How Attendees are Changing
During the recession, corporate funding for business-to-business events and tradeshows has been reduced more than travel, training and event attendance budgets. Yet convention and tradeshow producers see positive attendance trends. Consider that overall convention and tradeshow attendance has grown by 3 percent so far in 2010 and show producers collectively expect 5 percent growth next year, according to surveys by EMI.
Still, attendance was down by close to 10 percent in 2009, some events have not rebounded, and attendees and buyers have clearly changed their behavior. Here’s insight from exhibitors and event producers on how they see attendees changing:
- Smaller buying teams, but those that attend have more authority to purchase.
- Registering closer to the event or “last minute”.
- Shorter event visits, such as attending only one day.
- Looking for more content and information.
- More cost conscious and looking for discounts and deals.
So what should event marketers do to reach busy attendees and buyers at events? Understand that the ratio of VIPs and senior executives in attendance is higher at shows today. This may require you to modify your approach to make an impact on these people. Do you have a specific plan for communicating with senior executives?
In response to the trend of later registration, prepare pre-event marketing campaigns to launch days or even hours before the show opens, not just a few weeks. Stress the importance to booth staff that attendees are busier – and higher level – and won’t have as much time to spend in your exhibit. They have to make an impression and add value quicker. In fact, getting attendees to make an appointment or note to stop by the booth is more critical than ever.
Other key questions include, how does the trend of shorter stays and one-day visits impact your event and exhibit planning? How does this change how you develop evening events? Ask event management for more information on attendance statistics and trends as well as overnight stay or exhibit hall traffic patterns. Most shows will have more attendance intelligence than they initially provide to exhibitors.
While this is important in any economy, ensure your materials and presentations inform and provide insight, not just sales messages.
Finally, get a sense of what is happening to the attendees and buyers in your industry. Are they still reacting to the downturn, or have they turned the corner and attending events to get an edge via education, networking or vendor sourcing? This knowledge can be a subtle but important influence on the way you exhibit and participate in events.
Michael Hughes is Managing Director, Research & Consulting, at EMI/Red 7 Media.
Insights into 2012 Event Technology Trends
The relationship between events and technology is becoming more critical to event producers, exhibitors and event marketers – as well as attendees and participants. This trend is being driven by the rapid pace of change in communications technology. The last three years alone have seen an explosion in the use of social media to communicate event information, drive attendance, and build year-round online communities.
In response, Active Network and the Event Marketing Institute have worked together to study and quantify these event technology trends.
This report covers event technology from the perspective of event owners and producers
as well as corporate exhibitors and event marketers. The focus of the analysis is on
technology usage, best practices and benchmarks. Other trends and areas covered include:
..Most important technology areas and services
..Technology purchase plans and budgets
..Social media
..Online events, including virtual shows, webinars and webcasts
The main information source is an exclusive survey of event producers, corporate exhibitors and event marketers. Various other sources have been used to develop the report including recent Event Marketing Institute and Red 7 Media studies, and reports from other organizations. In total, survey responses from over 500 leading organizations in the event and technology industries have been used to develop this analysis.
| To view the full report: EMI Workgroup and Global Underwriter Members can view the full report by logging in and navigating to the ‘Research Reports’ section found in the right-hand window pane.All other individuals who wish to receive the full report please contact: Kevin Ritch at the Event Marketing Institute, kritch@eventmarketing.com, or 203.852.5693. |
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2010 EventView Study Top Findings are In
Study Shows Events Accelerate Customer Relationships
A slowly recovering economy, lingering unemployment, changing media consumption habits and other macro-economic factors continue to pressure marketing and sales leaders to drive immediate results while also protecting and growing brand equity. In response, Web marketing and events have emerged as the two most potent weapons in the marketing arsenal in terms of accelerating customer relationships and overall ROI. These and other findings captured in EventView 2010 have tremendous implications on how event marketers engage audiences, recruit and retain talent, report to management, integrate with other internal channel owners, and manage agency partners.
Here are some of the survey’s top findings:
1. When asked to list the top three marketing elements for accelerating and deepening relationships, event marketing led at 64 percent, followed by social marketing at 55 percent and Web marketing at 54 percent.
2. Respondents report that of all marketing elements, they see the greatest ROI from Web marketing (40%), with event marketing coming in second at 22 percent.
3. The percentage of marketers who rank the future importance of events as increasing rose this year, from 29 percent to 36 percent.
4. 34 percent of respondents plan to move to an experience-driven portfolio within the next three to 12 months, while 31 percent say they have already done so.
5. A third (30%) of respondents said they saw the highest ROI from conferences and seminars, followed by trade shows at 24%.
6. When asked about their primary marketing concerns, reaching new customers (25%) was at the top of the list, followed by tracking ROI (15%) and growing market share (14%).
To request a copy of the full report, click here.
Industry Spending and Changes: 2012 EventTrack Study
The Event Marketing Institute (eventmarketing.com) and leading experiential marketing agency Mosaic (mosaicxm.com) have unveiled the most comprehensive annual study of event marketing spending and activities ever fielded. The groundbreaking study found that event and experiential marketing spending by companies is growing much faster than the overall economy. The EventTrack 2012 study found that in a slowly rebounding economy, brands are expecting their event and experiential marketing budgets to grow by nearly eight percent (7.8%) in 2012, more than double last year’s rate of (3.6%).
The study features three in-depth sections:
Brand Survey
- Marketer Goals and Strategies
- Importance of Events and Senior Management View
- Budget Growth Rates
- ROI & Measurement Trends
- Integration w/Other Media/Marketing and Social Media
- Working with Agencies and Service Providers
- In-Store Events and Experiential Marketing
- Key Industry Challenges
Consumer Survey
- Types of Events/Experiences and Motivation to Participate
- Impact on Perception
- Impact on Purchasing
- How Consumers Communicate their Experiences
- Use of Technology and Social Media
- Conclusions
Agency Survey
- Clients’ Event/Experiential Marketing Goals and Strategies
- How Clients’ View and Use of Events has Changed in Past 2 Years
- Most Promising Strategies, Approaches and Types of Events and Experiences
- Levels of Engagement: Quality vs. Quantity
- Mix of Agency Services
- Agency Growth Rates
- Integration with Other Media & Marketing
- How Agencies are Using Social Media in Relation to Clients’ Events/Experiences
- ROI & Measurement
- Services Important to Event Marketers, including Selection Criteria
- In-Store Events & Experiential Marketing
- Key Industry Challenges
Please click below to request to download a complimentary copy of the executive summary, which provides highlights from the three sections. The full 115-page report is available to Event Marketing Institute members and for purchase. The full report features the following sections. Contact Kevin Rich at the Event Marketing Institute membership information and/or full report purchases.
New EMI Report Documents the Power of Integrating Social Media into Events
A report just released by EMI and MKTG INC, one of EMI’s newest Global Underwriters, provides some rich data that supports the move that more marketers are making towards integrating social media strategies into their live event programs.
EMI and MKTG INC (mktg.com), a leading experiential marketing agency based in New York, fielded a survey to several thousand consumers to understand how marketers can connect with this elusive demographic via live events. The findings show that live marketing is critical purchase facilitator among this group. And because Millennials are tech-savvy, pushing them to an actual retail store isn’t the only conversion option for event marketers; nearly half (47.8%) said they’d prefer to buy a company’s products in a store; 29.3 percent online; and 22.9 percent would purchase a company’s products on-site at an event, an interesting finding which suggests that the point of purchase is moving closer to the point of engagement.
Events are becoming fertile ground for developing relationships with consumers that can continue online. In fact, the study shows that three-quarters of consumers said they would be more likely to communicate with a company using social media as a result of a good experience with that company’s event. This means that it’s never been easier to stretch content from your event across the web – nearly 45 percent of respondents said they have posted a photo/video/message from an event to their own social media page, and fully eight out of ten (82.1%) have visited a brand’s Facebook page, 88.2 percent “friended” that brand; and 60.8 percent of those people invited their own friends to join the brand’s social media page as well.
EMI members may download a free copy of an 8-page whitepaper discussing the study’s findings by CLICKING HERE.
