Corporate marketing teams have never been more important to their organizations. But they have also never faced as many pressures, challenges and rapid changes either. Of course technology is driving these trends. Conventions, trade shows and events have been overshadowed by digital and social media, and some major companies have cut back on event budgets to fund digital marketing. But even in this environment events are holding their own.

Many other marketing mediums and media sectors are being completely transformed by the Internet. But events are merely being significantly impacted. Companies that do events are trying to be more effective and spend their event budgets more effectively. This is a short-term challenge for the industry. But the more efficient and effective exhibitors and event marketers become the stronger the event industry will be in the long term. 

Red 7 Media, EXPO’s parent company, has been conducting a number of studies recently focused on event marketers, exhibitors and other marketing professionals. Here is a summary of some of the key trends impacting these groups:

• Overall, marketing budgets are increasing due to new initiatives in digital media, easy comparisons with budget cuts in 2009 and 2010, and because major corporations’ profits have held up well even in this weak economy.

• There is a focus on “brand building” but the main goal of marketing is to win new customers and drive sales.

• Email marketing continues to gain acceptance and usage, and is increasingly a cornerstone of marketing.

• Improving and enhancing Web sites is an on-going, critical effort.

• In just two to three years social media usage has exploded to become mainstream.

• Integrated marketing has become a religion.

• Digital media that was only used by a small number of mid-sized companies just a few years ago such as Webcasts and video are now mainstream, even for small companies.

Technology innovation has also given marketers new tools to do more marketing and communications in-house. And the corporate events and meetings market is rebounding as well. All of these trends fit with the growth of education and information based marketing in which companies start to look like media companies and event producers. This is a mixed trend for media and marketing companies.

For event producers it is important to understand that the client marketing teams they work with on sponsorship and exhibits sales only see events as part of their overall marketing strategy or campaign.

The people you are likely working closely with to sell booth space are doing many other things besides events including developing marketing materials, updating and enhancing Web sites, developing and placing advertising, email marketing, working with marketing partners, crafting and monitoring social media, mobile app development, and other digital media tasks. And there’s also “old media” tasks like direct mail, fielding client inquiries and communications, public relations, research, and sales force collateral and support. Add on top of all of this the travel required to be at events and shows—and all the service provider and vendor management duties too. 

Marketing is also moving rapidly from being mainly creative and sales-support focused, meaning more qualitative in nature, to be focused on quantitative data collection and analysis. Top marketers and marketing consultants are starting to sound like IT and finance professionals with very complex language and jargon to explain this shift to marketing as a quantitative data focused discipline.

So what does this mean for event producers? The best news for events in this environment is that social media is mainly seen as a way to build brands and communicate information, as opposed to drive sales. Marketers and advertisers when working with their media industry partners and providers are increasingly looking for lead generation services for example. Events do all of these things—build brands, generate leads, communicate information and drive new sales—quite well. 

Getting this message out more clearly that events help marketers reach all of their key goals is important. It is also important to think how events can better integrate with the other many initiatives and programs pursued by your exhibitors and sponsors.  

But an even more basic recommendation is to simply understand your exhibitor and sponsor clients better and make their dealings with your organization and event partners easier, from making information easy to find on your Web site to how you help them with post-show lead follow-up. Events require detail, planning and keeping on top of many moving parts.  Be the easiest to work with and the most effective marketing partner to your clients.

Michael Hughes is managing director, research and consulting, Red 7 Media, a division of Access Intelligence, EXPO’s parent company.