Michael Hart, the industry renowned journalist and thought leader is back! I asked him to provide his views on getting more qualified attendees to events , and here’s what he’s what he’s seeing, enjoy!
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Take a look at the latest quarterly CEIR Index and you know that accumulating attendees is not the problem it was two or three years ago. Overall attendance at U.S. shows was up 3.1 percent in the second quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. Attendance metrics have been on an uphill climb since somewhere around 2010.
But that doesn’t mean event organizers have nothing to worry about on this front. As I talk to show organizers, especially in high-value industries where the primary focus at an event is on branding and capturing market share, exhibitors across the board aren’t happy just to see the big crowds in the aisles: They want qualified buyers!
Face it. With the advent of mobile technology, new avenues of attendee marketing are opening up all the time. Movable Ink’s U.S. Consumer Device Preference Report indicates 65 percent of all e-mail today is sent or received via a mobile device. Look at the most recent quarterly reports from Google and Facebook. Both are crediting increased mobile advertising for their revenue gains.
In other words, people are becoming more comfortable with using their phones to conduct business transactions, and that includes making decisions about whether to attend events.
But that’s not good enough for many exhibitors: Show managers have to deliver qualified attendees, not just anybody who can afford a plane ticket and a registration fee.
Here’s what some of the smart show managers are doing:
TECHNOLOGY WHICH ZEROES IN
They’re using sophisticated cost-effective technology that is quickly becoming available to them to collect data on their attendees, which they then feed back to their exhibitors as evidence of the value they can deliver. As iBeacon technology becomes more affordable than RFID, show organizers can track movement of individual attendees around the show floor in a way they couldn’t before. By sifting through the data and analyzing it correctly, they can tell an exhibitor exactly what kind of attendee it delivered to the vicinity of its booth.
Data analytics are making it possible to take registration information, onsite surveys and post-event reports and make sense of it all in a way that allows the event organizer to offer a convincing argument about ROI to either existing or potential exhibitors.
EVENTS WITHIN EVENTS
Others are creating events within events for their anchor exhibitors. These event organizers acknowledge that the largest companies in an industry sector have the ability to easily create their own events if they want, so they’re bending over backwards to provide everything they can to these key players.
Event organizers cannot allow exhibitors to pull select attendees off a show floor, be it to demonstrate equipment at another location, or to visit a showcase or a conference room in a more comfortable setting at the hotel across the street. So they’re giving the exhibitors what it is they might threaten to leave for, including detailed and sophisticated VIP programs that involve separate events, separate registrations and separate parties.
PRE-QUALIFICATION OF ATTENDEES
Finally, some show organizers are simply culling their registration lists to guarantee to the exhibitor that the only people they’re seeing are qualified attendees.
This year, International CES has set new limits on attendance, capping it at 176,000. The event is doing so with stricter credentialing procedures for potential attendees, all in an effort to guarantee fewer lookers and more buyers. At the same time, it is adjusting its pricing schedule to make it more of a stretch for less motivated people to attend.
Other events are doing the same thing: Taking the less-is-more mantra and applying it to the registration list. The era in which the biggest show was the best one is ending, as exhibitors look for more ways to engage with the most important people they want to see.
Michael Hart is a business consultant and writer who focuses on the events industry. He can be reached at michaelhrt3@gmail.com.