How to Increase Quality Event Attendance- Best Practices from the Experts

One of the people I have admired for her ideas as much as her enthusiasm is Kimberly Hardcastle-Geddes. A much awarded personality in the industry, I was thrilled to get her input into solving the ‘how do I get more high quality attendees’ problem. In any case here’s what she has to say:

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Marketing is evolving rapidly. New technology is being introduced every day. The competition—direct and indirect—continues to stiffen. Our audiences are becoming savvier, more discriminating and more selective about what they pay attention to than ever before. These days, doing “business as usual” puts you at serious risk of losing attendees, exhibitors, market share and profits. Here are a few tips on strategic planning, branding and campaign development that will help position your event for sustained success.

 

Have a strategic marketing plan.

Without one, the temptation is to simply start thinking about the tactics, timelines and costs in relation to what was done for the previous show. With the evolving media landscape, attendees registering later in the show cycle, and continuous advancements in technology, you’re going to need to shake things up and get refocused on the big picture. Having a written plan will help.

 

Know your competition.

In the past, ‘competition’ meant the other shows that operated in your space. In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, this definition has to broaden to include our indirect competitors—webcasts, online communities, search engines, exhibitors’ proprietary events and more. Ensure you are positioning your event to capitalize on the features and benefits that your audience won’t realize in any other way.

 

Evaluate potential new markets.

Find new markets that represent viable opportunities for growth. List them in your marketing plan and evaluate based on size, growth rate, current penetration and growth potential. Prioritize your viable markets and determine how best to reach them and what targeted messages will appeal to them.

 

Define your event’s brand.

Often, the term ‘brand’ is confused with ‘logo’. Your brand, however, is really just how you want your audiences, including prospective attendees and exhibitors, to perceive your trade show. Compare your brand as you’ve defined it with the actual perceptions of your current and perspective participants. If a gap exists, figure out what you’ll need to do to close it.

 

Identify your Compelling Value Proposition (CVP).

A value proposition is a clear and specific statement about the primary benefit of your event. It’s the single most important promise that you can make to your audience. For attendees, this is what will motivate your prospects to leave their businesses and day-to-day responsibilities and invest time into your event. For exhibitors, this is what will convince them to spend their marketing dollars with you rather than with your competitors or on another marketing medium.

 

Be consistent.

Be consistent over time and throughout your organization. Ensure that your sales, attendee relations, conference and operational teams are all part of the branding process—or at least ensure that the brand strategy is communicated to them. Branding will be most effective when all facets of your show are working in harmony towards the same goals.

 

Execute an on-target marketing campaign.

Let the brand strategy you’ve defined serve as the platform for an effective marketing campaign. Your campaign’s creative theme and messaging should be based on your positioning and CVP, it should consider your marketing objectives and should be created to appeal to the demographics and psychographics of your audience.

 

Craft a campaign that is an appropriate reflection of your event. If your creative materials are boring, uninspired, run of the mill, your audience will logically assume that your event is boring, uninspired, run of the mill. If your campaign doesn’t change from show-to-show, your audience will assume that neither do your offerings. If your marketing looks like every other trade show campaign in your industry, well, you get the picture.

 

Design with your audience’s visual vocabulary in mind. If you took off the logo from your marketing collateral, would your audience still relate to it? Or are you creating “insert trade show name here” marketing? The design elements that you use in your creative should be a graphic language with which your audience can identify. They add visual interest while telling the story of your trade show. Isn’t a picture worth a thousand words?

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As owner and president of the nation’s leading marketing and public relations agency specializing in B2B events, Hardcastle-Geddes and her team provide solutions that increase attendance and exhibitor participation for several of the largest and most successful trade shows and conferences in the country. Kimberly is a CEM faculty member, an IAEE Krakoff Leaders Institute alumna, the editor of mdg’s trade show marketing newsletter, a presenter of industry seminars on strategic market planning and is a recipient of IAEE’s Educator of the Year Award and Trade Show Executive’s Marketing Genius Award.

 

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