May 7, 2009
Face-to-Face Events: Learning, Not Just Leads
Events Key to Creating Relationships that Drive Sales
Survival Skills: The Importance of Event Marketing in a Down Market
Exhibit Experts: Executive Perspective with Robert G Vallee Jr, CEO, George P Johnson
John Gallant, Executive Vice President/General Manager, Network World, Inc.
"If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball." — Jack Lemmon
Despite all the talk about social media, if you really want to learn about customers – what they need, what issues drive them, what they worry about – nothing beats a face-to-face conversation. Through their words, their inflections, their body language, the way they interact with one another in a group discussion, you can learn more in an hour with buyers or prospects than you can glean from hundreds or thousands of tweets and postings.
That neatly sums up the power of face-to-face events: You and your team are out on the front lines with potential buyers and your best customers, tapping into their collective psyche and finding out new ways to communicate more effectively and delivering rich insights back to developers and the sales team.
Is that really how it works for you?
I’ve participated in Network World and industry events like Interop for over two decades and, sadly, that’s not my perception of what takes place. Too often, companies treat event attendees as nothing more than leads on the hoof. The goal is to get them to swipe the badge, sign up for something and then move them along. Companies do a checklist: They have a speaker, they have a booth and they track the number of names collected. The success or failure of the event is measured in numbers: How many people were in the room for our speech? How many came to the booth? How many leads did I get? How many turned into sales (for those who follow the process through to that end)?
But is that the only way – or the right way – to measure the value of any event?
Maybe a more important – at least equally important – measure is how often and how well you engaged with customers at an event. Did you take advantage of the opportunity to simply talk? Did you collect customer intelligence from the people who worked your booth – the juicy data they got from the people who stopped to see them? Did they file an ‘after-action’ report along with the lead list? Did someone filter that field intelligence to the people who need it at your company? Did you set up any opportunities for your speaker to meet with buyers while he or she was at the venue?
Events are an investment for your company – an investment of limited marketing budgets and lots of staff time and energy. You can easily maximize that investment by creating opportunities for conversation. You can organize a dinner the night before or after the event and have a casual, candid roundtable chaired by your speaker or a guest. You can invite prospects to breakfast or pull together a birds-of-a-feather session moderated by a local customer who knows people in the area. You can send someone around on the show floor just to talk – to put together a kind of ‘man-on-the-street’ story for the team back home.
There’s no shortage of innovative ways to get people talking, and to create the very powerful impression that your company is listening. Event sponsors are all too happy to help you make good on those innovations, and with some planning and creativity you can find ways to get your customers and partners involved.
In tough economic markets, it’s easy to get overly focused on filling the sales funnel. But don’t be one-dimensional when it comes to events. Events are about more than just leads, they’re about learning.
JG
Events Key to Creating Relationships that Drive Sales
Confronted by a turbulent economic climate and the changing ways in which audiences consume and are influenced by media to make purchase decisions, the C-suite and boardrooms of major brands are looking to senior marketing and sales executives as a source for innovative new strategy. They are looking for measurable ROI on every investment.
All of this pressure on immediate value-creation has accelerated a process that has been underway for some time in the marketing sector. Brands are increasingly making a break with their ad-centric past by re-centering campaign strategy and creative across a variety of mediums.
To drive sales by persuasively engaging marketing-resistant customers in a targeted manner, business-to-business and consumer brands are now giving below-the-line channels such as Web marketing and events an opportunity to originate campaign strategy and creative as well as integrate with other mediums from the bottom up.
As a result, now is an unprecedented time for marketers to more deeply explore their organization’s investment in the event marketing discipline and how it drives integration with other marketing channels.
For the seventh year in a row, the EventView report, co-sponsored by the MPI Foundation, the Event Marketer Institute and George P. Johnson, provides the data and insight to build a business case for the more central role of events in today’s new marketing framework.
This year’s EventView report series has been taken to the next level – more relevant questions, deeper insights and more extensive interviews with senior marketing and sales leadership than ever before. The respondents are professionals with responsibilities across the marketing mix, outside of the event marketing function, and as such their answers are telling.
In this way, EventView is more than the broadest survey available of marketing and sales leaders’ budget plans related to event marketing and a benchmarking model for marketing professionals. It’s an orientation point for better decision-making around the marketing mix as we head into an uncertain future.
Top Ten Facts
- 32% of respondents say they will transition from event marketing to experience marketing in the next 12 months; 28% already transitioned
- 61% of respondents plan on implementing or have already implemented green initiatives within the event function; 47% are doing so as a result of a corporate responsibility mandate and report that green accounts for 13% of their event budget
- 47% of respondents rank the influence of procurement in marketing decisions as low with 25% of respondents indicating that the role of procurement/purchasing is increasing at their organizations
- 15% of the overall corporate budget is dedicated to marketing with 27% of the average marketing budget spent on event marketing
- 43% of respondents indicate that event marketing is taken under consideration along with other mediums and 32% characterize events as a vital component of the marketing plan; 15% say events are a lead tactic
- Event marketing (40%) and Web marketing (31%) are the first marketing channels to benefit from an increase in the overall marketing budget; Events (54%) and print advertising (50%) are the channels first affected by a decrease in the marketing budget
- 73% of respondents state that they engage in some form of post-event measurement with 6% of the event marketing budget spent on measurement activities
- Among Global respondents, companies that measure event performance are nearly 43% more likely to expect increases in their marketing budget than those that do not measure
- 52% choose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships followed by public relations at 21%
- 30% of respondents choose event marketing as the marketing discipline that provides the greatest ROI followed by Web marketing at 21%
For the full Event View 2009 Global report, click here. EventView is produced through a unique collaboration among the Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Foundation, the Event Marketing Institute (EMI) and George P. Johnson (GPJ) Experience Marketing. The research is executed by independent research agency Intellitrends. The Global report is part of a year-long series that provides insight into marketing strategies in North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific and across a number of verticals including Healthcare, Technology, Automotive and Financial Services.
Survival Skills: The Importance of Event Marketing in a Down Market
Erin Biba
It's no secret that the recent downturn in the American economy is affecting the events industry. Budgets are being slashed; event attendees are less willing or able to travel; and those attendees who do show up are also feeling the effects of the poor financial state of the country. As a result, exhibitors are being forced to scrutinize every detail to prove the value of their events.
The upside, however, is that with good strategic planning, a little creativity and a few tweaks to traditional marketing methods already in place, b-to-b marketers will be able to continue holding successful events. Here are some strategies and trends to keep CMOs allocating dollars toward events:
PROVE ROI NOW
If you only make one change to your marketing strategies, implementing ROI tracking programs should be the change; managers and CEOs will be asking marketers to justify the expense of events.
"If you're not on the measurement train, you better get on right away," said David Rich, senior VP-strategic marketing at George P. Johnson (GPJ), an experience marketing agency. "Those who have data are going to be in a much better position to have an informed conversation around that cost-cutting conversation than those who don't."
GPJ's recent "EventView" study, in conjunction with the Event Marketing Institute and Meeting Professionals International, found marketers that measure ROI are 2½ times more likely to receive increases in their marketing budgets than those that don't.
"We can surmise the reality underneath all of this is that it's not just about increasing budgets, it's about maintaining campaigns, programs and staff positions as well," Rich said.
The study was conducted from last December through this February. More than 1,000 individuals in marketing management positions in Asia/Pacific, Europe and North America were interviewed via telephone with the goal of clarifying the value of and role that events play in the marketing mix. The results of the 2009 survey have a margin of error of 3%.
In order to institute metrics quickly, most marketers advise hiring a company familiar with how it is done. Some methods include polling attendees before and after a show via e-mail or surveying attendees during a show. Marketers that would rather take on the task themselves can use Exhibit Survey's free ROI toolkit, available at http://roitoolkit.exhibitsurveys.net/.
BOOST PRE-EVENT MARKETING
When convincing attendees of an event's worth, marketers should also be providing potential attendees with the tools to enable them to persuade them on that score.
"The quandary that marketers are in right now is that companies are being asked to reduce costs. It's very important to continue to show the value in getting people together,"said Alison Jenks, VP-marketing at event marketing agency TBA Global.
"Showing the long-term, intangible benefits of an event is very important. Most likely attendees will need to make an argument about attending. Helping them talk about it with the people who approve their attendance and making that individual very aware of what the benefits will be is a good idea," she said.
One method is to have the thought leaders and speakers who will be giving presentations at the event help spread the word in advance. Have them connect to attendees through social networking or via the Web to give a preview of the types of useful information they will be providing those who attend.
Perks are also good: Cisco Systems recently introduced its NetVet program, which gives special VIP privileges to attendees who have been to three Cisco events in a row. In addition, many companies have been offering discounts for early registration.
GO DIGITAL OR GO HOME
Aside from the fact that digital events provide a significantly greater opportunity for measurement and attendee tracking, they also tackle the travel problem, since Web-based events make it easier for attendees to choose your event over other, non-Web-based ones.
And if they are keeping close track of audience and early registration numbers, marketers can determine the need and scope of Web-based activities.
“If you're starting to have worries about attendance level, develop an online channel early,” said Phil Collyer, senior VP-creative services for Cramer, a digital marketing and events company. “You need to have time to market the online experience to attendees. Interestingly enough, these virtual event products are at a point now where you can populate content into a virtual event very quickly.”
Keep in mind, however, that attendees expect different outcomes from an online event. “They are expecting interactivity, choices and brevity. They have a lot of other things they can do online,” said Rob Everton, creative director at Cramer.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Spending money on large, lavish events can have a negative impact on brand image during a period when attendees themselves are being negatively affected by the recession. Instead, many b-to-b event marketers are using the events themselves to invest in their local communities.
LexisNexis, a company that provides Web and information services, has developed an event program called LexisNexis Cares. For its employee and partner meetings, the company participates in local charity events. Some of these—which have involved employees and business partners—include helping to rebuild a New Orleans playground, constructing 100 bicycles for a boys and girls club in Orlando, Fla., and volunteering at an orphanage in Malaysia.
“When you're going to hold a meeting, spend money in your local community,” said Robert Rigby Hall, senior VP-global human resources at LexisNexis. “Spend money in a responsible way where you're combining business with something that's good for society. You can play golf or go ‘Jet Skiing’ at a corporate event; but corporations should be doing things that help the communities they're in and cost less money.”
Additionally, says TBA Global's Jenks, it's important to remember that employees need attention during these troubled times as well. Organizing team-building community activities can bring people together and have them interact in new ways, she said. Ultimately, business partners and customers will be happier and more willing to do business with a company that spends their money in a responsible way.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
Find people where they gather on a daily basis. In many cases this means using social networking sites.
John McIndoe, VP-corporate marketing at Information Resources, a provider of solutions for tracking packaged goods in the retail and health care industries, said his company added blogging, Facebook and LinkedIn to the list of marketing strategies for its upcoming summit, assisted by Jack Morton Worldwide, in Las Vegas.
“We took a very hard look at understanding what was going on in the worlds of our attendees,” McIndoe said. “We understand that our prospects and clients are networking in different ways today than a year ago. This is a far more targeted event that says: "We understand your challenges, and here's how we're going to address that.”
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
The overall message from b-to-b marketers in regards to changing strategies to adjust to the economy is simply to have an open mind and be willing to make changes. Marketers that create true value in their event, target exhibits directly to attendees based on their emotional and personal as well as professional needs. And they use metrics to prove ROI should weather the financial storm and come out the other side with a new set of tools for successful marketing.
Exhibit Experts: Executive Perspective with Robert G Vallee Jr, CEO, George P Johnson
Companies and individuals are more receptive to change in times of difficulty, so the big opportunity is to take advantage of this renewed interest in getting more results out of marketing by bringing events closer to the center of the brand marketing mix.
Print and TV will always have a place, but face-to-face and online engagement are the new center point of effective marketing in which the objective isn’t any longer just about awareness. Now it’s about engagement and activation, and experience is the strategy that delivers on that more powerfully than anything else.
The opportunity doesn’t get bigger than that.
About the Author
An excerpt from an interview with Robert G Vallee Jr, CEO, George P Johnson that ran in Event Marketer in February 2009. For the complete interview, click here.
Insights and Access to Your Customers
During our rigorous qualification process, we engage these influential individuals to collect quantitative and qualitative data on their critical priorities and purchase intentions within specific technology categories. In addition to connecting you face-to-face with IT decision makers at the ITR events, we are able to mine this rich data to provide additional insights on your customers and prospects, to help you prepare to make the most of your ITR sponsorship.
Data on 2008-2009 budgets and purchase intentions include:
- While the average purchase decision timeframe for most technology areas has increased, or remained flat, Application Acceleration has actually decreased from 9.35 months in the first quarter of 2008, to 8.79 months in the first quarter of 2009.
- The average technology budget for each of the technology categories measured is more than $1 million. We also know which categories are slated for additional dollars.
- Volumes of verbatim comments that can help you understand your customers’ and prospects’ mindset regarding specific technologies.
Technology data categories include:
- Application Delivery
- Data Center Infrastructure
- Network Management & Access Control
- SaaS & Cloud Computing
- Security & Compliance
- UC, VoIP and Collaboration
- Virtualization
- WAN & Branch Office
Our team can help you plan an event strategy to fill your sales pipeline with IT decision-makers actively researching specific technology solutions. Contact your Network World sales executive today for more information and our category specific reports. Visit our IT Roadmap Conferences & Expos, where you can meet these influential IT decision-makers, visit: http://www.networkworld.com/events/