Best Practices
In a tough economic year, SAWLEX, the Sawmill and Logging Expo for the logging and sawyering industries, set exhibit space and attendance records by eliminating drayage costs and soliciting grants from outside groups to purchase demonstration materials for exhibitors.
For years, IPC, the Association for Connecting Electronics Industries, has struggled to get exhibitors to promote their own presence at IPC APEX EXPO, the organization’s annual conference and exhibition. To help, organizers launched the IPC Midwest Challenge, a friendly competition among exhibitors to motivate them to invite their own contacts to the show.
After 28 years in New York, the Licensing International Expo (LE) convened for the first time in Las Vegas in June 2009, with 16,000 attendees and more than 400 exhibitors. To attract attention and as many attendees as possible to the show in its new location, organizers looked to social media, kicking off a promotional campaign with an iPod giveaway via Twitter, and encouraging the use of Twitter among attendees and exhibitors at every stage of the event.
Cheat Sheet
Although social media and word-of-mouth are gaining credibility in marketing circles, it’s still e-mail — accessed on a personal computer, laptop or mobile device — that drives communication. When you’re marketing to trade show attendees, you need to know the ins and outs of e-mail campaigns.
Considering using an audience response system at your next show? Here’s what you need to know to get started.
Event Technology
I attended executive education provider and event organizer HSM’s World Innovation Forum 2009 (WIF09) as a virtual attendee and followed a minimum of 20 leading innovation bloggers sharing real-time thoughts, insights and opinions from the event through their blogs and Twitter accounts. Pitney Bowes sponsored a WIF Bloggers Hub for pre-registered bloggers and Tweeps and Twitter Kiosks.
Looking for a way to let attendees access your show from their cell phones? Consider EventKaddy. Much more than a digital show guide, EventKaddy is a mobile distribution platform designed to enhance the attendee experience while providing new benefits for exhibitors and a new revenue stream for organizers.
Ever wish you could update attendees and exhibitors or let them correspond with your staff through a quick text? Check out Convention Data Services’ (CDS) new text messaging service, which uses attendees’ and exhibitors’ cell phones to facilitate instant communication with show management.
Want to boost networking at your show? Check out Zerista’s mobile event networking application, which lets users to network, share content and collaborate before, during and after an event.
EXPO Plus...
From cocktail receptions to corporate meetings, 33’s unique combination of elegant modern decor and award-winning contemporary American cuisine makes it an ideal venue for special events. The Boston venue’s decor features LED-lit stair walls, purple heart floors, rolling maple ceilings, and brick arches. The multi-functional venue can accommodate private and semi-private groups of up to 500.
When the National Retail Federation (NRF) wanted to attract store designers to its 2009 Annual Convention & Expo, it created a unique idea to cater to these firms, aptly named the Design Studio. NRF worked with retail design firm MillerZell to transform a T-shaped space above the show floor into a chic studio environment outfitted with 10-foot gallery walls from GES and large, colorful ribbons draped across the ceiling.
Feature Articles
There’s no question: In 10 years, your event will be markedly different from what it is now. But how different? Will social media, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, serve as your primary marketing and communication tools? Will you be using 3-D applications online to complement your show? Will registration areas consist of self-service kiosks with little or no staffing? Will attendees and exhibitors even wear badges?
A Web site used to be an extra — one more way for attendees and exhibitors to locate basic information about your show. Today it’s an essential and original element in the marketing mix. It offers attendees and exhibitors a way to communicate with you and with each other.
Openers
More and more shows are creating separate spaces for exhibitors and vendors to showcase high-end products away from the rest of the show floor. But how do you create an atmosphere to promote the luxe vibe? World Shoes and Accessories (WSA) pulls it off with “The Box,” a space at the WSA Show that gives exhibitors a place to promote upscale or unique merchandise in a sophisticated area within the main show.
Having problems getting (or retaining) exhibitors for your virtual or hybrid event? The problem may be that exhibitors don’t fully understand how to utilize the measurement potential of the virtual environment.
What it is: Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter, Foursquare is the latest craze among the social media savvy. Foursquare members use the site to alert others in their social networks (including Twitter and Facebook) where they are at any given moment by either logging on to the Web site (www.foursquare.com) or using a smartphone application to “check in.” The people that check in to a given spot or location the most often become the “mayor” of that location.
You may not even know it, but it’s likely that your show is utilizing crowdsourcing in one way or another to improve the event. What is it? The term “crowdsourcing” was created by Wired writer Jeff Howe to describe the concept of “taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
Publisher's Column
I attended the Virtual Edge Summit last month hoping to learn more about the future of virtual events, and what I learned is that we’re way behind. I could count the number of show organizers in attendance on one hand. Maybe the rest of you were attending virtually?
Sales and Marketing
Want to build a buzz for your event and get fence-sitters to hurry up and register? Send e-mail updates with the latest high-level attendees and exhibitors who have signed up for your event.
While you’ve heard the phrase “unique selling proposition” (USP), you may not know how it applies to you or your show. After all, the term is often used to describe how big companies are differentiating themselves from the competition.
Unless you’ve been under a technology rock the last few years, you know what an RSS (really simple syndication) feed is. Most Web sites have one set up on their sites to allow others to aggregate content into their own reader without having to go to each specific site to get new info.
Q: What do I say when I’m trying to renew an exhibitor and he tells me he didn’t get any results from my show last year.
The Buzz
Comdex Comes Back—Virtually
COMDEX will make a comeback later this year as a virtual event. UBM, which acquired the brand as part of its acquisition of MediaLive Intl. in 2006, will relaunch COMDEX as a virtual event to be held Nov. 16-17, managed by its Everything Channel business.
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