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Friday, February 27, 2009
Inside Meetings & Conferences
Social networking, eco-friendly -- new face of live events
MHT's Jim Connolly: Social network sites focus on niches, sports
MHT Editor Doug Banks on NECN: How companies are using social media
MHT Sales Roundtable: Web 2.0, Meet Sales 101
People have been forecasting the death of trade shows for years. I remember a conversation with an industry guru some 15 years ago, who said that shows were too expensive, not effective, and that everything was going online anyway so they’d be extinct by the end of the millennium.
Have they heard of the Consumer Electronics Show? The Detroit Auto Show? MacWorld? You get the point. The parties may be fewer, the giveaways may go, and the focus is no longer on fun. However, live events are still a major part of most organizations’ marketing strategy. What’s changed is how people evaluate the success of their events.
A few years ago it was enough to count up the number of leads, and if there were more than there were a year earlier, you could judge an event successful. Today’s marketers are looking at a much more complex tapestry of metrics to define their success.
First of all, every organization doing any kind of live event these days is looking hard at its carbon footprint. Trade shows have been notorious as environmentally unfriendly. Traditionally, they have used huge quantities of energy, came late to recycling, filled dumpsters with usable goods, and provided tons of “free stuff” that cost more to throw away than it did to make.
However, in these uncertain economic times, going green is seen as the new ROI, and measuring and reducing one’s carbon footprint at a show is becoming a key performance indicator for more organizations. To effect this change, organizations are doing everything from changing the nature of giveaways (more donations, less plastic) to reducing staff travel and the amount of printed materials. Show guides, manuals, speeches and all the other things we used to print in large quantities are being moved online. Even the CD/DVD alternative isn’t as popular as it once was.
But this newfound environmentalism is not the only major change coming to the world of events. American taxpayer response to the excesses of American International Group’s Inc.’s sales conference has led to a general reassessment of sales conferences and corporate meetings. In addition to coping with smaller event budgets, organizations are avoiding the appearance of excess. So sales meetings and conferences are cutting back on the play time and devoting a higher percentage of their meetings to work.
Meetings are being rescheduled closer to home and refocused on getting work done as opposed to socializing. An annual board retreat for a New England health care concern was traditionally a weekend-long retreat to a nice Vermont resort, with lots of golf and social time. Now, it is a one-day affair, devoted entirely to brainstorming and held 15 miles from corporate headquarters.
One recent meeting of an Alaskan company was initially scheduled for a golf resort in Phoenix, but ultimately took place in company headquarters in Anchorage — in January. In addition to cutting back on travel costs, and the appearance of excess, organizations clearly want to get more bang for their event buck. So golf tournaments are being replaced with problem-solving and team-building exercises, and expensive motivational speakers are making way for facilitators who help to produce results.
Perhaps the biggest change in experiential marketing is the extent to which social media is being used to extend the reach and impact of events. Blogs, social networks and private communities are now almost mandatory around major shows to enable those who can’t travel to participate. Live blogging and Twittering spreads awareness and visibility of an event, as it instantly brings the content from many presentations to the desktops of those who can’t be there in person. Such live reporting helps build attendance for the next event as people learn more about what’s happening there and perceive it as a rewarding experience. Promoters realize the cost effectiveness of social media outreach, so we’re seeing invitations to events showing up on Facebook and Twitter.
While some see social media as eroding support for events, it is seen as a way to extend the value of an event. A presentation can easily be turned into a podcast or a YouTube video and repurposed as a marketing tool. IBM Corp. recently did exactly that with one of its presentations and ended up selling more product than an ad campaign that cost 10 times as much.
Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of public relations and communications measurement firm KDPaine & Partners in Berlin, N.H., and publisher of The Measurement Standard; http://kdpaine.blogs.com.
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