On October 18, 2011, senior executives, show directors and sales/marketing leaders from Toronto, New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles participated in Encore's 5th anniversary event marketing roundtable at the InterContinental Houston. Participants represented a diverse mix of U.S. and global consumer/trade shows and conferences.

I left with many great takeaways from the forum as usual. One of the key areas of focus this year was leveraging media and other partnerships to drive value, engagement and attendance. Some interesting examples were discussed that involved using content as key value drivers in partnerships, so I'll share a few thoughts on this part of the roundtable discussion.

One of the participants highlighted a new media partnership they are developing for 2012. The deal includes media exposure for the show but it also includes a content curation component, which enables the show to leverage the partner's unique intellectual property—a unique set of global data and tools to major marketers, a key target set for this show organizer.

The media partner will provide the show with co-branding of a special target—relevant content feature on their Web site, and create customized products/content packages that best appeal to the show's target set.

In order to help drive visitors to the show, the products will be offered at special prices to the show's attendees, and the products will be launched and sold for the first time at the show. In return, the show organizer will provide the media company sponsorship billing, exhibit space and access to the attendee database.

Another show organizer shared how they are partnering with a global intelligence company, which provides industry reports and forecasts that are valuable to both attendees and exhibitors.

The show organizer created a room on the exhibit floor for the partner to hold free sessions, and indicated this tactic has helped bring in additional visitors and also provided added value to those already on the exhibit floor.

Both parties cross promote the sessions. The show organizer mails out a dedicated piece for the partner's sessions in addition to including these sessions in general show promotion. The partner promotes the sessions to their database. 

According to the show organizer "We have found through partnerships like this, that this is one of the easiest ways to reach out to any new audiences." The partner gets plenty of promotion, as well as face-to-face access to potential new clients, and a platform to stand out from the crowd.

These type of content deals require more work to put together than traditional exhibit space/advertising trades, but you may find that they are well worth the investment.

Cristopher Levy is managing partner of Encore Media Partners. Encore is an audience strategy, marketing and media buying agency covering traditional, digital and mobile platforms, which specializes in local, national and global trade and consumer shows, exhibitions and conferences. Reach him at clevy@encoremediapartners.com.