Discovering new approaches to attendee marketing is a priority for show organizers—especially as the global economy begins to heal from the sting of recession. New tactics need to be employed to help events not only bring their core attendees back year after year, but attract new customers as well.

Eric Smith, chief executive officer of ArtExpo New York, increased attendance at his event by 4,000 individuals between 2010 and 2011. The most effective way to bring new faces to the show floor, he says, was through social media, education and reaching individuals where they spend the most time—their computer screens.

Social Media

“When I bought ArtExpo I immediately hired a full time social media director,” he says. “We spent quite a bit of money on Google and Facebook ads which attracted 30,000 Facebook fans to our ArtExpo New York page. With Google we were more or less trying to attract exhibitors and broaden our exhibitor base, which also worked. We went from 240 to 300 in one year.”

ArtExpo also cashed in on the success of the deal site Groupon, doing a buy-one-get-one-free ticket sale, which sold to 1,600 customers.

“Groupon takes half the money but I didn’t care at all because our revenue is exhibitor revenue, that’s the basis of our revenue, attendee revenue is minuscule,” he says.

ArtExpo New York, which takes up about 110,000 square feet at Pier 94 on the Hudson River, has a 60 percent consumer base and a 40 percent trade base that comes out to their show. In 2011, the attendance was 14,000—4,000 trade personnel and 10,000 consumers. The show serves dealers, collectors and buyers with access to thousands of works from artists and publishers.

Smith finds that newsletter mailings are a useful tool to help attendees stay interested in the show, and to attract new guests.

“Some are sales driven while others are educational,” he says. “We might do the artist of the day and the readers also like to see some of the new artists that have signed up for the show and others we pick that we think are going to be new stars. We’ll also do articles on ‘The Top 5 Things in Collecting Art’ or for the artists we’ll do educational things like ‘How to Prepare for a Show.’ People will recommend that to their friends.”

So far about 30,000 people have signed up on the newsletter mailing list.

“That’s how we get a lot of new attendees—through our email campaign, through Facebook, Google—if people are looking for art they may stumble upon ArtExpo and then sign up for our newsletter,” says Smith.
For this metropolitan art show, print advertising is still necessary, but in order to focus on digital areas Smith cut that budget in half.

“Right now, you still need a small ad in the New York Times to satisfy your exhibitors,” he says. “Not every exhibitor is going to be satisfied with social media and online advertising, they still want to see that hard copy and print.”

The Switch to Digital

Smith adds that having 30 free educational sessions at ArtExpo has also helped attract attendees.
Though ArtExpo needs to maintain a print presence, the Surf Expo is going almost completely paperless.
“We have transitioned from being like a traditional trade show where we were using, even as close as 3 or 4 years ago, about 70 percent print and we’ve done almost a full reversal—just about 10 percent of our media marketing now is in traditional print media as far as something we’d reach out to exhibitors or attendees with,” says Roy Turner, show director for Surf Expo.

Turner says that segmented email campaigns have been an important aspect for the show “to make sure the target audience is getting the message that’s specific for them.”

The Surf Expo, held twice a year, has between 900 to 1,000 exhibitors on about 200,000 square feet of exhibit space for about 3,200 stores and around 7,500 buyers.

The September 2012 show will be the first time that the show guide will be 100 percent digital.

“It’s a leap of faith for us and we’ve been really happy that our exhibitors that supported our print publication have for the most part stayed online and are willing to try the new digital piece with us as well,” Turner says.

In addition to going paperless, this exposition is also attracting new attendees through mobile technologies and social media.

“Our customers tend to be 30 and younger and they prefer mobile communication even to email communication,” he says. “That’s how they want to be communicated to. We’re slowly making that adoption in testing how we can best use mobile as a platform.”

There’s been a 955 percent increase in the past 12 months in Facebook usage, about 4,000 users “like” the Surf Expo page. The mobile browser is the third most used browser for the show and the mobile app has been most popular, with 17,000 adopters in the first year.

“It’s about expanding our footprint and the opportunity to become endless—when you go back and see how people are using the app, it’s like a modern day yellow pages,” Turner says. “What it’s allowed us to do is expand our true business base, it’s quite a bigger animal than just the 7,000 to 8,000 people that generally attend Surf Expo twice a year.”

Driving Buying Activity

The b-to-b event Natural Products Expo East has several areas the group utilizes to increase attendee interest: buying activity, an extensive hosted buyer program, a focus on community and exhibitor ROI.
“For buying activity we’ve launched the 25 percent club,” says Erica Stone, CEM and show director of Natural Products Expo East. “Exhibitors participate in the 25 percent club offer 25 percent off or more on show orders—it maintains that buying happens on the show floor and gives the attendees a significant discount, which is good for them to come back to the show again and again.”

Natural Products Expo East is held on 134,200 square feet for 19,336 industry attendees and 955 exhibiting companies.

Stone says the group last year utilized Network Now through a2z—a networking module that connects registered buyers and sellers pre show, which she says helps attendees actively engage in the event, increasing the likelihood of attendance.

The show has 250 to 350 hosted buyers every year that range from national, regional and local buyers that may be independent retailers, chain grocery retailers, grocery distributers and natural retailers. An attendee may get hotel accommodations for three nights, travel and a per diem stipend. Some also receive a buyer credit through a rewards program depending on how much they’ve spent in the past.

“It keeps our buyer base really strong, drives attendance, exhibitor ROI and show floor buying activity,” she says.

Stone adds the group drives attendance and participation through community by participating and giving donations to large non-profits and hosting parties with them.

“We’ve partnered with FarmAid in the past to do a harvest festival, we solicit quite a few local farmers and manufacturers to provide food and we have a big party.”

These nonprofit events synch with Natural Products Expo, engaging individuals that are passionate about organic, local and healthy foods, that may not have otherwise come to the expo.

The show also uses exhibitor invites—as exhibitors sign up the show offers them an invitation to invite individuals on the event’s behalf through pre-constructed emails, which also increase attendance.
“It’s a clever way to get new attendees that may not be in our database,” she says.

Natural Products Expo East has several areas the group utilizes to increase attendee interest: buying activity, an extensive hosted buyer program, a focus on community and exhibitor ROI.