online marketing: Virtual Trade Shows – worth it?
fan foundry – how customers happen
Tuning the people/process/info stack for better sales, marketing, service.
fan foundry – how customers happen
Tuning the people/process/info stack for better sales, marketing, service.
Hi from Scotland. My name is Chris, and I’m running a blog about trade show displays.
Chris, thanks for chiming in. How can I help?
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Interesting, Anton. If I follow you correctly, t seems you’re commenting on the article’s observation that tech companies are more likely to be successful with virtual trade shows partially because they and their audiences are more comfortable using technology to get things done…and you’re politely arguing that the ubiquity of the web for all types of business makes that observation a tenuous one. I would love to hear your experiences; this would certainly add dimension to the discussion. No doubt companies that host virtual conferences would be interested in this. Contact me to explore continuation of the dialogue; sounds like a great blog article idea. Thanks.
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“Going to a show” is viewed as, and managaed as, a company perk. Perks for the marketers, the attenders, and the press.
Managers cannot say, “As a reward for your success on this project, I want you to sit on this WebEx for four hours.”
As budgets have cut back, live show attendance has been more about marketing to marketers, and the biproduct of hooking up with the most successful inside achievers, and most influential press, has faded.
Small regional shows already offer reduce travel costs and seem mostly to be uninspired. People come-and-go quickly leaving the at-any-time attendance even more disproportionally low. Vendors fall-back to the boring tri-fold, table-top displays that can never wow, and the cycle of apathy accelerates.
The big show has also been a vehicle for presenting strategic direction. Breaking news at a small show does not get significant press. Breaking news on a virtual show would not get significant press.
If it’s not a reward for your best employees; if it’s not a way to meet the best employees of other firms; and if it’s not a way to break strategic news, I’m left wondering what the appeal of a virtual show is compared to YouTube, and how it could follow-on in the tradition of the trade show.
The genre of the trade show may be filed away with “whistle stops” and “green stamps” as quaint ways marketing used to be done.
I’m currently doing research on live vs. virtual events, both “seminars” and “trade shows”. From the research I’ve done thus far, and the interviews I’ve conducted, there are obvious tradeoffs between the live and virtual forums.
Some differences are obvious: the production cost of doing a virtual event is significantly less. No travel, no meals, no lodging, no room rental, no booth construction, shipping or storage, no booth space rental, etc.
But the results and the ROI from a virtual vs. a live event are still unclear. It varies from show to show, company to company. My research, thus far, is showing a clear pattern: generally, with a virtual event, although you’ll have a lower cost, you’ll also have less engagement between the attendees and the speakers/exhibitors.
People who log on to a webinar, webcast or virtual trade show are, of course, in front of a screen, where the “multitasking” work mode is in high gear. Yes, the attendee is “at” your event, but they are also answering email, composing a document, surfing another website or talking on the phone with the sound of your presentation muted.
There appears to be some evidence that there is a trade-off between the lower cost of a virtual event and the number and quality of leads that result from a (less expensive) virtual event and a (more expensive) live one.
I’ll be working on this for the next few weeks and I’ll have more to write about it then.
Steve, it appears your results and the results/comments of this august group support the infallibility of the fundamental ROI equation. If you invest little (virtual trade show: online presence = divided attention) you get little (attention) in return. If you invest highly (your physical presence, a scarce commodity and a non-renewable resource) you tend to get a better return in terms of attention, engagement and PR. There are no shortcuts. I will contact you about my compiled comments from various resources and possibly collaborating on my article.
Cheers,
Ed