified ops guru Clint Pierce.  Pierce had just won this year's "EX" awards for a campaign his company did for Verizon.

Can't say I'm a close friend, but the couple of years we were both at Reed, we talked a few times.  You could sense that Clint was looking for something else, something bigger.  A VP ops career was just not going to be enough.  Around 1990, Clint left Reed and Connecticut to move to Portland and Diversified and not too long after founded Pierce Promotions.  Many of us thought starting an events business in Maine was nuts, but Pierce Promotions is now considered one of the top event management firms nationwide.

Still, despite the obvious business and financial success, perhaps the thing that impresses us most about Clint is that nearing 50, he still has his hair and that Matthew Perry/Chandler sort of carefree, youthful look about him.

It's always great to see quality folks from this industry succeed following a different track than the standard tradeshow management promotion ladder.  Especially when they take the risk of opening their own shop and getting it to fly.  So congrats Clint, and continued success.

It's a Good Day to Be BD Metrics

Sam Lippman asked the audience what they thought was the biggest new thing in the show industry.  Gary Shapiro said BD Metrics and was seconded by Bailey Beeken.

We agree, but not necessarily for the same reasons - or at least not by arriving from the same path of reasoning.

Rick Geritz of BD Metrics was kind (and patient) enough to listen to some of my rants last night regarding my feelings on how organizers have historically been willing to sell exhibitors anything and everything regardless if had any tangible or intrinisic value.  To put it another way, while many marketers are looking at the long tail, most show organizers were selling innies, which as we know, collect lint.

For those who don't know, BD Metrics is (more or less) a data management company that works with organizers to mine registration data in such a way (using a patent pending methodology) as to divine who the true prospects are from a show floor of potential tirekickers.  That's simplifying things a bit, but it would take a detailed discussion to get into it.  Visit their website if you want to know the hows and whys.

While the value to both exhibitors and organizers of realistic, accurate, parseable data from show attendees is undeniable, of all the things Rick told me last night, one thing stood out:  a significant percentage of attendees were going into the BD Metrics dashboards for the events they were attending and ALTERED THEIR REGISTRATION INFORMATION. 

Why?

Because they had either over or under exaggerated their demographic info, hoping to influence the information they'd receive.  Once the organizer gave them INFORMATION OF VALUE based on their stated preferences, the attendees realized they were dealing with a show organizer that actually GAVE A DAMN about their needs and their time.

So they dropped their guards and turned over data relating to their actual needs.  Quid pro quo.

To me, that's a indicator of how we as an industry can regain the trust of attendees - and by extension, exhibitors - that we've managed to burn these many years.

We've always said that the easiest way to boost exhibit and ancillary revenue is to pay attention to attendee needs.  BD Metrics has developed a system of collecting data that allows organizers to do exactly that.  While not cheap (and hopefully we'll have more about that later), it's a process that's eminently worthwhile for show organizers serious about staying in business in the long term.

Think about it.

Opening Keynotes at ECEF - The Future Is Integrating Shows With Online Business

Had a nice seat near the front of the room for the opening keynote... but shortly discovered there was no power except for one outlet in the back.  So here I am, just a chair and my lap in the back of the room.

Note to designers/architects/builders of convention centers... please provide accessibility to power (in addition to FREE wireless... paying a ridiculous $4.95/hour for a teeny pipe... usurious).

Anyway, these are my problems this morning.  Nothing to do with the ECEF conference itself (except to note it's difficult to blog from here because of these issues).

After the traditional attendee introductions, Paul Mackler, CEO of Cygnus Business Media, started things off by citing that the environment for show producers has changed.  So has Paul, apparently.  While I don't know him well and never actually worked with him, he had a reputation as a tough manager who focused primarily on sales results, no excuses.  Now, like many former sales revenue-focused show producers, he's preaching the value of customer-centric business practices.

His message for the morning was to accept that the market is evolving.  "Those who embrace change and adapt to an evolving marketplace will succeed," says one of his opening slides.

Mackler emphasized that delivering an integrated marketing product that provided value to exhibitors was also the most practicable way to ensuring your own profitability.  He noted that at Cygnus, expo business revenues were expected to increase 5.5% in 2006, and advertising revenues 4.1%.  But online revenues were growing at 22.1%.

Extending the view farther, Mackler estimated that Cygnus's growth from ads would average 4.3% CAGR between 2004-2009, with expos slightly better at 5.8% CAGR.  But the major growth again came from online, with a projected CAGR of 18.7%.

Mackler spent a good amount of his talk explaining the challenges of moving Cygnus from a publishing company, circa 2000, where 95% of revenue was print ads, to a company with diversified revenue streams, where today less than 75% of revenue is from print ads, with that percentage continuing to decrease each year.

The "new" Cygnus organization was achieved through:
- developing a culture of collaboration instead of competition
- streamlining top heavy management structures
- realigning portfolios along industry lines
- creating compensation plans that aligned with the new culture
- focusing on creating marketing leading franchises
- improving communications between divisions, between management levels and between Cygnus and all of its customers.

Perhaps the best explanation for this success was Mackler noting that collaboration equals leverage.  According to Mackler, the new culture of collaboration at Cygnus does the following:

- helps build brands
- encourages sharing of market and customer data and intelligence
- enables joint franchise development
- provides ability to develop integrated media programs
- helps unearth new opportunities
- allows you to become more important to customers and markets
- drives revenues, profits and margins
- helps you to better serve the evolving needs of your customers.

If this is the "kinder, gentler" Paul Mackler than the one we heard about at CMC and Reed, we like him.

The second keynoter was Barbara Tulipane of the Electronic Retailing Association, a 15-year old assocaition with a legacy of primarily representing the infomercial industry, but which has seen significant growth in membership by online retailers. 

Tulipane spent a significant part of her presentation talking about her association's particular issues with the FCC (the infomercial industry being dominated by more less-than-ethical profit-mongerers than even the show industry of old).

However, there were a number of interesting nuggets in her talk, particularly as she noted how she had to rebuild the credibility of the industry through the association while proving the association's value to members who questioned its need - many were reluctant members as the assocation for the most part was a creation mandated by the FCC. 

Tulipane's most revealing statistics came in the post-session Q&A.  She noted that her association's members now generate 40%-50% of their revenue from online sales on average.  Tulipane noted that QVC is the world's largest online retailer.

ECEF Opening Reception

   

The ECEF opening reception was held at the Renaissance on Wednesday evening.  It appeared that about 2/3 of registrants were in the house enjoy an open bar (with actual top-shelf hootch!) and light hors d'ourvre.

Walking these things with a camera in one hand and a drink in the other is always a bit dicey, but we snapped off a few keepers.  For most of the photos, the alt text for each image offers a very brief description if you don't recognize the characters.

At ECEF Wed & Thurs

Mike Hough was nice enough to invite me down to ECEF in DC this year for some blog coverage, and we're happy to oblige.

Look for more here next couple of days, including photos of this evening's reception and session coverage on Thursday - hotel and convention center wireless willing.

Will also be sending as many folks as I can to Murky.  Hopefully will also get to Jay's Shave Ice on this trip.  The thrill of wearing two hats...

End of Trackbacks

Had to stop trackbacks - in past couple of weeks have been getting an inordinate number of spams, 90-150/day.  Typepad allows "approval" before publishing, but all that means is my email box gets clogged with crap from these cretins who obviously were never taught right from wrong by their parents.

Anyway, we still take comments.

Converstations

Just for this week let's pretend I never left.

Some time ago, back when there daily (or more) posts over here, I mused how I didn't want TSMR to become another of those tiresome blogs about blogging.  The result was that once I stopped talking about blogging I realized most of what was left to talk about was M&A activity and industry gossip.  Not much to discuss on the marketing front.

I think one of the reasons to not become one of those despised blogs about blogging was that there were so many at the time that were basically an echo chamber.  The same thoughts by the same people discussed, digested and dissected with often unoriginal thought.  Each day felt sort of like cable news covering another highway chase.

That's changed recently.  The better business blogs have matured - as expected, quality rose to the top.  And one doesn't need to be an A lister to be successful - one only needs to get to the right people.

I haven't yet met Mike Sansone.  One day that will happen.  But since I'm no longer on any conference commitees with any of our trade associations, I would strongly suggest that y'all consider Mike if you're looking for a speaker on blogging.

Mike's latest blog, Converstations, is a marvel to read.  If you don't know squat from blogging, you could choose worse places to start.  His posts rarely laud entire blogs for their worthiness.  Rather, Mike notes specific posts on marketing and blogging that any reader can make sense of and copy.  Newbie bloggers can follow Mike's blog and learn in a very short amount of time, the type of content that works for one's market, how to write posts, how to market one's blog, how to use the blog as part of an integrated marketing campaign.

But you needn't be a newbie to enjoy Coverstations.  If, like me, you've been blogging for a long time, but aren't a tech, Mike's blog tells you what's working for RSS readers and analytics packages, and provides updates on other useful tools.  Not to mention he introduces several new blogs each week that we as marketers may wish to follow.

It's worth the daily read.  I suggest you add Mike's feed to your aggregator.

Btw, Mike first came to our attention because he follows our coffeehouse blog and has used us as a case study in his own seminars.  So we know he's got good taste in the blogs he chooses to discuss.

I Got Yer Long Tail Right Here

I have posted all of 13 times to this blog so far in 2006.  That's about once every two weeks.

Still, we get an average of 500 visitors daily.  That's about half of what we were getting at our peak when we posted 12+ times weekly.

Since almost all the posts here are "old" in blog terms, there are no "new" posts responsible for driving traffic.  Thus, those coming to the website are primarily finding us via Google searches.  The 500 daily visitors are looking for 500 different things.

That's your long tail.

We're doing next to nothing, but we're getting half the benefits we got when we were doing much more. 

Sadly we'll have to go back to work with ECEF coming.  We'll be blogging that event from DC.  Thankfully there are no sessions on blogging.  Matter of fact, I think most in the show industry decided to pass on blogging for good.

As well they should.  It's rare you'll find anyone in this industry willing - or even capable - of putting forth a blog with passion of the subject, authenticity of the author and transparency of the process.  All three are necessary elements.  Without all three you shouldn't even bother.

But if you are interested, give a holler.