TSMI's Trade Show Marketing Report

Ross Mayfield: Cheaper to Host than Attend

Ross, at the forefront of utilizing social networking technologies for hosting conferences and distributing content, offers his take on what's coming down the road.

Excerpt:

With the right social software, you can promote, coordinate and self-organize events with near zero cost. Location does matter, but not for everything. Now cost can be a good thing, as some events are better with a little exclusivity, but inclusive options provide alternatives that help the ecosystem as a whole.

A more wild thought is that event models almost correspond to the three modes of production identified by Benkler:
* Firms and contracts: invitation is the barrier to participation
* Markets and prices: price is the barrier to participation
* Commons-based peer: reputation is the barrier to participation

Yes, at the moment the technologies and execution of what Ross is discussing are primarily in the domain of geekdom (and marketing) events.  But they're just the super-early adopters. 

These ideas will become more mainstream.  It may take several years, but the model behind these concepts make sense.

As more "organic" events come online, power will shift from professional organizers to community leaders.  Consumers of educational content will be the winners.  "Large fee" events will need to further justify their high costs, with some exceptions (i.e. Gartner & Forrester-type events).

Ignore at your own peril.

MORE:  Just got to reading Sue's link to Dave Taylor on "The Critical Business Value of Attending Conferences". 

Conferences are all about the breaks, the dinners, the bar at the conference hotel after the day's done.

Why? Because the so-called educational aspect of a conference is something you can often receive by simply buying a book or a training DVD. That's not enough to get me to travel to another city. To me, the most important aspect of attending a conference is the opportunity to meet people that I wouldn't have otherwise ever met. It's the random, the chaotic, the unexpected, unplanned discovery.

Dave did note that Om Malik disagreed somewhat, stating that, "A highly networked professional could connect with anyone they want anyway," and that he (Om) wasn't particularly interested in connecting with random people anyway, it was once his circle of trusted experts started talking about someone that he became interested.

On an unrelated note, toward the end of the post, Dave mentions that his conversations with the people he meets at events aren't only about business.  They're about anything that's interesting.

You can call this the "art of small talk", but in fact being able to establish a one-to-one personal connection with other professionals in your field is critical to being a success. They're not customers or vendors, after all, they're people.

I get a kick out going to luncheons and parties and hearing vendors gush, "I just LOVE your show," when they run into an organizer they haven't met yet.  Why people put up with fools trying to ingratiate themselves I'll never know, especially when the vendor doesn't know a freaking thing about your event (other than that it's big) or you (and they just interrupted your their conversation on "anything else" - which in this instance happened to be about favorite recipes). 

Sometimes you just gotta feel for large organizers at our industry conferences.  It's almost like they've got targets painted on them. 

The (Un)Importance of Creative

An outside link and two comments from SISO led to this post on whether you're paying attention to the most important elements in your job.

First, the SISO comments:  (1) during the session on selling data, Angus Lindsay asked the audience, "Do you know where your data is?".  (2) in talking with Cris Levy on how and what he uses to sift through the incredible amounts of data he churns, he replied, "We outsource."

Second, the link, which is to a new book titled "Radical Careering".

What do these two things have to do with each other? 

Simple.  As a trade show marketer, your career is no longer about creative execution or meeting schedules.  It's about data.  And how to use that data for better attendee marketing.

Last year I lauded VNU's hiring of Michael Ousley from American Express for the purpose of moving toward data-driven marketing.  And if there was one overriding theme at SISO this year, it was how to make money from data.  You could even sense there were some CRM battles being waged between sponsoring organizations. 

Historically indie organizers have focused on the sales force automation (SFA) end of the CRM picture - integrating Goldmine-type apps with floorplans and accounting.  But exhibitor data is really only useful to the organizer (and perhaps to reg companies and others who sell products to exhibitors).  It's the attendee data that has the real value in the open market.

While I haven't seen any recent hires of Ousley's stature recently, there seems to be more energy exerted this year in learning how to capture and manage data, because better use of data = better results.

Well, duh.

I wonder how many people attending Cris Levy's session actually heard him say that he only reached his level of marketing efficiency through testing and more testing.  To its credit, Reed has been doing marketing testing recently, according to Bob James.  But I'm not aware of many other indie organizer (or association) that takes the time and effort to do true multi-cell testing.

In the direct mail industry, the pecking order of important elements goes like this:

1. List
2. Offer
3. Copy
4. Timing
5. Graphics

Yet our industry still celebrates "Art of the Show" awards.  Sure, data isn't very sexy, but there are hundreds of shows with great brochures that became extinct in the past dozen years.  If you discount IT shows that collapsed from the internet bubble, it's unlikely you'll find a single example of a show that managed its data well doing poorly.

Knowing and managing data for your shows can change the perception of marketing from one of a cost-center to one of a profit-center.  Because it's not only how you use data to promote your show, it's how you package it for use by the rest of the world.

If you can do that well, it should you'll be on track for bigger raises and bonuses.

And if that argument isn't enough to sway you, perhaps this point is:

Your best-looking trade show campaign won't get you hired by a consumer products company or an ad agency.  Nobody "out there" seriously considers trade show promotion as "real marketing".

However, your ability to work data into results is transferrable and will be respected by potential employers, regardless of industry.

So if you're married to the idea of being a creative director as a glamorous profession, have at it and good luck.  After all, tip #97 in "Radical Careering" suggests, "Do What You Are." 

But if instead, you want to be the best damn trade show marketer in the world, it's time to start focusing more on data and less on creative and production.  Reinvent yourself starting now.  And that's where the other 99 tips from Radical Careering come into play.

Contrast: ASAE vs. SISO in the Blog World

Yesterday morning during the blog session Mike Hough asked how blogs would affect growing his attendance.

I just commented to Ted Doyle that what Mike asked might be unanswerable at the moment.  We just don't know.  With the exception of blogging-oriented seminars like Gnomedex or Web 2.0, what all of us in space are conjecturing is simply theory until some non-tech show proves otherwise.

But... if you want to see how blogs can make a difference in how your event is marketed and presented to the "outside" world once attendees themselves are involved as "citizen journalists", ASAE's Xtreme ASAE Blog has done a remarkable job of capturing the content and experience of attending the event in Nashville. 

The core group of bloggers who started this were joined by numerous other participants covering everything from keynotes to comfy footwear to bartenders.  Plus they're using social networking tools like Flickr for photos and del.icio.us for links to expand beyond traditional community boundaries.

Once you've read my posts and Ted's on SISO, compare them with those from the Xtreme ASAE Blog and then you tell us which event seemed more interesting.  Did you have the same opinion of each event as you did a week ago?

Tim's Podcasting Trade Show Dilemma

Tim Bourquin at Tradeshow StartUp posts about an interesting challenge/conundrum.  Seems potential exhibitors at his Portable Media Expo don't want to be on the floor - yet they're willing to give Tim about the same amount of money as if they were on the floor in order to sponsor food and drink events around the main conference.

In other words, they continue to see value in investing in conference fees, T&E, and sponsorships to facilitate meeting face-to-face with Tim's attendees.  Which is good.

But they don't see value in having a traditional exhibit and all the related costs that go along with that - booth shipping, drayage, union labor, lead tracking, etc. etc.  Which is bad.  Or is it?

Note that the nature of Tim's event is not one where exhibitors represent big equipment of the touchy-feely kind.  It's mostly a show for software and small devices.  This is not a challenge unique to podcasting.  It's become endemic for most shows that rely heavily on niche software exhibits.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a solution out there.

Podcasting is hot.  But since it's more or less a social networking medium, I would think that the avenue most attendees would take on figuring out what to buy and how to set up their podcast studios would be to ask other podcasters how they're doing things.  From what I've read about and from podcasting evangelists, they seem to be an open-minded group, willing to experiment and share what they've learned.

Considering those dynamics, it might be worth it for Tim to investigate creating several "podcast studios" set up on the exhibit floor.

It shouldn't be hard to find groups of podcasters willing to use an on-floor studio to do their thing.  Especially if it meant they could play around with new equipment and applications in doing so.

So that's your starting point - getting some known podcasters to broadcast from the show floor.

Each studio would feature software, recording equipment, editing equipment, audio SFX, and anything else a podcaster might need to produce their show.  The companies whose equipment and software is being used would pay Tim for what is in effect a "product placement".  Therefore, each "studio" would be underwritten by multiple sponsors.

This allows Tim to feature all or most of the latest equipment and software on his exhibit floor, just not in a conventional trade show manner.  And he gets paid.  Maybe less than for a full booth, but enough to cover carpet, electricity, connectivity and whatever other costs are involved in creating the studios, plus a decent margin for Tim.

There should be no "exhibitor" objections to this since everything that can be used in the studio can be hand-carried in and (I believe) the connections can be done by whomever is using the studio.  This eliminates drayage and union labor charges.  There are no other significant expenses to the "exhibitor".

So now you've got a scenario where podcasting opinion leaders are broadcasting live from the floor while using - and commenting on - new technologies that the "exhibitors" are trying to get into the hands of these people anyway.  Their on-the-job reviews of this equipment will hit the airwaves immediately to be heard (or read) by thousands of others not in attendance.  Who will then buy (or not) the products being reviewed.

I don't believe there's a risk here for Tim.  Maybe there's a risk for the individual exhibitors if indeed the opinion leaders don't like their product.  But it's an interesting shift of tactics that I think could be a great play for Tim's event.  And one that not only gets the new product on the exhibit floor where it belongs, but also creates an interactive experience for attendees and an "event" worth following for those listening at home.

For those of you following this blog who know more about podcasting than I do, what do you think about this suggestion?

Net Rage - Are Blogs Too Geeky?

Since our coffeehouse was mentioned on Business Week's Blogspotting, I've been spending some time over there.  Blogspotting is a Business Week blog that regularly calls out interesting blogs and blogging trends.  I use it mostly to get a gauge on what's working for other businesses when consulting on blog projects. 

Which brings me to this somewhat disappointing post (and here).  About three weeks ago, Catalyst Design Group released a usability study on blogs (actually one weblog) that pointed to a conclusion that "normal" people don't understand a lot about the features of a typical blog. 

The focus of the study was another Business Week blog on investing, called "Well Spent".  The full Catalyst usability report (pdf file) can be found here.

To sum up the report's findings:
- people don't know when they're on a blog
- people don't know what to expect from a blog
- people don't understand what happens to their comments
- people don't understand trackbacks at all
- people don't understand RSS
- people think blogging is really only understood by bloggers

Granted, this study only followed nine people looking at one site.  But the nine people were relative tech-savvy.  And the site being reviewed was mainstream.  Interpreting this data is not unlike interpreting a focus group.  It's relevant, but really only leads to asking other questions in a deeper study.

I'm looking at several requests for assistance on building blogs right now (including non-trade show projects).  Most are in markets where there is no "blogging legacy".  The blogs that may be built would be the first (or second) in their respective areas of influence.  Which essentially means no expectations of trackbacks (since only other bloggers can use this feature), limited user knowledge of RSS (we'd have to educate markets on how to get our posts read on MyYahoo!, MyMSN and MyAOL, etc.), and we're probably looking at a long ramp-up before actual conversations happen via comments.  Not to mention explaining the concept to potential contributors who would provide much of the industry-related content for very little (if any) compensation.

After reading something like this, you might expect companies that sell blogs to go into clinical depression.  But that won't happen.  Few "normal" people understood the web either when it first came out.  Nobody wanted to put in credit card information to buy anything.   But that all changed in the matter of a few years.  Now nobody thinks about it (except when credit data aggregators make the news for security breaches).  And the companies that survived the inevitable market shakeout are now worth tens of millions, if not billions.  The dynamics of Web 2.0 will probably give us more of the same and those who are still around six, seven or ten years from now will have become formidable companies.

Still, I'm happy I don't rely on blogs for a living.  Every proposal I've received for blog consulting has been unsolicited (save one).  And I'm upfront with people who ask what revenue returns they can expect to see.  There are no guarantees, especially in markets where you're the first blog out there.  Your guess is probably as valid as mine.  Which doesn't exactly build confidence in the format.  But it would be foolhardy for me to promise anything.  There aren't many blogs out there promoting specific businesses that have a track record of meaningful financial impact.

Which brings me back to the coffeehouse.

Stephen Baker of Blogspotting is doing a follow-up on small business blogs for an article that will appear in BW's "Small Biz" magazine in a couple of weeks.  He asked me how and why I started the blog for Aldo Coffee Co.  And I told him it was simply a matter of convenience and cost.  I've owned (and paid for) websites in the past, had been blogging for three years, knew what I needed from a content management system and most important, knew what I could afford.  So it was easy for me to use a TypePad blog as the actual website for the coffeehouse.

Based on informal conversations and feedback, I'd guess that 90% of our customers have absolutely no idea they're actually looking at a blog when they come to our site.  All they know is that when they go to the site there are a bunch of links that sort of look like a regular website.  And magically, the content that's in the middle of the screen changes every day, which they think is novel. 

But because we're in a blog format we get some phenomenal results on fairly basic search strings related to the coffee and food products we offer without spending a dime on search engine optimization.  We've developed stickiness.  We have established a regular readership that visits several times a week.  We're linked with our local blog community which drives traffic.  And we're mentioned on Business Week - soon to be twice.

None of that would have happened had we opted to just do a "regular" website or even an online forum.  It's because we're a blog.  And there's something about that word and that format that has the power to create interest. 

For right now, maybe that's enough.

Tech Show Producers: A VCs Perspective

In a post Friday, noted VC Rick Segal summarized a Q&A he recently did with a class of college kids.

Of particular note for TSMR readers is the following passage:

Q: What’s the best conference a student can attend to learn from?

A: Depends on what you do. As a technical person, looking to mind meld with other technical people, Reboot and/or Gnomedex.  As a business person trying to see what’s out there, what’s happening on the various technology fronts, CeBit in Germany is a good choice.  Reboot/Gnomedex are good choices because very smart people spend time with people getting started or wanting to learn.  Both places have an amazing sensitivity to mixing the speakers with the audience.

Reboot.  Gnomedex.  CeBit.  Two European shows and an event that for all intents and purposes is run from a house in Canoga Park and a wireless device.

Think about that and let it sink in. 

With all the professional show management experience available in this country, the domestic tech shows & conferences business is being outflanked by others either outside our borders or those who have great connections and learn about event organizing by trial and error.

While I think that Rick Segal might have included TED, DEMO and perhaps Gartner's IT Summit on his short list if he was speaking to a classroom of CEOs, the point remains that the US no longer has an epicenter for IT thought, at least not one that is managed by any of our larger media companies.

I think this is because the major media companies no longer understand how to do it.  Everyone else has moved ahead while our industry is still trying to make old models work.  Shame on us.

IM I Said

David Shaw at B or Not 2B points to a relatively recent Pew Internet/American Life Project study that say teens think that "email is for older people".

The study appears to base its conculsions on behaviors of 12-to-17 year olds who favor instant messaging (IM) to talk to friends and peers while using email to talk to parents, teachers and other adults. 

Teens won't get the Neil Diamond reference above, either.  I must be an "older adult".

Logically you can assume that behavior will follow as kids in that age group begin joining the workforce in 2010.  If not sooner.  Certainly many adults in tech fields have been  posting their IM address(es) right in their email signatures and v-cards for several years. 

Last year Radicati Group released a survey that indicated about half of corporations they surveyed used IMs, mostly for collaboration, but only half of those were using corporate systems with the balance using public IM systems.  So IMs certainly have traction in B2B communications with room to grow.

There are already ad models that work with IMs, although these are more often than not consumer ads sold across the public IM networks rather than contextual ads.  It remains to be seen whether there is B2B potential for IM advertising or whether it's even possible to create contextual ads on the fly given the nature of the medium.

I would think one appropriate model would be for each individual user to create and/or subscribe to their own advertising choice, thus becoming individual product evangelist agents or something to that effect.  That would mean every time you IM someone, you're sending a message about your show or conference similar to an email sig.  I don't know if that's a possibility right now... but I imagine someone out there will tell me if it is.

Regardless, IMs are something you should note since their usage will only increase. 

I can't pretend to be an expert on IMs since I stopped using them back in 1997 before many of today's standard IM features were added.  At the time I didn't want to be bothered by people who thought I was their 'buddy' when I never asked to be.  But I have to get back up to speed in time for IAEM since I'm hoping to use IMs for a backchannel in the session I'm moderating.  We'll see.

Futuremarking

Thought for the day, courtesy of Tom Peters:  Don't Benchmark, Futuremark!

In the context of the events industry, the first thought that came to mind was: Gnomedex.

Got a better example?

This Is Why Understanding Blogs Is Important

Show me another medium where you could be having this conversation.

The lowering of barriers to competition shouldn't only worry associations.  The barriers to creating successful conferences have already disappeared in certain segments of tech (social networking, open source code).  It will likely happen with marketing and PR soon.  And grow from there as blogging/Web 2.0 gains wider acceptance. 

Thought leaders who've built loyal followings through blogs will have the necessary ingredients to put together successful conferences and small exhibitions.  This is why IDG, MediaLive and others have been working to develop content-driven blogging strategies that will keep their audiences tuned in.

Does the World of Concrete need to worry about blogging today?  No.  There's no urgency because the blogging virus hasn't yet spread to their audience.  And there's simply not much content to link with to start compelling conversations.  But there are other shows out there - including some biggies - where market conversations are taking place around them (and without them).  Those are the events that should start thinking about Hugh's membrane analogy.

I just did an interview for an article on blogging for an upcoming issue of EXPO.  I mentioned that there were a number of good reasons to start blogging right now.  But I also opined that our reality is that wide acceptance of event blogging won't happen until the revenue model is proven.  That's just the way most in our industry have been trained to think: If it's not going to show a profit, don't do it.

But for many outside the events industry, blogs aren't about revenue in and of themselves.  Rather, they're platforms for building loyal audiences, not unlike other media, but without the infrastructure costs that require revenue from ad sales.  It's not the ad revenue that matters so much as the ability and desire to influence the agenda. 

And while that may sound altruistic from a traditional trade show perspective, once a sizeable audience is in place, anything can happen.  If it wanted to AdRants could do a advertising conference next week to challenge AD:TECH, even though AD:TECH has a widely-read blog (but not as widely-read as AdRants).  Likewise, Hugh McLeod at GapingVoid could launch a executive marketing confab to challenge some of AMA's vertical conferences on branding and advertising and he'd do very well. 

Taking it to more mainstream categories, CoffeeGeek could launch a show to rival SCAA.  Not that they'd want to given the support they provide SCAA, but should a rift occur over policy or other matters, CoffeeGeek could launch in a heartbeat.  SCAA does have some insulation because of its hugely popular interactive online forum, with more than 15,000 posts.  But again, if SCAA crosses the line with its membership, there's someone else who can pick up the dissatisfied members and create a new event immediately.

Possibly the multiple bloggers behind Daily Bread could get together and create a more democractic alternative to FancyFood, a top show where only association members can play.  A site like DailyBread probably couldn't go head to head with a TS200 event, but it might find openings by launching smaller regional events that take the 'essence' of a FancyFood to mid-America.  You can find other examples of blog communities that are strong and powerful enough to support events in most retail-oriented segments.  Not so much in trade/B2B, but that's changing too.

Point is, the people who are driving online communities that comprise Web 2.0 aren't thinking like you are when it comes to giving their audiences what they want.  Their motives are different.  They're usually willing to share what they know for free and start conversations that affect changes in the way markets operate. 

And it could be your market next. 

Blog Article in Meeting News

It was just pointed out to me (thanks, Kip) that I was mentioned and quoted in an article titled "A Few Planners Turn to Blogs for Promotion" in the June 13 issue of Meeting News.

MediaLive was also interviewed for the article.

Last September I had dismissed MediaLive attempts at blogging ("The Loop") as being pointless, but their revised model of using blogs to "write" their show dailes makes a ton of sense.  And they've gotten better at using their event blogs as cross-promotional vehicles as well as improving overall quality of content and tone - which in their case, support exhibitor PR efforts.  So I'll give credit where credit is due here, nice job MediaLive.