Measurement Tip 24

Understanding the Value of Conferences

Is your conference an expense or an investment?

Many organizations regard their conference as a necessary expense, one that serves to educate customers to be successful in using products or influences employees to do a better job.  Having evaluated and measured a variety of conferences, we found something different. In this tip, we explore how conferences deliver real, near-term profit improvement beyond the conference.  And, we look at how a great conference can influence other objectives such as organizational growth and customer retention.

The conferences that deliver the most value for the organizer or host have a common characteristic; they successfully provide value to all of the other players in the conference ecosystem.  Simply stated, organizers attract participants through valuable offerings and content.  Sponsors and exhibitors seek valuable access to targeted, high-value participants. Sponsors and exhibitors provide the organizer with valuable funding and support in return for access. The organizer perpetuates and grows the cycle.  All participants seek value in return for their contribution of time and money and smart organizers and hosts ensure that it is provided. 

In addition to profit improvement, the well-planned conference also serves the organizer’s overall mission and goals. For example, many associations seek membership growth, in part, by providing great value to their members through the conference experience.

For those of us with interest in exhibitions at conferences, numerous studies have shown that that exposure to content provided by sponsors and exhibitors is an integral part of conference participant value and satisfaction.  When the organizer and the sponsors and exhibitors are attuned to the strategic needs of the participants, the momentum builds quickly. Intra-event communications using digital and social media make it possible to learn from members as well as serve their needs between events.  

Increased revenue and expense reduction resulting from conference participation – after a successful conference participants may take actions that result in improved business results for the host.  Here are a few of the most likely results:

Increased Sales –

Participants will make upgrades to systems and products and purchase new offerings learned about at the conference.  Designers or integrators may incorporate more of your products into their designs and offerings.  Applicable measures: Conference related sales

Reduced Support Requirements –

• Participants will have less need for technical or customer support through knowledge gained at the conference.  Applicable measures: Changes and cost associated with levels of customer service access and requirements

Enhanced Loyalty, Customer and Revenue Retention –

• Retention of the participants’ existing level of business is ensured through enhanced affinity, familiarity with your company and product and reduced perceived risk. Applicable measures: Retention rates among conference participants vs. non-conference participants, Average revenue value of a customer, Cost of a lost account, Cost of a new or replacement customer.

Recurring or Repeat Revenue Growth –

• Participants experience personal and company success, leading to growth on the existing revenue stream. Many conference providers focus efforts to help their participants grow their own business, thereby increasing the demand for their own products.  Applicable measures:  Financial and growth performance of conference participants.  Associated sales volume.

Other Expense Reduction -

• Conference activities may produce cost savings in hundreds of ways.  Exploiting the time and place opportunity afforded by attendance at a conference allows a company to accomplish goals that would require additional time and expense to duplicate in the future and in different locales.  For example, teaching 3,000 customers at a conference the nuances of your upgraded product may be much more cost effective than sending field sales teams out to do the job on-site or relying on digital media.  Providing customers and prospects with access to your executives and experts may create an experience and exert influence that would not otherwise be possible or financially feasible. The possibilities are endless. 

Communications, Press and PR Value –

• Conferences can generate considerable press and PR exposure through conference related promotion, advertising and marketing campaigns.  The value of conference related promotion and earned media can be equivalent to several million dollars of advertising exposure for the host.  Inspiring the press to focus on your strategic initiatives, included in the conference content, is invaluable.

All of the above either impact the revenue or expense side of an organizer or host’s profitability or income. 

How can a conference help an organization to grow?

When participants and sponsors feel they derive great value, organizers may experience an increase in event participation and membership.

In my research I have learned some of what participants seek at conferences, related to their job:

Immediate Impact:

• The ability to make informed decisions
• The ability to make effective near-term changes and improvements
• To make connections with people and resources valuable in achieving improvements and goals
• To reduce personal and organizational risk (see what works!)

Future Results:

• To identify and consider influences that affect good planning

These may be regarded as “strategic needs” of the conferee.  Conferences that focus their content on these types of topics excel.  Exhibitors and sponsors who focus their messages and demonstrations for customers on these types of needs will be successful as well.  This provides a great basis for targeting the content of publications, and content delivered through education, digital, and social media on value for all concerned.  

As the word spreads of a conference’s value in meeting these needs, attendance will grow.  As it becomes apparent that a company or membership organization delivers a constant stream of strategic information, customers and memberships will grow too!


Ed Jones
President, Constellation Communication

To get started on your event marketing measurement program, contact us today at +1.770.391.0015 or edjones@constellationcc.com

 

 

 

 

Measurement Tip 23

How a Well Trained Exhibit Staff Delivers Positive Results and Measurable Outcomes

You have heard it repeated that your exhibit staff accounts for roughly 80% of your success as an exhibitor. But what are the actual accomplishments that result from a well trained staff? These outcomes provide not only a measurement set but also a serve as planning guide for your staff training. Well-conceived staff orientation and training lead directly to increased quality and effectiveness of the following goals:

1. High Value Contact Engagement

o   More engagements with the correct targeted participants

·       Applicable measures: percentage of engagements/visitors and total number of engagements

o   More agreement for follow-up activities

·       Applicable measures: number of leads, number of contacts added to marketing database, improvements in relationship maturity, etc.

o   More sales ready prospects delivered into the sales pipeline or funnel

·       Applicable measures: number of qualified leads (that are acceptable to sales), number of goal conversions, etc.

o   More meetings with better focus on business accomplishments

·       Applicable measures: number of meetings, number of meeting related follow-up commitments

o   Significant cost savings/expense avoidance

·       Applicable measures: total future travel and facilities cost avoidance through meetings

 

2. Marketing Communication

o   A well-trained exhibit staff provides a consistent “story,” told in its intended context

o   Messaging, branding and marketing themes are more clearly and consistently communicated

·       Applicable measures: changes or accomplishments in awareness, message or information recall, shifts in preferences such as brand and purchase intent related to measurement

 

3. Presentations, Demonstrations and Product Showcasing

Presentations and interactive demos are large expenses upfront, but significant effectiveness and cost savings may results. As you have probably already concluded, how well the staff learns to utilize these tools will determine the payback on the investment! Interactive demonstration and presentation technology present huge opportunities to improve results.

o   Increased number and effectiveness of demonstrations and presentations

·       Applicable measures: number of demos and presentations, the number of participants in same, participant ratings of presentations and demonstrations value, changes in awareness, recall, preferences and intent

o   Decrease in number and cost of future field sales calls

·       Applicable measures: Number of targeted visitors who receive a sales call equivalent, number of appointments or follow-up actions

o   Improvement in probability of sale for conditioned prospects

·       Applicable measures: ratings of “sales readiness”

4. Customer Relationship Management

o   Increased Customer Retention

·       Applicable measures: number of current customers seen at event, amount of current revenue addressable at event, documented “saves” as a result of event interaction

o   Cross-Sell and Up-sell Opportunities

·       Applicable measures: Number and type of up-sell, cross-sell transactions as a result of or at event

5. Additional Staff Related Accomplishments

Exhibit staff can be trained on other practices and procedures such as:

o   Protecting competitive intelligence

o   Gathering competitive intelligence

o   Other business improvement and recruitment interactions with valuable contacts such as suppliers, channels, press and others

These accomplishments and their measures represent just a few of the many ways you can substantiate the time and cost of training your staff to be effective at every event.

A common concern echoed among many exhibit managers is, “Our sales people are so experienced and expert they will not accept or participate in exhibit staff training.” In practice, well conceived training is most often praised by top level sales people and sales executives. They recognize that working from an exhibit is not the same as making a personal visit or even a phone call where participants and facts are known beforehand.

When asked to comment about pre-show staff training impact, a senior business development executive of a major international company recently responded, “{Staff} training added significant value to trade show participation and resulted in real opportunity identification and follow-up. The training and approaches for better use of the available displays result in even the most experienced business development professional learning something new about customer interaction and setting the stage for winning profitable new business.”

Use this guide not only to plan your staff training, but also to justify the expense in qualitative and quantitative terms. An effectively trained exhibit staff obtains results that you can prove and allows you, the event manager, to be seen as a manager of the company’s business!


 

If you need assistance with your event marketing measurement program, please call us at +1.770.391.0015 or email me at edjones@constellationcc.com

Ed Jones

President, Constellation Communication Corp.

 

Measurement Tip 22

Could Just Knowing Who Attends Your Event Be the Most Important Measure of Success?

I have attended too many events where the host could provide little, if any, detail about who participated. This is quite often the case with trade show exhibit marketing. So, why is this so important?  Attracting an adequate number of targeted participants is the single most important factor in success or failure of a marketing event (or most any event.).

Hosting participants who can directly benefit your company is a prerequisite to every other aspect of a marketing or customer event.  If the right people are not present, the remaining activity is almost meaningless. Therefore, performance measurements of your efficiency in targeting, invitation and attendance results are among the most important factors in reporting results and making improvements in future events.  

  

The importance of attracting an adequate number of targeted people stems from my research over several decades.  During that time I identified three factors, which determine the success of an event:

1) The ability to attract enough people who can personally deliver benefits to the host

2) Success in communicating with these participants in a persuasive manner

3) Success in obtaining the desired behavioral response from these participants (i.e. to take a step in the sales cycle or engage in another targeted business process)

What is clear is that without adequate attendance the subsequent steps have no effect.  Keeping a focus on identification, targeting and attracting the most valuable audience for every marketing event will do the most to increase your results and ROI.  This will also help you to develop more effective criteria for defining and obtaining qualified, sales ready leads.  A simple phrase that sums these ideas up is, “Those who attend must be those who can act in a way that benefits your company!”

To make a difference in an upcoming event requires that you begin your process a minimum of 6 months before the show date.  It also requires that you involve sales, marketing and product management, if possible, in the discussions of who is targeted at an event and how the target set matches up with priority products to be showcased at the event.

This approach can open new avenues for communication with a wider group of managers within your organization.  The new players need adequate time to understand the opportunity and to “buy in” to the plan and to make their contributions to the final result.

Step 1 - Define the target audiences you seek to reach using a descriptive hierarchy:

1. Industry or Market Segment (ex: Construction)
2. Company Type  (ex: Aggregate Paving, Demolition)
3. Company Size  (ex: 1 million and above in revenue)
4. Functional Responsibility (ex: Executive, Finance)
5. Title (ex: President, CFO, V.P.)
6. Name if practical (ex: Joe Tomlin)

Consider a show that will be attended by over 100k people (net).  You will likely target less than 20% of that number.  Limited show hours and other exhibitors competing for each visitor’s attention and time may prevent your from seeing even those you target.  If you do not target your desired audiences, you will be simply hoping that one qualified fish out of every five that swim by will jump into your boat.  This is not a good proposition!  Working with a finite number of targets reduces your overall work to a more manageable and successful approach.

Step 2 – Define the addressable audience

The chart above is from an actual report showing a pictorial analysis of the “target markets” available at the composite industry’s largest show.  Each sub-market is plotted according to the percentage of total individuals participating in the event.

We can see at a glance that Transportation is the most prevalent segment represented, followed by Marine, Custom Molding and Aerospace, etc.

Now, consider for a moment that the Electrical/ Electronic products division of an exhibiting company wants to bring their entire line to the show because they are sharing in the budget.  It is easy to conclude that doing so may not be a good use of space or expense.  This is great information for answering the perennial question, “What should we show in our exhibit?”

Step 3 – Attracting the targets 

Often the best sources to consult are the demographic profile of show attendees available from show management.  You should also use contact lists available from industry publications and your own marketing database.  Develop and run a query from your target criteria developed in Step 1 against these databases.

You may purchase mailing address lists that match your criteria for direct marketing.  (Phone numbers or email addresses may or may not be available.) 

If the show management will not rent you a list, they often will launch you campaign for you.  Review you exhibitor kit to arrange purchase of a list or distribution services.

Step 4 - And beyond

Once you have identified your targets, it is up to you to design and deliver pre-event marketing campaigns and coordinated personal invitation campaigns using your executives and sales team.  Remember, prospects are only one of many valuable audiences at an event.

Track who visits your exhibit or event by stopping people at random and documenting their demographic profile. Take demographics and simple attitude responses while people wait for a presentation.  Or, you can use a tool such as exit surveys.  You can also swipe badges for as many people as possible, using a simple "giveaway" that will not attract too many of the wrong people.  Next, run a measurement report of your attendance using the registration/ leads data from show management. 

Documenting as many visitors as possible is an excellent habit to develop.  Be sure people who respond to a pre-event marketing campaign or invitation are identified in the process.  Compare your results to your original targets.  A lead should usually be a person who fits one of the targeted profiles.

When you target and invite the right participants, event and exhibit staff will be much more effective in conveying the proper information and gaining commitments for follow-through.  The people they see will be interested in what they are saying and the information will be relevant to them.

I will write more on this in the future.  Meanwhile, be sure to call me if you want to discuss ideas.

Ed Jones

President, Constellation Communication Corporation

+1.770.391.0015

edjones@constellationcc.com