January 2005
Best bets for growth in 2005

Galen Poss and other top industry leaders reveal the five hottest trends for show growth. How to make them work for your event.
By Maxine Golding


Meeting with 25 to 30 accounts at the highest level — show executives facing chief executives — loomed as a huge investment for Hanley Wood Exhibitions. But President Galen A. Poss, CEM, believed such direct visits would be highly effective to jump-start or rekindle relationships with exhibitors and attendees. So the independent show producer took the plunge.

After signing nondisclosures to hear customers’ goals and needs, Hanley Wood show executives leverage the company’s five divisions to come up with “big ideas” that distinguish exhibitors in their market segment. A custom program (show banners, Web links, session sponsorships, and ad pages in the show program) may even contain no exhibit space at all.

Welcome to the wonderful world of shows, circa 2005. As the economy climbs its way to health, declining revenue and attendance in the post-9/11 years are rebounding (see sidebar below). But what’s really sparking expansion and growth today is an infusion of fresh thinking.

“The sale of space is the single largest producer of revenue in face-to-face, but if you look only through those eyes, you don’t see what your customers are looking for,” says Poss.

Progressive independent show producers and associations don’t wait around for the next best idea to emerge. They push the envelope. Look for five key trends to make a real difference for 2005 expositions. Find out how to make them work for your event.
 
Trend #1: Making Connections
Nothing is more valued by every segment attending a show — buyers, vendors, service providers, consultants — than finding the “right” people. It’s also the most elusive. Despite well-intentioned attempts to promote exhibitors and encourage advance planning, the actual matchmaking process remains decidedly one-directional. This year, however, a number of show producers will turn the process on its head.

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2005:
Put technology to the test. In meeting the challenge of connecting groups within its wide universe, the National Association of Broadcasters (www.nab.org) represents an early test of BDMetrics’ BDEvent  technology. Through information collected during registration, the system recommends matches and gives show participants the ability to zero in on people and companies to see.

While such technology is still evolving, it’s advanced enough to deliver better ways to connect people. For NAB, it will become the show’s central nervous system, driving pre- and at-show activity among 100,000 attendees and 1,400 exhibiting companies. Similarly, Penton Media’s Natural Products Expos (www.penton.com) rely on one vendor’s online technology not only for exhibit floor planning, but also to schedule appointments between attendees and exhibitors much more efficiently than before. And the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (www.sme.org) launched EXPOtential at FABTECH International this past October for participants to connect peer-to-peer, buyer-to-seller, partner-to-prospective partner.

Provide space to meet. Complimentary meeting rooms and “adjunct suites” for presentations, along with refreshments and concierge services for appointment-setting, are the latest bells and whistles being extended to both attendees and exhibitors to facilitate connections.

Active pursuit of ancillary groups that can meet on site — exhibitor sales meetings and user groups — translates into greater participation in the umbrella event. “Even horizontal shows are target marketing those groups,” says Dennis Slater, President, Association of Equipment Manufacturers (www.aem.org), and 2004 IAEM Chairman.

Think nontraditional. When the Advertising Research Foundation (www.arfsite.org) reinvented its annual conference last year, it changed from a “walk by” to “appointment” event, from a show floor to hospitality suite model that limits exhibitors and rewards them with exclusivity. No drayage, signage or setup, just a fresh way of pushing people together. The result: A dramatic increase in attendees and exhibitors.

Trend #2: Tapping Market Intelligence
With the days of selling just real estate over, show producers are learning to tap their formidable market intelligence to increase value for exhibitors. Essentially, they’re cherry-picking the resources and media at their disposal to formulate custom programs that match exhibitors’ marketing objectives and ROI requirements. “We’re rewarding them for being our best customers,” emphasizes Poss.

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2005:
Budget dollars and assign staff to visit one-on-one with the largest and fastest-growing exhibitors. Discuss objectives and really listen to their needs. “For two decades, we’ve been talking about how people need to be consultative sellers. Reality has finally caught up to the rhetoric,” says Darrell Denny, Executive Vice President, Penton Media. By the end of this decade, he predicts, the typical business-to-business media company will generate the majority of its revenue in custom and semi-custom ways. “Those that don’t will find themselves in no man’s land.”

Although the cost to customize programs for exhibitors can be considerable, “it’s a hundred times worth the expense,” maintains Wayne Jacobs, CEO of marketing research and consulting firm Jacobs, Jenner and Kent (www.jjkresearch.com). What’s driving this is fierce competition for audience attention. Attendees and exhibit managers are younger, more aggressive and more technologically oriented, and they’ve developed ways of getting information without going to shows.

Develop a step-by-step plan for fitting shows into an exhibitor’s selling plan, and calculate results. When they invite ideas for accomplishing their objectives, large clients want exclusives that are not part of a gold, silver or bronze package, says David Korse, President of IDG World Expo (www.idgworldexpo.com). A few years ago, IBM was struggling for more mindshare than “just” through its platinum sponsorship at LinuxWorld. The unique solution: An IBM-centric customer day at the show, with separate registration, education and social activities.

Show producers won’t get credit for these efforts without metrics that measure their contribution to the customer’s success; old formulas won’t work. Yet with all the talk of ROI or ROO, “less than 2 percent of organizers we talk to know of exhibitors that measure show value,” says Jacobs.

Deliver greater value to sponsors. The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’s (www.aacn.org) “Mail Home Service” operates out of a 30- by 100-foot modular unit and ships boxes for nurses who don’t want to hand-carry materials home. Last year, the sponsor wanted to use the service to drive more traffic to its booth. The solution: A discount coupon for the service. Nurses visit the sponsor’s booth to obtain the coupon, see the sponsor’s name again at the service site, and at home view a flyer in the box that reinforces the sponsor’s brand.

The Power Buyers Program, introduced at VNU’s Globalshop, provides a VIP/lounge meeting area for appointments between the two sponsors and the customers they most want to see. The sponsors provide a profile of their target customer and a list of prospects they want to see. Globalshop guarantees a certain number of appointments over a three-day period and incentivizes buyers to take part in appointments.

Trend #3: Mining Data
Many show producers know what’s happening with new technology, regulations and lobbying issues, “but lack an understanding of where the market is going from the buy-sell perspective, and how the show can be relevant,” says Skip Cox, President, Exhibit Surveys (www.exhibitsurveys.com).

Some, though, are using more insightful methodologies to better understand behaviors of all audience segments. “Data mining provides an enormous amount of direction and guidance,” Jacobs points out. The approach is proactive, not reactive, the technology faster and more accurate. And the costs don’t have to be huge, especially when the findings can help avert a competitive challenge.

Still, it’s not a panacea. “Organizations think all information on customers in one database will yield incredible gems of wisdom,” cautions Denny. “There’s no substitute for truly understanding markets through conversation and relationships.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2005:
Start segmenting your audience. What do you need to know to modify what you’re already doing? More than 800,000 attendee customers and prospects reside in Hanley Wood’s ADAPT database, and this dynamic tool enables show exhibitors to drill down through the demographics to target dollar volume, presidents, zip codes and more. “No exhibitor in the world can see all 70,000 people coming to the World of Concrete show,” says Poss. “We make specific efforts to help customers of a certain size and scope identify the customers they absolutely want to see — and customers they have not thought about.”

NAB’s decision to re-examine its exhibit floor segmentation (by early 2005 for the 2006 show) comes from a critical need to identify outgrowths of its industry. “This is a big problem for us,” explains Chris Brown, NAB’s Senior Vice President, Conventions & Expositions, and 2005 IAEM Chairman, pointing to a handful of very broad categorizations, such as TV/Video/Film. “Broadness is good because it gives us flexibility, but it doesn’t provide the level of definition attendees need,” says Brown. He expects database software to help focus categories and align job titles.

Include important demographic questions on registration forms, lead retrieval forms, and in surveys to uncover changes in behaviors. In its initial data mining, AACN was surprised to learn it had 90,000 customers in a year and 120,000 customers over three years. “We were reaching a lot more nurses than the 60,000 members,” notes Randy Bauler, CEM, Corporate Relations and Exhibits Director. From there, AACN drilled down and found which nurse managers influence product sales, have prescription authority, or are on a purchasing committee.

Such information pinpoints opportunities. AACN proposed a partnership with a magazine because its readers, who are materials managers in health facilities, and nurses need to partner to get what they both want. The association places ads and sends e-mail blasts to that audience, waiving the fee to walk the show floor; the magazine gets a booth and sponsorship signage. Plus, an educational session each day on the nurse-materials manager relationship helps draw about 150 materials managers who come from a 500-mile area around the show venue.

Take a fresh look at marketing targets. When Jacobs’ firm researched audience types last year, it found that a top goal of successful shows is to increase first-time attendees. While AACN had been telling exhibitors that 40 percent of attending nurses any year are first-timers, it turns out that two-thirds attend for the first time in five years — a cycle of show participation that data mining uncovered.

Rather than market to lists they’ve used for years, show organizers are taking more aggressive steps to reach the larger audience of qualified buyers who may get their information in other ways and not go to shows. “What a lot of people miss,” Denny says, “is who should be coming, and why aren’t they?”

Natural Products Expo East was not high enough on the radar screen for a number of small retailers within reasonable travel distance. Before rushing to a solution, show staff called on individual stores and talked about their business and the show. Penton then arranged daily bus service from different cities to transport retailers and educate and entertain them while on board.

Trend #4: Fostering New Events
Do you buy or build? Grow alone or with help? Savvy show producers rule out nothing. A number are exemplars of verticalization within industries, which Douglas L. Ducate, President and CEO of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, recently spotlighted as significant in fostering new events.

Once they gather market intelligence and mine data for industry movement, it’s time for innovative thinking, and surprising partnerships — sometimes with competitors.

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2005:
Extend the category. While the commercial roofing industry was well served by the National Roofing Contractors Association’s (NRCA) show, Hanley Wood believed its expertise could help it attract the fast-growing residential roofing segment. NRCA agreed. Hanley Wood bought the show, with close to 90,000 net square feet of exhibit space and 8,000 attendees, in May 2004, renamed it International Roofing Expo and negotiated a 45-year official sponsorship with the association. A separate agreement with the No. 1 roofing magazine gives the publication visibility at the event, and NRCS exposure and an improved database. Instead of an existing publication doing everything to stall the show’s success, the opposite happened.

“I’m a great believer in events supported by a three-legged stool: the leading show in a market, the leading publishing partner, and the leading trade association,” Poss says. “If you marshal this horsepower around an event, everyone is lifted, and the market wins.”

Watching the backyard emerge as another room of the house, Hanley Wood used its International Pool & Spa Expo to organically grow this category. First, it built “The Ultimate Backyard” as a show floor attraction. This gave the concept exposure, and show executives could judge the level of excitement and interest among exhibitors and attendees. Both anecdotally and qualitatively, it became a “go.” Backyard Living Expo 2005 launches as a full-blown co-located event in the fall. Not only does it open an entirely new segment of mass retailers, says Poss, it addresses a market with no defined show of its own.

Extend the brand. Penton struck a deal last year with the National Restaurant Association (NRA) for a pavilion, with related marketing and education, at NRA’s annual exposition. Penton then resold the space to Natural Foods Expo exhibitors. It’s doing the same in the convenience store marketplace and seeking similar outgrowth in the food management area. “We’re even looking at companies where we have some competitiveness,” Denny says. “You have to be careful, though, that there’s some degree of success for both of us and our customers in sharing branding and profits.”

Develop new brands. In fall 2003, IDG recognized it had very mature brands but little inventory in development and formed an internal group for this purpose. Since then, it has launched four brands. Two are with a partner experienced in commercial technology, but not the event business. Another, a series of one-day workshops in 20 to 30 markets, was hatched internally and tested in two cities. A fourth features three co-located events in one show.

Sharpen the focus. When Hanley Wood launched Big Builder in 2003, it fit the show to a focus — the 1 percent of homebuilders responsible for 38 percent of new homes. Says Poss: “The growth and importance of this segment dictated a different type of event” and higher-level connections. Instead of typical exhibit space, sponsorships sell at levels as high as $100,000, and for a single price the same booth is built out for all sponsors to show product literature and branding. The risk was a good one: attendance jumped 48 percent in 2004.

Partner for growth. NAB took two tacks: expand a partnership arrangement and address a growing slice of its universe in an underserved area. A training organization became NAB’s partner last year in a new conference for post-production that debuted during the huge Las Vegas annual. It drew 1,200 instead of the 500 projected, and signaled a new opportunity. NAB Post-Plus, a full-blown trade show and conference, will take place in November 2005 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

“Someone once said that a big horizontal show is subject to death by a thousand bites,” says Brown. “To some extent, competitors in vertical segments that are expanding their brand represent a threat to us. Part of our strategy is to box them out of those markets and beat them to the slices they’re looking to serve.”

AEM helped to protect the horizontal CONEXPO-CON/AGG (produced every third year) by launching, with the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA), the World of Asphalt in 2001 to fill a market need in the years between. NAPA and a host of trade associations and customer groups run education tracks, while the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Show Management Services handle logistics, exhibits and support services. World of Asphalts, which was 20,000 net square feet at its debut, has grown to nearly 60,000.

Contract your expertise. Some show producers are leveraging their meeting expertise and creating turnkey proprietary events for corporations. Penton Media, in particular, helps exhibitors take their messages on the road and connect to a wider customer base. “In the past, companies tended to do this themselves, but they’re not terribly efficient at it,” says Denny. Drawing on databases from shows, publications and Web sites, Penton finds appropriate target groups and locations, puts sessions together, packages primary and noncompetitive secondary sponsors, markets the road show, and sets up vendor and facility contracts.

Trend #5: Creating Compelling Content
Some highly successful expositions have placed their emphasis on the show floor and not kept education fresh and current. For others, education is the equal of the exhibition, serving as revenue generator and major attraction. And it will only increase in importance as more people seek to improve their marketability in shifting companies and industries. On-site training, skills development and certification, in some cases right on the show floor, drive attendance and give an exposition enormous added credibility.

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN 2005:
Brainstorm ways to get C-level people to attend. Many of the largest exhibitors believe they overspend relative to size and value of the overall show audience. To keep them, show producers are embedding exclusive educational programs, such as an executive forum, within a trade show to deliver and connect top executives of attending and exhibiting companies on site.

VNU Expositions (www.vnu.com) took this approach for high-volume apparel producers to learn and network “on a more intimate level” with sponsors, says Cory Smith, Group Show Director. The invitation-only mini-conference preceded the Imprinted Sportswear Show and accomplished its goal of crafting a solution that allowed matchmaking and education to take place.

The Material Handling Industry of America convinced Daimler-Chrysler to hold a summit at the MHIA show (www.mhia.org) of its top people involved in any way with supply chain management. Seventy important buyers receive education and gain access to the show. “Having that summit in conjunction with the show, along with the opportunity for exhibitors to talk to one or more of these people, adds prestige — and big buyers,” says Cox of Exhibit Surveys.

Identify skills that enhance career opportunities for long-time and new attendees. That’s exactly what AACN has done with its Self-Study Pavilion. Begun as “Computer Camp” in 1997 with a few exhibiting sponsors, a small riser stage, workshop tables, and 16 computers, the concept has grown to more than 100 computer stations. The pavilion houses PDA lab, ICU lab (a play on words that refers to Internet and computer unit), and a host of others. Sponsors and exhibitors with electronic learning options provide materials and product samples for the pavilion, which has become very popular, says Bauler, particularly during nurses’ downtime between classes.

“More than 50 percent of attendees use the pavilion at least once during the conference,” Bauler says. “And because the nurses return to the exhibits area to find the pavilion, they are always exposed to the exhibit floor.”

Deliver continuing education programs right on the show floor. While physician shows “separate church and state” and do not mix product and education, Bauler says, nursing shows don’t have that requirement. Exhibitors at AACN apply for approval before offering continuing education within their booths as part of their displays. Nearly 40 companies now cover 80 topics in more than 100 sessions over three days. The 30-minute sessions include a 10-minute question-and-answer period, and nurses can gain up to six CE credits by attending 12 sessions.

“Whether in booths or demo area or stage, education is a plus,” he says. “Participants are looking for ROI to justify going to the event, and education on the show floor will both entertain and keep them.”

Be creative, but judicious, in providing seminar speaking and sponsorship opportunities to exhibitors. Giving exhibitors time slots to conduct seminars in their area of expertise is a particularly useful strategy for Hanley Wood’s larger shows. A 10- by 20-foot booth at World of Concrete can be a small spot on a floor where more than 1,500 companies share 700,000 net square feet, so the added value of an exhibitor-run seminar is very welcome.

Still, the emphasis today, even for vendor sessions, is on quality education — generic and non-commercial. Exhibitors are more accepting of the change when they gain something valuable in return, such as attendee data captured at the meeting room door.

Educational tie-ins with exhibitors make especially good sense when training in new technologies is called for. The NAB show has evolved from hardware-only to one where software is as important. Last year’s first level of training in post-production will expand this year to certification in certain software products. This came about in dialogue with key companies that asked: What can we do to make the program more effective for the audience and for you?

“Getting into a deeper relationship with exhibitors in this way is a little scary,” admits Brown. “There’s risk if you screw up. But the education is great because it increases the need for interaction.”