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Monday, January 4, 2010
Ssssssh! The Event Industry's got a Secret!
Twitter. LinkedIn. Facebook.... and the AEO spending vast sums to create research that will make us all rich by "proving" to marketeers that events actually work. Sometimes reading the exhibition media you could be forgiven for thinking that we as an industry have now become internet-obsessed data-intensive web marketeers who are now all using Twitter and Facebook-enabled show wesbites to feed a constant stream of data to our customers as they clamour to calculate the ROI on their exhibition stands down to the last penny.
The reality of course is somewhat different. Many UK exhibitions operate in industries where (believe it or not) the internet is not all-pervasive, and many organisers themselves are rightly more concerned about being plugged into their industries than being plugged into the latest social media fad.
No matter how web-literate the industry in which you operate your trade show, what’s not changed is the importance of the basics – understanding your customers, creating a killer proposition and selling the features (and benefits) of your show clearly. Where we once all used brochures and direct mail, it’s now a website and an email shot, but the principle is still the same.
Isn’t it?
Apparently not.
Based on a survey of nearly 80 websites of B2B shows taking place in the UK between January & May 2010 nearly 40% of UK shows do not think that their show attendance figure is worth mentioning in the “interested in exhibiting?” sections of their show websites.
What’s more, event pricing sees almost as much secrecy as attendance with just under 30% of shows apparently believing that exhibitors have no need to know how much (or how little) it might cost to exhibit.
For some reason in the move from “brochure” to ”website” something very strange seems to have happened to B2B tradeshow sales in the UK. Having a brochure without attendance figures and pricing would have been inconceivable – yet by moving online it’s apparently become commonplace. In making the shift online it’s as if a sizeable slice of the UK exhibition industry have completely forgotten what it is selling when it asks customers to exhibit at its shows.
The list of UK shows with “secret attendances” and “mystery pricing” includes shows in pretty much every sector and in every venue, with all the “major” organisers featuring at least once in the list. Some of the shows in question even provide a range of colourful graphs and charts illustrating in considerable detail a breakdown of the various visitor groups in their audience breakdown – but omit to mention their total number of attendees.
Why is this?
Whether it’s audited or not (and the extreme difficulty of extracting any information whatsoever from the ABC website is another issue entirely) the visitor attendance at a show is the only reason why exhibitors spend their marketing budgets with us? And the price per m2 is also pretty sure to come up at some point in the sales process - isn’t it?
Assuming these omissions are not just down to carelessness and forgetfulness (which is possible – but surely not for 40% of the UK industry?) this would seem to indicate that a significant proportion of UK show organisers have taken a deliberate decision to omit this information – which indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of how customer behaviour – never mind customer behavious on the internet - actually works.
So, what possible reasons are there for omitting this vital content?
“I want people to phone my sales team to ask for the information they want”
Ever used the internet to shop for anything online? Did you end up calling the company who’s website had almost no information on the product and no pricing, or buying online from the one who’s site told you everything you needed to know down to the quantity they had in stock and the time of day they could arrange to deliver it? Guess what – your customers think the same way as you and they will expect your website to answer almost all their questions before they are prepared to call you. And just like you, if they find that they need to pick up the phone just to get basic facts (such as overall attendance and pricing) they may well conclude that you have something to hide - and then look elsewhere without getting in touch.
Even the idea of using the phone may be a step too far for many marketers today. In an age of intrusive 24-hour call centers, company switchboards with “no name” policies, 3rd party opt-out rates touching 50% and always-on Blackberry email addiction the act of calling up and speaking to a sales team also represents a much bigger commitment for many of your customers that it ever did before – and is one they may be unwilling to make unless they feel armed with all the information they need before they dial.
But aside from this basic psychology, a website rich with useful information allows you to improve your sales process in a way which sales calls - and brochures - could never hope to achieve. This is because whenever you are in contact with a customer by phone or face to face, they are very rarely making decisions in a vacuum. Behind every marketing manager your team call up sits a whole network of influencers and budget holders - sales people, senior managers and “Head Office”, PR companies, stand builders, product engineers, designers – all of whom will play some part in the decision to exhibit.
These are people who will never call you up, and who’s names your sales team will never even know. But they can all access your website and use it to form an opinion on your show, which will then feed into your prospective customers’ decision-making process. So, by leaving out key information you are not only discouraging customers to call you, you are forgoing an opportunity to sell to people you would otherwise never reach at all.
These are people who will never call you up, and who’s names your sales team will never even know. But they can all access your website and use it to form an opinion on your show, which will then feed into your prospective customers’ decision-making process. So, by leaving out key information you are not only discouraging customers to call you, you are forgoing an opportunity to sell to people you would otherwise never reach at all.
“I don’t want my competitors to find out my pricing / attendance figures”.
Is the m2 price you charge really that important compared to all the other elements of the show proposition that it is the only differentiating factor for your customers? Can your salespeople not sell a “quantity vs quality” pitch? The reality is that most UK shows in similar industries are similarly priced – if your show’s price differs wildly from its competitors it’s because either you messed up when you picked the price at launch, or something in the audience and exhibitor profile, history, venue, dates, exhibitor list, organisers experience, association support, sponsors and media partnerships you have can justify a difference – not because you have somehow kept it secret from a competitor who is so incompetent that they have no-one on their staff capable of making a spoof call to your sales team, and who has not one relationship with any of your exhibitors good enough to find out that way either. Otherwise, see point 1.
“I don’t want potential exhibitors to look at the website, get put off by the pricing/attendance levels and leave without contacting my team”.
Your website is a sales presentation, in just the same way as a call, a face-to-face meeting or a brochure. If you expect your team to be able to sell the features and benefits of your show during a sales call, why would you not expect your website to be able to do so as well? Again, think of your own behaviour when shopping online - all you are probably doing by omitting attendance and pricing information is sending out a subliminal signal that you feel your product is overpriced or poorly attended.
Even if your show isn’t sufficiently differentiated from it’s competitors to justify any pricing or attendance variance, hiding this from potential customers until you can tell them over the phone is unlikely to be any more successful than posting the information online. If this is your genuine concern, really you need to be concentrating on addressing your show’s positioning and pricing strategy, not working out how best to try and hide the facts from your customers.
So where’s all the clever web / internet / social media stuff then?
I’m afraid there isn’t really any in this article. The only real behavioural change the internet has brought in over the era of the brochure and sales call is that your customers now expect to be able to gather more information, not less, before they are prepared to get in touch with you – and will draw their own conclusions if you don’t provide it for them. All the other arguments are just basic business common sense about how to sell and market exhibitions, which are all as true now as they have ever been. No Tweeting, no Linking-In, just moving a brochure onto a website.
But if it is truly this simple, why does it seem that so many organisers have forgotten how to re-invent the wheel when they moved into the internet age?
Labels: internet, UK exhibition industry
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
PE bumped out - good or bad?
Interesting comment here from Whitestone Communications latest media M&A update:
"July 6, 2009
United Business Media LTD bought the 48% of RISI Inc., the other portion of a joint venture it owned and operated with Pegasus Partners II LP, in a $14.3 million cash deal, bringing the target wholly under UBM’s control and ownership. RISI is an online and print publication that covers pricing, news and analytical reports on the forest products industry. The company employs a staff of 125, based in Bedford, Massachusetts and also has an office in Shanghai as it attempts to collaborate with China’s growing forest products industry. Last year, the company in full generated revenues of £14.4 million.
Lately, joint ventures have been increasingly rearranged as financially hobbled co-sponsors want to dump the asset, even at a substantial discount, to the other entity that supported the company’s structure and development rather than risk failure, or, in some cases, having to re-infuse that company with additional capital to buoy operations. Dealmakers in the space have said that, more often than not, private equity institutions like Pegasus Partners are the sellers, leaving the businesses with which they spent years preparing a new entity for exit or spinoff positioned to take control of a potentially viable entity.
"July 6, 2009
United Business Media LTD bought the 48% of RISI Inc., the other portion of a joint venture it owned and operated with Pegasus Partners II LP, in a $14.3 million cash deal, bringing the target wholly under UBM’s control and ownership. RISI is an online and print publication that covers pricing, news and analytical reports on the forest products industry. The company employs a staff of 125, based in Bedford, Massachusetts and also has an office in Shanghai as it attempts to collaborate with China’s growing forest products industry. Last year, the company in full generated revenues of £14.4 million.
Lately, joint ventures have been increasingly rearranged as financially hobbled co-sponsors want to dump the asset, even at a substantial discount, to the other entity that supported the company’s structure and development rather than risk failure, or, in some cases, having to re-infuse that company with additional capital to buoy operations. Dealmakers in the space have said that, more often than not, private equity institutions like Pegasus Partners are the sellers, leaving the businesses with which they spent years preparing a new entity for exit or spinoff positioned to take control of a potentially viable entity.
For example, Tata Steel just bought out Ryerson Tulls’ 50% stake in Tata Ryerson, a steel processing joint venture, for $49 million. In April, Toshiba said it would spend about $20 million to buy out Panasonic’s 40% stake in their shared LCD venture, called Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology. And, prior to either of these, a far broader joint venture was announced to be heading to a one-sided ownership system, with Fujitsu buying Siemens’ 50% stake in the Fujitsu Siemens Computers for $450 million.
Wholly buying out a JV brings with it the potential to shift strategy; UBM did just that, appointing Mike Coffey as RISI’s chief executive, succeeding John Day, who was appointed as CEO of UBM Global Trade in May."
There aren't too many PE/PLC JV's in events anyway, but if the principles hold true, maybe we'll start to see PE houses take a back seat in M&A? But with finance still tight, the end result may well be that we see more PLC-PLC JV's formed as they are forced to work together to share risk and cobble together funding to take on acquisitions, even if the multiples fall as PE money drops out of the equation?
However a PLC/PE deal has many attractions - one provides funding, the other provides expertise, and there is a clear timetable for PE exit, and a clear understanding of what each side is looking for.
But with a PLC-PLC JV neither party starts with a clear exit timetable and they can both change their strategies over time - with a high probability of creating a recipe for trouble a few years down the line.
Maybe then what this tells us is that its a good time to invest in law firms specialising in unpicking media company contract disputes!
Labels: MandA PE
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Stone Cold Calling
I'm currently doing a bit of sales to help out an organiser I know - and I'm being astonished by the proportion of companies I call who have a policy of not releasing the name of their marketing people.
At times it must be approaching 1 in 10 companies who simply won't divulge this information, never mind not putting me through. And this isn't a "gatekeeper" receptionist who can be worked around - this is a flat "our company policy is not to give this information out, so I cannot give you a name".
Now, perhaps my legendary sales skills have become public knowledge and marketing professionals across the UK quake in fear at being persuaded to throw money away at the mere sound of my dulcet tones, but really.......can there honestly be that many ad-sales calls in a day that 1 in 10 marketing managers believe they cannot function if they have to take the odd phone call during the day?
Or has permission marketing and the online model become so deeply ingrained that the concept of being sold to, or evaluating a proposition based on what you are told rather than what you can find on Google is just too difficult for many people today to cope with?
Either way, its probably good news for big established shows, bad news for launches - and excellent news indeed for the SEO industry.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Oi! Toady!
I'm not sure if the greeting in this email shot I received today from Event UK is over-clever copywriting, or just an especially bad typo...?
The graphic is a frog... but even so, "Register Toady.." isn't the most flattering way I've ever been adressed in a personalised email !
Given it is repeated in the mailshot, and as the re-scheduled "Event" is another UBM show, could this be the next iteration of a deliberate policy to create memorable advertising following their (arguably) clever deliberate mistake with the Confex '09 tube advert as well....?
It's all beyond me...
Labels: Event UK
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Futurology in a niche
This little story, about a company who organise record fairs around the UK, and who are expanding, struck me as quite an interesting example of how the event industry might evolve in the UK and other mature markets.
This is clearly someone who knows his sector, and has managed to make a business that capitalizes on a global economic trend (here the decline of retailers in his industry) and which serves a loyal audience who presumably can be reached through niche - and hence cheap to advertise in - media.
Shows like this are highly unlikely to ever interest a Reed, a UBM or a Clarion as an acquisition target, but will probably keep whoever is behind VIP-24 ticking over quite nicely.
The barriers to entry in the events sector have always been low, but now the plethora of small-scale venues out there that are more than capable of hosting small niche events seems to be on the rise, with venues in Solihull, Peterborough and Coventry all opening for business - even before you factor in hotels adding space and public sector buildings opening up to try and grab their share of the events market.
Consider also how social and online media is busy creating low-cost marketing channels for event organisers to access many "niche" communities - both consumer and B2B - and the decline of print means it is becoming cheaper to launch an event - no need for an expensive media splash now.
Then add in the end of "jobs for life" and a pensions-crisis (all of which are making working for "The Man" a lot less attractive) and that there is now a market awash with unemployed, experienced organisers and maybe the end result is that these types of niches will end up being better serviced in future than ever before?
Imagine - a future where multiple independent organisers are running small-scale sustainable events in sectors they are attached to - rather than trying to pick the idea for the "next saleable asset"?
Add all this together and perhaps the type of show which will NEVER grow to be on the radars of the big players starts to look like the future of the industry?
Quite a different view to the futurologist who spoke recently at Summer Eventia in Brighton .
But hey, what do I know....?
This is clearly someone who knows his sector, and has managed to make a business that capitalizes on a global economic trend (here the decline of retailers in his industry) and which serves a loyal audience who presumably can be reached through niche - and hence cheap to advertise in - media.
Shows like this are highly unlikely to ever interest a Reed, a UBM or a Clarion as an acquisition target, but will probably keep whoever is behind VIP-24 ticking over quite nicely.
The barriers to entry in the events sector have always been low, but now the plethora of small-scale venues out there that are more than capable of hosting small niche events seems to be on the rise, with venues in Solihull, Peterborough and Coventry all opening for business - even before you factor in hotels adding space and public sector buildings opening up to try and grab their share of the events market.
Consider also how social and online media is busy creating low-cost marketing channels for event organisers to access many "niche" communities - both consumer and B2B - and the decline of print means it is becoming cheaper to launch an event - no need for an expensive media splash now.
Then add in the end of "jobs for life" and a pensions-crisis (all of which are making working for "The Man" a lot less attractive) and that there is now a market awash with unemployed, experienced organisers and maybe the end result is that these types of niches will end up being better serviced in future than ever before?
Imagine - a future where multiple independent organisers are running small-scale sustainable events in sectors they are attached to - rather than trying to pick the idea for the "next saleable asset"?
Add all this together and perhaps the type of show which will NEVER grow to be on the radars of the big players starts to look like the future of the industry?
Quite a different view to the futurologist who spoke recently at Summer Eventia in Brighton .
But hey, what do I know....?
Labels: niche events
Monday, July 6, 2009
Informa Exhibitions
This story on the ever-improving Expo ABC caught my eye last week - Informa Group now promotes it's exhibitions "Informa Exhibitions".
This strikes me as interesting on a number of levels. Informa's busines units have always operated under an astonishing array of different brands and banners, with seemingly little brand consolidation being done with any of their acquisitions so any move to rationalise this is perhaps an acknowledgement that they now see benefits in creating a corporate identity to help through the current economic turbulence.
The story, and the statements from Informa CEO Peter Rigby also point out the financial importance of major events to Informa. But their exhibitions are hardly new additions to the business yet they have seen no reason to organise or brand them as a unit before? One possible conclusion is that their core business of "large numbers of small conferences" is suffering far more than the limited number of globally significant exhibitions they run?
The other interesting element is that the "announcement" appeared on Expo ABC, but not in Informa Group's own newsfeed on the front page of their website. So it was deemed important to tell the exhibition press, but not important enough to inform the City - or the world at large. The new logo has also (as of today) not yet made it onto the website of IIR Middle East's Cityscape or Arab Health - probably the two most important events in their portfolio - so perhaps this is more a boon to business card printers than signs of a structural realignment in the way Informa organises and manages its business units.
This strikes me as interesting on a number of levels. Informa's busines units have always operated under an astonishing array of different brands and banners, with seemingly little brand consolidation being done with any of their acquisitions so any move to rationalise this is perhaps an acknowledgement that they now see benefits in creating a corporate identity to help through the current economic turbulence.
The story, and the statements from Informa CEO Peter Rigby also point out the financial importance of major events to Informa. But their exhibitions are hardly new additions to the business yet they have seen no reason to organise or brand them as a unit before? One possible conclusion is that their core business of "large numbers of small conferences" is suffering far more than the limited number of globally significant exhibitions they run?
The other interesting element is that the "announcement" appeared on Expo ABC, but not in Informa Group's own newsfeed on the front page of their website. So it was deemed important to tell the exhibition press, but not important enough to inform the City - or the world at large. The new logo has also (as of today) not yet made it onto the website of IIR Middle East's Cityscape or Arab Health - probably the two most important events in their portfolio - so perhaps this is more a boon to business card printers than signs of a structural realignment in the way Informa organises and manages its business units.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Excite! and Taste of London
In the last week I've been to both Excite! and Taste of London - 2 very different events, but with something of note at each.
Excite! seemed very much an event for stand builders and contractors to pick up the latest gizmos for enhancing stand look and feel - so if I went, maybe the rebranding worked, as it probably wasn't really for me. However it was also notable for the presence of a good smattering of exhibition organisers walking around, clearly looking for some networking on a warm summer afternoon - so maybe everyone else felt the same?
The organisers had done a good job of nicely dressing up the Brompton Road entrance of EC&O, although there were no signs at the Earls Court Station entrance to the EC&O complex, which seemed a bit odd given the event's website had (of course) simply stated "Earls Court" as the location, not the "we might as well just say it's much smaller than Confex" Brompton Hall!
Excite!'s (is that how you add an 's to the end of it??) 3pm seminars were pretty thinly attended - but glancing in at them it seemed that this may be as much to do with content as timing. Maybe worth thinking that it could be better to have nothing happening than to have "fillers" or to put exhibitors on stage where they will only get disappointed by lack of attendance.
Taste was its usual busy, rain-threatened self, although it was notable for the lack of a few top-end restaurants and a few more mid-market food and beverage brands than in previous years. No Gordon Ramsay, despite him having headlined the launch edition of "Taste" at Christmas - maybe the downside of a solus deal at ExCeL, or just belt tightening at the Ramsay empire?
We were fortunate in that we managed to grab a table right in the middle of the exhibitor area in a section which had been branded quite heavily by British Airways, and which as a result no-one had dared to sit in - presumably on the assumption that it was a VIP-only area (like the other 2 BA-branded facilities at the show. Great for us, but a useful reminder that there needs to be a coherent "fit" in the way you select sponsors and attach them to areas of the show. In this case the visitors clearly had come to the venue with an understanding that BA were associated with bits of the show you could only get into by paying more, and no-one wanted the embarrassment of being chucked out of this particular area! I suppose it showed how effective the pre-marketing had been in establishing BA as a "VIP" brand at Taste, but whether Brand Events sale steam would be bold enough to show BA the pictures of a deserted BA-branded area as evidence of the success of their campaign is another matter...
The other interesting thing to extrapolate from Taste was that the busy restaurant stands were definitely those serving the biggest portions, rather than the most sophisticated and upscale restaurants. Whether this is a symptom of a decline in audience poshness (I hesitate to say "quality!"), a marker for the entire restaurant business or just basic supply & demand economics in action I can't say, but it's a timely reminder that your customers have a keen nose (almost literally in this case) for value, no matter how you try to dress it up.
Excite! seemed very much an event for stand builders and contractors to pick up the latest gizmos for enhancing stand look and feel - so if I went, maybe the rebranding worked, as it probably wasn't really for me. However it was also notable for the presence of a good smattering of exhibition organisers walking around, clearly looking for some networking on a warm summer afternoon - so maybe everyone else felt the same?
The organisers had done a good job of nicely dressing up the Brompton Road entrance of EC&O, although there were no signs at the Earls Court Station entrance to the EC&O complex, which seemed a bit odd given the event's website had (of course) simply stated "Earls Court" as the location, not the "we might as well just say it's much smaller than Confex" Brompton Hall!
Excite!'s (is that how you add an 's to the end of it??) 3pm seminars were pretty thinly attended - but glancing in at them it seemed that this may be as much to do with content as timing. Maybe worth thinking that it could be better to have nothing happening than to have "fillers" or to put exhibitors on stage where they will only get disappointed by lack of attendance.
Taste was its usual busy, rain-threatened self, although it was notable for the lack of a few top-end restaurants and a few more mid-market food and beverage brands than in previous years. No Gordon Ramsay, despite him having headlined the launch edition of "Taste" at Christmas - maybe the downside of a solus deal at ExCeL, or just belt tightening at the Ramsay empire?
We were fortunate in that we managed to grab a table right in the middle of the exhibitor area in a section which had been branded quite heavily by British Airways, and which as a result no-one had dared to sit in - presumably on the assumption that it was a VIP-only area (like the other 2 BA-branded facilities at the show. Great for us, but a useful reminder that there needs to be a coherent "fit" in the way you select sponsors and attach them to areas of the show. In this case the visitors clearly had come to the venue with an understanding that BA were associated with bits of the show you could only get into by paying more, and no-one wanted the embarrassment of being chucked out of this particular area! I suppose it showed how effective the pre-marketing had been in establishing BA as a "VIP" brand at Taste, but whether Brand Events sale steam would be bold enough to show BA the pictures of a deserted BA-branded area as evidence of the success of their campaign is another matter...
The other interesting thing to extrapolate from Taste was that the busy restaurant stands were definitely those serving the biggest portions, rather than the most sophisticated and upscale restaurants. Whether this is a symptom of a decline in audience poshness (I hesitate to say "quality!"), a marker for the entire restaurant business or just basic supply & demand economics in action I can't say, but it's a timely reminder that your customers have a keen nose (almost literally in this case) for value, no matter how you try to dress it up.
Labels: Excite Exhibition, Taste of London
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