A View from all Sides: The Value of Face-to-Face Marketing

One of the most highly attended sessions at IAEM’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta last month covered the value of face-to-face marketing such as trade shows, corporate events and other types of experiential opportunities. A panel discussion included representatives from Reed Exhibitions, Diversified Business Communications, the National Restaurant Association and the George P. Johnson Company. The session was facilitated by Jack Chalden of Jack Chalden and Associates. The specific topics addressed included regionalization and corporate events.

“There is a lot of good news in face-to-face marketing events,” said Nancy Hasselback, president and CEO of Diversified Business Communications, citing a recent report from Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Media reports bear out her optimism summarizing VSS’s 19th Annual Communications Industry Forecast by stating “technology innovation, the emergence of new media, quickening audience fragmentation, increasing demand for customization and tighter focus on return on investment are collectively causing major shifts in spending patterns and time spent with media. These shifts are expected to drive accelerated growth across all four sectors – advertising, specialty media and marketing services [including face-to-face marketing events], institutional end-user and consumer end-user – through 2009.”

Referring to regionalization, Hasselback and Reed’s Vince Polito made a number of observations on the pros and cons of producing regional events. Because there are often a variety of other options such as corporate events or competitive trade shows, “the exhibitor will always judge the value of regional events,” Hasselback said, adding, “Regional events don’t necessarily deliver the volume of buyers but they do produce the quality of buyers.”  Hasselback also cited the value of regional shows as a way to protect an organizer’s place in the market and identify and capitalize on companies that aren’t participating in the national event. Polito added that regional shows are more difficult to produce because they typically yield less revenue.

Mary Pat Heftman, senior vice president of conventions for the National Restaurant Association, described how her “horizontal mega show” complements and contrasts with the many regional shows produced by her state partners. For example, she said, “We provide what is new and what is next across the industry. Regionally you will not see the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) or corporate executives that you see at the national level, but you will see regional distributors that you do not see nationally.”

As the discussion shifted from regionalization to the impact of corporate events, Heftman explained how the tide of exhibitor attrition has begun to reverse itself. During the National Restaurant Association show, there are numerous corporate events being staged to take advantage of the synergy that the larger show creates. Fears that corporate event “groupies” will hold their own events but not exhibit in the larger trade show have been most recently allayed. “Corporate event producers that left the large show are now returning to do both the corporate event and the trade show,” said Heftman.

Vince Polito, senior vice president of Reed Exhibitions, advocates harnessing the power of corporate events to energize the trade show. “Corporate events are part of the event mainstream,” he commented. Because they tend to be a large expense rather than a revenue generator, Polito suggested that exhibition organizers offer to partially sponsor a corporate event and also to provide incentives to corporate event organizers to begin or end their event at the trade show.

Polito offered some tips to exhibition organizers and associations to help them avoid an exodus of exhibitors from trade shows toward producing their own corporate events. Some of the suggestions included:

·         Listen closely to exhibitors and attendees.

·         Know where buyers want to go to make their buying decisions.

·         Don’t let the board of directors decide where to do an event.

·         Be aware of market shifts in your attendee base.

Panelist Ian McGonnigal of the George P. Johnson Co. is program director for IBM Worldwide. As such, he is responsible for IBM’s corporate events and trade show participation. McGonnigal offered the perspective of an exhibitor turned corporate event producer and reiterated the power of face-to-face marketing. “93 percent of event managers surveyed say that the importance of event marketing is increasing or staying the same,” he said. At the same time, he commented, “Trade shows still provide the largest return on investment.”  He believes that while corporate events are here to stay, they will not replace trade shows in the near future.

One of the reasons that companies are looking at alternative marketing mediums, such as events, is due to poor results from many traditional outlets such as print, radio and television. “Customers are looking for ways to move their product though the pipeline. What used to be “value added” is not (value added) anymore,” stated GPJ’s McGonnigal. IBM chooses event marketing as an important element of its overall marketing campaign because, said McGonnigal, “IBM values customer interaction. They set up event opportunities that address their values.”

During the question and answer period of the session, discussion shifted to the subject of matchmaking, a tool that helps match attendees with exhibitors and sponsors, and provides the metrics that chief marketing officers can use to evaluate ROI. Vince Polito referred to BD Metrics as an example of a company that provides matchmaking technology that directs attendees toward exhibitors and educational sessions that meet their specific criteria.  Matchmaking applications, along with RFID (radio frequency identification), are the up-and-coming technologies in the industry.