These are the 10 Most Bizarre Crimes Ever Committed by an Association Executive

NOTE: The confessions below are transcribed from official police files.

"We spent our marketing money on digital ads."

"Yeah, we sent email, but didn't know it was all flagged as spam."

"We quit phoning members twenty years ago."

"We quit sending direct mail twenty years ago."

"Games? Don't believe in them! Our members are serious."

"Humor? Don't believe in it!"

"Fun. Don't believe in it!"

"We never thought about authenticity. What is it, anyway?"

"We didn't change with the times. It costs too much."

"We ignored everyone under 40."

TAKE A BITE OUT OF CRIME. 

Download Growing Your Event: 10 Magic Bullets for 2018. 

It's yours free, courtesy Bob & David James.

And have a Happy New Year!

Why are Events Attracting Publishers?

While events are no easy money, publishers are onto them like white on rice.

Digiday reports that Forbes, in a move "symptomatic of an industry in change," is shifting from magazine to event production, firing print people and hiring event ones.

"Forbes’ struggles aren’t unique, given the carnage that befell both traditional and digital media outlets in 2017," Digiday says.

What's behind the carnage?

A new study by Reuters suggests readers are done with digital content—there's too much of it, both good and bad—and that content shock is slaying the golden goose digital publishing represented 20 years ago.

Today's readers spend only eight minutes a day on publisher's content—and most (92%) are  unwilling to pay for it. That's made it nearly impossible for publishers, reliant on advertising income, to sustain profits—no matter their investments in cool platforms and reputable content.

"The content bubble will eventually burst unless more robust business models are found," says Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, coauthor of the study.

One "more robust business model" may in fact be events, where margins hover around 30%.

Events No Easy Money

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland
 just with the idea of making money. 

— Walt Disney

Publishers find events alluring.

According to Hubspot, 26% of B2C publishers and 42% of B2B publishers say they're today's fast-growth revenue stream.

And why not? The publishing business model and the events business model seem quite similar on the surface.

But any resemblance is deceiving.

“Events are not the golden goose publishers think they are,” one publisher recently told Lucinda Southern, reporter for Digiday. "Events work when it fits into the publisher’s key interest areas, passion points and depth of knowledge.”

"Publishers are not just competing with other events companies, but any content provider or brand that claims to have a route to consumers," Southern writes. "Making money from events often requires a dedicated team and a different set of skills when selling event sponsorship packages."

Among the pitfalls:

• Events have sizable sunk costs (venue rental, speaker fees, marketing expenditures, etc.) absent in publishing.
  
• Sponsorship sales are tougher than ad sales. Salespeople need to understand event operations and must close sponsorship sales faster, often with non-advertisers. There's also more difficulty proving prospects' ROI.
  
• Events aren't a "bright and shiny" channel. They look old-school next to the latest digital "solution."

“They say events are like a sausage, wonderful to eat, but you don’t want to get involved in what goes into them,” another publisher told Southern. 

“You have to love the complexities, the highs and lows, embrace that passion. Publishing companies that dabble will not succeed.”

Ads Need Instant Meaning to Register

If a sign is not necessary, then it is meaningless.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

A fundamental law of advertising—a law too often ignored—goes:

The more you try to say, the less you get across.

How many times have you seen mind-boggling ads like this?

What's the advertiser promoting, you wonder. 

A family of ales? A bar? A restaurant? 

None of the above.

It's a trade show. 

But is it the cloud computing industry's "premier show?" Or is it the cloud computing industry's "global show?" You decide. The advertiser can't.

Confusing ads never register with readers.

"Ads need to have 'instant meaning' to stand a chance," says a recent report from brand consultancy Kantar Millward Brown.

"When developing ads based on an idea or feeling you want to communicate, make sure these can easily be grasped," the report says.

"An idea or impression has a better chance of landing, and influencing, what are often superficial future purchase decisions."

More on James' Hierarchy

A colleague asked me to rate his organization's events on the 5-point scale I proposed earlier this week.

The events are among the most important, prestigious and successful in the market they serve.

That understood, I gave them a single star.

To recap the rating system I proposed: 

• 1-star events focus on everyday needs, satisfying attendees' needs to navigate without stress through physical space; meet other people and chat; acquire useful information; and talk business.

• 2-star events cater to fantasy, satisfying attendees' needs to lessen anxiety and escape reality.

• 3-star events provide cheap thrills, satisfying attendees’ needs to be wowed and titillated.

• 4-star events provide genuine thrills, satisfying attendees’ needs to be awed by proof of human ingenuity and displays of daring.

• 5-star events focus on melioration, satisfying attendees’ needs to improve not only themselves, but to better the lives of others.

If you are honest about your own event and can at best award it one star, remember that to earn a 1-star rating from Michelin, a restaurant has to represent, “A good place to stop on your journey, indicating a very good restaurant in its category, offering cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard.”

Even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants all don’t have a Michelin 1-star rating.

13 Email Marketing Don'ts

My clients are nonplussed by spam traps. 

Me, too.

Spam traps catch legitimate emails—even personal ones—routinely. There are a million and one reasons; but most boil down to:

• The ISP that originated the message (some welcome use by spammers, so get themselves blacklisted);
  

• The software that sent the message (was it sent, say, sent by Outlook or by a suspected "spam engine?"); and
  

• Content "red flags" (flashy HTML, for example, or words and phrases like "click" and "buy now").

Like death and taxes, you cannot avoid spam traps. But you can try. Here are 13 email "don'ts" to help you:

• Don't neglect list hygiene. Bad list hygiene may very well be the email marketer's "original sin." Clean your list regularly through an outside service to remove non-deliverable email addresses.
  
  
• Don't get flagged as a spammer. Use email delivery providers who closely guard their reputations and don't use "dirty servers" to send your messages.
  
  
• Don't include a lot of pictures. Hackers love to use pictures to spread viruses, so spam filters consider every one of them a carrier.
  
  
• Don't include a lot of links. Two are safe; three or more put you in the danger zone.
  
  
• Don't use spammy keywords. Avoid "amazing," "limited time only," "you're a winner," and other dangerous words and phrases. Watch your Subject lines, in particular. A line like "Urgent reply required" makes your message look like a Nigerian business proposal.
  
  
• Don't use large fonts, colored fonts, or ALL CAPS. They'll raise your spam score.
  
  
• Don't send attachments. They're another tool hackers love. By sending them, you're begging to be blocked.
  
  
• Don't flout CAN-SPAM rules. Don't omit your return address or an opt-out feature.
  
  
• Don't send to web-based email addresses like Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL. These providers have traps that are unforgiving. If you must send to web-based email addresses, realize many messages will be blocked.
  
  
• Don't send to "seeds." Seeds are inserted by list-scrapers into harvested lists. Sending emails to them will get you flagged as a spammer.
  
  
• Don't send in the dead of the night. That's what spammers do.
  
  
• Don't send too often. Spammers do that, too.
  
  
• Don't bombard a single domain. Corporate email servers are set up to block messages sent to a large number of people at one domain.

Who Attends B2B Events?

According to American Express' 2018 Global Meetings & Events Forecast, five kinds of folks show up at B2B events.

Knowledge Seekers. These attendees want to improve themselves. Content and speakers drive their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Target your content to them
• Invest in a high-profile speaker
• Offer lots of choices
• Provide for note-taking and session-materials archiving in your app
• Offer creative meeting-space set-ups
• Include sessions that feature attendee-speaker interaction
• Provide great post-event information

Tech-Savvy Networkers. These attendees value relationships. The volume of opportunities to connect drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include features in your app that ease connection
• Gamify your event
• Provide tons of networking sessions
• Offer speed networking sessions
• Supply the attendee roster before the event
• Keep conversations going post-event

Inspiration Seekers. These attendees crave purpose. The volume of experiences drives their decision to show up. To woo them:

• Include motivational speakers and self-help and coaching sessions
• Offer brainstorming and co-creation sessions
• Offer chances to become immersed in the destination
• Use alternate venues that remove them from the traditional one
• Offer community outreach or CSR experiences

Social Butterflies. These attendees love meeting new people—and sharing the experience. The volume of meet-ups drives their decision to show up. To woo them, you should:

• Offer tons of opportunities for interaction in breakout sessions
• Offer informal meal settings, to encourage socializing
• Pack your event with entertainment and leisure activities
• Ask Social Butterflies to be your advisors
• Give them opportunities to be influencers through your app

Reluctant Attendees. These attendees are introverts. Professional obligations—and nothing more—drive their decision to come. To woo them:

• Make the professional benefits of attending clear in promotions
• Offer ice-breakers early during the event
• Include lots of breakout sessions
• Point out content that is forward-thinking or research-based
• Include ample free- or down-time
• Include a recommendation engine in your app
• Provide a virtual version of your event

Brand Fanatics. These attendees are devoted followers. Opportunities to get the "inside scoop" drive their decision to attend. To woo them:

• Include plenty of gadgets
• Provide access to key brand representatives
• Offer chances to win exclusive merchandise and experiences
• Provide product demonstrations and early access to new products
• Hold focus groups to allow them to share their insights and ideas
• Showcase the brand end to end

Event Marketers Missing the Boat

When it comes to leveraging attendee data, event marketers are missing the boat, according to a new study by Cvent.

The company asked 400 of them what they believe:

• Only 29% say they're good at collecting attendee data
• Only 20% say they're good at integrating it into their systems
• Only 23% say they're good at using it
• Only 38% say they understand what attendees do on site
• Most―75%―say they're missing opportunities by not integrating more attendee data into their efforts

It's not as if nobody cares. 

Among event marketers, 81% say collecting and harnessing attendee data is "extremely important."

How to Ignite More Attendees

Why are marketers pouring money into influencer marketing?

Dwell time.

Customers spend on average 19 seconds looking at a digital ad, 128 seconds looking at an influencer's content.

That's seven times the dwell time—a duration likely to rise soon with the increase in ad-blocking in the coming months.

So how can you use influencer marketing to promote your event? 

Experiential agency Legacy Marketing suggests these 10 ways:

Find the right influencers. To find thought leaders in your category, surf on social platforms using hashtags and trending topics relevant to your event.

Set reasonable expectations. Understand both the positives and negatives of the influencer's preferred social network when you establish goals.

Chill out. Let influencers do what they do. You can mention guardrails they should keep within, but don't dictate their posts.

Build a relationship. Don't treat the influencer like another vendor. Make her part of your family.

Strive for quality. Quality trumps quantity. You're better served finding an avid "micro-influencer" with 1,000 followers than a haughty generalist with 1 million.

Run contests. Engage the influencer in helping you promote contests.

Minimize brand-speak. Give the influencer talking points, but let her do the talking.

Track. Ask the influencer to use tracking tags when possible, so you can measure her efforts. Be sure she also includes a link to your website!

Be patient. Influencer marketing takes time.

Be authentic. Influencer marketing works because it’s a way to leverage a trusted voice. Don’t compromise that trust by inserting marketing messages where they're not welcome.

Bad Apple

Why does Apple seem bent on sinking your event?

In the past 13 months, the tech giant has taken shots at three activities vital to your event's well-being:

• In August 2016, Apple released Version 10 of iOS, which lays siege to your email marketing program. Version 10 begs users to opt out of senders' lists by displaying a mammoth unsubscribe banner above each incoming email. Opt-outs have soared ever since.
  

• In June 2017, the company announced its next version of Safari will block retargeting, so your ads won’t stalk prospects any longer. Safari will "sandbox" any third-party cookie after a day; and if the prospect doesn't revisit the site that dropped the cookie within that period, Safari will prevent it from dropping another, should she later return. Ad agencies are in a lather over Apple's move.
  
  
• In July 2017, Apple triggered "Appageddon" by prohibiting "white label" apps (built from templates) from its App Store. That includes the vast majority of event apps. Marketers must forfeit event branding in favor of the app developer's branding, or resort to paying for custom event apps.

Is Your Event Profit Proof?

What's the "inconvenient truth" about selling online?

You'll go broke, says blogger Steven Dennis.

"Only a handful of venture capital-funded “pure-plays” have (or will ever) make money," Dennis says.

The rest (including Amazon) operate at below-average margins for the retail industry, amassing huge financial losses year upon year.

Of themselves, free shipping and liberal return policies guarantee these companies will remain "profit proof," Dennis says.

Worse yet: the cost to acquire a customer. When it comes to customer acquisition, web retailers suffer "diseconomies of scale," Dennis says.

"Many online brands attract their first tranche of customers relatively inexpensively, through word of mouth or other low cost strategies," he says.

But then, marketing costs start to escalate.

"As brands seeking growth need to reach a broader audience, they typically start to pay more and more to Facebook, Google and others to grab the customer’s attention and force their way into the customer’s consideration set," he says.

"Early on customers were acquired for next to nothing; now acquisition costs can easily exceed more than $100 per customer."

The higher the acquisition costs, the lower the gross margin on the resulting incremental sales, a dynamic that eventually lands the business in hardship.

Whenever I plan an attendee acquisition campaign for an event producer, I budget the marketing efforts using, give or take a few bucks, the same amount of money Dennis mentions—$100 per attendee.

Want 500 attendees? Plan to spend at least $50,000.

Some event producers balk—How can it cost so much?

But after more than three decades in the event-promotion business, working on events large and small and in a variety of industries and professions, I've found it a real-world rule-of-thumb.

And most producers who spend that kind of money on marketing can, in fact, run a successful event and go home with a tidy profit.

The "diseconomies of scale" only enter the picture when registration fees are low ; or when producers discount and give away registrations; or—the worst case—when admission to the event is free.

Of course, attendees are a necessary evil: without any, exhibitors have been known to complain. But they need not have "negative value" when registration fees are low (or nonexistent).

Attendees can be little ambling profit centers.

How?

Sell attendees livestreaming.

Events are cornucopias of content. When you capture that content on video, you can sell it to attendees for post-event consumption. None of them can be in two places at once, so none can possibly imbibe all the content you offer. What's more, every attendee loves to share good content with colleagues "back at the ranch." Why deny them that pleasure?

And why make your event "profit proof," when it can be enormously the opposite?  "Back-of-the-room" sales of livestreaming come cheaply, because attendees are already in your "store." The gross margin on the incremental sales you make will come at an extremely low rate—almost for free, if you already videotape content for projection purposes, as most producers do.

Want more food for thought? Check out my posts "Conference Planners: There's No Sin in Syndication" and "Just be Willing to Believe."

NOTE: CEIR reports that average attendee-acquisition costs currently range from $14 to $20 per person. But I don't believe the figures are reliable. My own past research, done in the 2000s, showed acquisition costs to range from $68 to $80 per person. CEIR's report, nonetheless, can help any producer get a grip on event-industry spending trends, and is worth studying.

Conference Planners: Make Every Moment Instagramable

Planners, I pity you.

You haven't cracked Gen Y's code yet.

Now you have to wow Gen Z.

The US Census Bureau reports 74 million people belong to Gen Z. In just three years, they'll represent 40% of attendees.

Their intolerance of passivity makes the rest of us look like sheep; so does their penchant for social media activism.

And therein lies both the problem and the solution, says Skift.

No longer can you deliver your grandfather's conference and expect Gen Z to stand for it—or sit through it.

“If it’s not interactive, they’re not going to stay at the meeting,” planner Cindy Lo tells Skift. “They need to be entertained and they’re looking for those Instagramable moments.”

But if you try only to razzle-dazzle Gen Z members, Lo says, you'll fail. You have to razzle-dazzle them authentically. And you have to do it long before they'll even register.

And you have to do it long before they'll even register, because they judge a conference's real values before deciding to engage.

“Gen Z can sniff out fake so fast,” Lo says.

But how do you avoid appearing "fake?"

One way: avoid interruptive calls-to-action like "Tweet this!” in your marketing. Gen Z members understand marketing better than previous generations and abhor tacky commands.

Another: be Instagramable in your marketing. Use tons of imagery to promote your event, keep your copy short, and make both mobile-friendly. You'll not only convert more Gen Z members into attendees, you'll turn them into advocates for your brand.

How to Draw a Crowd

Drawing attendees to events remains producers' runaway biggest challenge, as Sam Lippman's latest ECEF Pulse proves.

Six in 10 producers name attendance acquisition their Number 1 challenge, according to the study, while numerical event attendance has declined three straight years in a row.

That's a pity, because drawing a crowd ain't rocket science. The formula goes as follows:

Step 1. Build an evergreen e-list by promoting your event year-round. Use e-mail marketing and social media. Smother prospects with great content. Supplement those tactics with retargeting. And rent prospect lists, to be sure you're covering the universe.

Step 2. Mobilize your speakers, sponsors and exhibitors to help spread the word. Tap influencers to do the same. Make it easy for them to help you. If some resist, move on: there are more than enough enlightened ones out there to make a king-size dent in your universe.

Step 3. Telemarket VIPs. They merit a special touch. And roll out at the same time some targeted direct mail―attendee marketing's Old Faithful.

Step 4. Hire a decent agency. Attendance acquisition isn't a DYI project. If you want a recommendation, I have one.

How to Acquire High-Value Attendees

Trade Show News Network asked five marketers how they'd go about attracting "high-value" attendees―influencers―to an event. They advised:

First, identify the influencers. Use markers like travel distance, length of stay, team size, job function, budget, track record, and social media footprint. While spend would be the most telling sign, it's impossible to determine, except anecdotally.

Target young guns. They're the next-gen buyers who assure an event's vibrancy and longevity. They may not display the signs of veteran influencers, but they're critical to your event's success.

Package and promote personalized perks. Provide free or reduced registration, airport transportation, express entry, care packages, onsite concierge services, private meetups, exclusive lounges, free tickets to local attractions, etc. Use big data to personalize influencers' pre- and at-show experiences, but never make anyone feel "stalked."

Have great events. Offer the right mix of exhibitors and convenient show hours. Use event tech to help influencers and exhibitors connect on site, and don't get hung up on appearing "democratic." Break a few rules to make influencers feel appreciated.

Show your appreciation. Send a gift after the event, and celebrate influencers' presence in your blog and other digital properties. Ask exhibitors to do the same. Influencers will return to your event―and draw others, as well.

TSNN interviewed Marlys Arnold, ImageSpecialist; Terence Donnelly, Experient; Ravi Kiran, Dazzletoday; Megan Powers, EventCollab; Walter Winn, Feathr.

BONUS TIP: Reach out and touch influencers. Use pre-show telemarketing to cut through the digital clutter. And I don't mean placing cheesy robo-calls. Orchestrate a high-end, B2B outbound campaign, to assure influencers their time's well spent at your event. Consider both pre- and post-show "courtesy" calls.

Trade Show Organizer: Is Your Agency Giving You a Bum Steer?

March's edition of Trade Show Executive includes an article by a marketing agency head who claims direct mail, the perennial attendance-acquisition "workhorse," is dying.

"Direct mail isn't dead," she writes. "Yet. Savvy event marketers are, however, anticipating and preparing for the moment the direct mail death knell finally rings."

In the same edition of the magazine, another writer claims, "Telemarketing as a marketing tool appears to be on its way to the 'outdated' bin."

Direct mail dying? Telemarketing outdated?

Rubbish.

In terms of marketing spend, in fact, both channels have held steady during the past four years, according to the latest survey of organizers by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research.

During the same period, the survey shows, email's effectiveness as an attendance-acquisition tool has declined.

Wrong-headed pronouncements like these―regardless of the intentions behind them―pose a real danger to any show organizer who buys into them.

They amount to what our grandfathers and great grandfathers would have called a "bum steer."

That expression―meaning bad advice intentionally given―came into fashion during World War I, when American troops fought alongside Australian ones on the Western Front.

Australians would call defective advice (which "steered" you) "bum," an Old English word referring to the buttocks.

Trade show organizer: Beware the bum steer.

Event Producers: Don't be Junk

Content's the insurance event producers need to avoid attendees' email trash folders, says dmg events' head of marketing John Whitaker.

While flogging registrations is the endgame, delivering content is the play, he says.

Whitaker resists the knee-jerk urge to blast attendees with event invitations, focusing instead on sending attendees offers of well-crafted content.

"We want to be less like junk in their inbox," Whitaker says.

Content not only attracts attendees to an event, but involves them with the producer's brand after the event is history.

"It seems a shame to spend a huge amount of marketing to get them to turn up for two, three or four days, and then not really engage with them until the next event," Whitaker says.

"If we can keep the conversation going and see the event as more of a 365 activity, then that helps us to have better traction, stops suppressions within out database, and creates a better appetite for conversion if we draw them in through content marketing."