The Future of Face-to-Face is Now

A lackluster CES earlier this month prompted Fortune to question the appeal of live trade shows.

CES' organizer "will unquestionably hail it as a success and tout the benefits of face-to-face interaction despite the pandemic," Fortune observed. "And, in many ways, it’s hard to argue against that."

The sparsely populated event, however, underscored the fact that exhibitors can no longer be expected to spend tens of thousands—if not millions—of dollars merely to meet a handful of buyers; and that attendees can no longer be expected to hop cross-continental flights, merely to meet a few suppliers.

"While the sponsors of these events are eager to bring them back, the attendees are a lot less certain," Fortune said. Given the hesitancy, "it’s valid to ask if they're worth it."

My take is that, with the advent of the virtual meeting, live events' future hangs in the balance.

They may not be worth all the fuss and bother.

To keep live events worthwhile—and better than their virtual cousins—organizers must find new ways to assure not only participants' safety, but their ROI. 

The latter is something organizers haven't had to do—and something they may not be able to do.

For the harsh truth is, while virtual events are far from great, they're good enough. 

They allow buyers and sellers to connect, while eliminating almost all of the downside risks inherent in live events.

And in a risk-averse world, that says a lot.

Live events may be history, unless organizers find ways to reduce participants' risks.

Not one day, but now.

Above: Conference at Night by Edward Hopper.

The Elephant in the Room

When we don't tell the truth, and others don't tell us the truth, we can't deal with matters from a basis in reality.

— Jack Canfield

A cheerleader for the event industry recently begged organizers to avoid any mention of what's foremost on exhibitors' minds: attendance.

In an industry that's touted—and inflated—attendance numbers for 70 years, that suggestion isn't merely ironic; it's absurd.

But, as writer Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

When you're the one who's in charge of the circus, there's little sense in denying the elephant in the room.

Exhibitors aren't that stupid.

A 2,000-Year-Old Industry That's Overdue for Disruption (and It isn't Prostitution)

This is the age of disruption.

— Sebastian Thrun

Q: How many industries have remained the same for 2,000 years?

A: Two. 

The first is the "oldest profession," prostitution; the second, the trade-show industry.

That's rather remarkable when you consider the Product Lifecyle Theory.

The theory assumes obsolescence and disruption are baked in, and that only continuity in consumer tastes can forestall a product's inevitable decline.

We know the tastes matched by prostitution haven't changed much—if at all—since Caligula's time. They continue unabated.

Perhaps the same can be said of trade shows. 

As the Ancient Romans did, people still want to meet "face to face" to swap stories and do business, pandemic or no.

The question isn't whether they'll want to continue to do so, but how much? How much will they want to meet face to face—and at what cost and inconvenience?

Show organizers are counting on the answer being a lot.

But their confidence may be based on a pre-virus worldview.

Businesspeople post-virus are favoring smaller, state and regional shows to get their "face-to-face fix," shunning large confabs and southern hot spots.

The days of large national and international shows may at long last be numbered—and their audiences easy pickings for some disruptor waiting in the wings.

I'm hardly the first industry-watcher to say tradeshow organizers' business model is overdue for disruption, and won't be the last.

But 2,000 years is a hell of a long time to grow without innovation.

You Cannot Download Experience

 

We event dinosaurs—who've witnessed and dealt with the long- and short-term effects on face-to-face marketing of recessions, travel-bans, terrorism, pandemics and the web—are frustrated by the industry's vivid demonstration of inaction and incompetence in reacting to Covid-19.

Experience stems from bad judgments. 

But in a youth-oriented, know-it-all society like ours, the lessons learned from bad judgments made in the past are considered trivial; and the dinosaurs who made them, annoying.

It's too bad you cannot download experience with a click.

Gamifying Masks

Event producers who want to encourage mask-wearing at conferences and trade shows should consider what won't work.

Behavioral scientists at the University of London analyzed 65 studies of "failed interventions"—failed attempts to influence behavior—conducted over the past decade.

The researchers found:

• 40% of failed interventions relied on attempted "social norming"—on encouragements to adopt a behavior simply because it's "expected"
  
  
• 24% of failed interventions relied on messaging that was delivered on printed flyers and texts
  
  
• 15% of failed interventions relied on simple "defaults"—opt-in or opt-out
  
  
• 12% of failed interventions relied on product labelling

The findings suggest incentives may be required to persuade attendees to wear masks.

Gamifying mask-wearing—randomly rewarding attendees for wearing their masks—might do the trick.

And sponsors would love to underwrite it.

Mask Politics: Another Threat to Live Events

An association executive, writing on LinkedIn, points out that many of the businesspeople at a live event she attended recently refused to wear masks.

"Masks are politicized," she writes. "Plain and simple. Many, many adults did not wear them. 

The exec sees others' insistence to go without masks ironic, given the purpose of the live event was to cheer on the reopening of live events.  

"For all of the rallying cries of 'working together to get us back to work' in the meetings industry, there were a lot of people who apparently felt their right to not wear a mask trumped everyone else’s shared expectations for safety.”

As long as mask-wearing is political, live events are threatened.

Perhaps eventpeeps should plan two editions of every live event in the future: Coastal (Safe Edition) and Flyover (Superspreader Edition).

Or should they consider my other solution? 

Happy Days

There’s a trick to the "graceful exit." It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or past importance.

― Ellen Goodman

Job losses in the event industry are staggering, with some estimates exceeding 95%.

But to mention the industry's downturn, or suggest that the happy days are over, is to invite exile.

The holdouts won't have it.

Although the industry's collapse may deserve a speed-record, collapses have happened before. 

Whole swaths of the economy—industries that once employed tens of thousands—have been suddenly, and permanently, eradicated.

Some memorable examples of such now-extinct professions include:

• Badgers. Badgers were loud-mouthed middlemen who hawked farmers' goods at open-air markets. (The profession gave us our verb meaning "to harass.") Grocers made them obsolete overnight.
  
  
• Lamplighters. Lamplighters were driven out of business with the introduction of electrified street lights. 
  
  
• Pinsetters. Pinsetters set pins in bowling alleys before the job one day was abruptly mechanized.
  
  
• Knocker-uppers. Knocker-uppers woke people, using a bamboo stick to rap on their customers' windows. The invention of the alarm clock doomed them.
  
  
• Leech collectors. Leech collectors supplied surgeons with blood-suckers before "bleeding" patients fell out of favor.
  
  
• Resurrectionists. These wily entrepreneurs—also known as "body snatchers"—supplied med-schools with corpses until the use of paupers' bodies was legalized.
  
  
• Computers. Computers—often women—crunched numbers all day, until calculators made their jobs obsolete.
  
  
• Lectors. Lectors sat before factory workers and read aloud from books—sometimes books banned by management—to keep the workers entertained. A union strike in the 1930s put them out of business.
  
  
• Ice cutters. These rugged specialists, who cut big blocks of ice from lakes and delivered them to homes, were frozen out by the electric refrigerator.
  
  
• Milkmen. Every housewife's friend, the milkman suffered the same sad fate as the ice cutter.

The disruption triggered by the pandemic is horrendous. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. 

But it makes me wonder, can possible good come from the collapse of the event business?

I can think of two benefits:

A cleaner planet. Long before the lockdown, critics of the industry proclaimed the practice of assembling thousands of businesspeople, year after year, to mingle with suppliers and sit through seminars was unsustainable. But event organizers shunned sustainability, because it would slice into their profits. Perhaps tomorrow's organizers, facing a new breed of attendee, will think differently about their carbon footprint.

Better wages. I was among the lonely souls promoting virtual events over a decade ago. (In 2011, with an equally avid partner, I produced a day-long workshop that featured five case studies of successful virtual events. Getting more than a couple dozen organizers to attend the workshop was like pulling teeth, and we discontinued it a year later.) I have long believed that, like Hollywood and IT folks, event professionals can earn better wages as virtual event producers. It's an exciting, emergent field—a veritable "wild west"—and promising territory for those willing to acquire the right skill-set.

For those who can't, or won't, accept that the happy days are over, perhaps it's time for a graceful exit.

Down for the Count

Last week, The New York Times listed 11 popular pastimes that, thanks to Covid-19, may already be "things of the past."

According to reporter Bryan Pietsch, you should no longer expect to see people:

• Blow out candles on a birthday cake
• Drag on a buddy's vape pen
• Let their kids jump into a ball pit
• Get a department store makeover
• Play in an escape room
• Drink at a crowded bar
• Sip from a scorpion bowl
• Host a poker game
• Perform karaoke
• Shop for pleasure
• Shake hands, kiss, and hug

I'd add a 12th activity you're unlikely to see people engage in again:

• Attend trade shows

Wait, what?

Face-to-face events are vital.  

Schmoozing is irreplaceable. 

Trade shows mean business.

Yes, once upon a time, that was true. 

But the world has been turned upside down by a microbe.

It's hard to imagine a world without trade shows. 

But whoever thought trains, alarm clocks, encyclopedias, maps, drive ins, and pay phones, would disappear?

Eighteen years ago, SARS dealt the trade show industry a body blow; but the disease was contained swiftly, and the industry rebounded.

This time 'round is different. Covid-19 isn't SARS. 

The punches keep coming.

My Take on the Events Industry

Dear Pollyanna:

So sorry to burst your bubble.

The ride you're on is neither brief nor V-shaped. 

Covid-19 has thrust events into an existential crisis.

Whether the crisis was overdue is beside the point.

Everyone knows this year will be seen disruptive.

But no one knows—once we get control of the virus—whether or when the events industry will rebound, or what shape events will take.

Yes, I agree with you: face-to-face fills a Maslowvian need.

But events will have to be reformulated to succeed post-pandemic. 

Attendees aren't going to revert to old behaviors. 

Your can't, either.

If you're betting otherwise, call me.

I have a bridge to sell you.

Event Shock

Brace yourself for Event Shock.

Working with event organizers, as my business partner and I do, I feel their anxiety.

They're constantly worried there's a glut of events. ("With so many events competing for audiences' time, will they pick ours?")

But we've entered uncharted territory.

Organizers once had to contend only with competing organizers.

Now they have to compete with every marketer.

This thought struck me when I received an email today from my neighborhood hardware store promoting an in-store educational event.

Marketers—even the one who works for my local hardware store—have learned that, if they want to seduce customers, sales pitches and discounts are no longer enough. 

They have to deliver educational content.

And their efforts are increasing the volume of events—exponentially.

You thought there was a surplus of events before?

That was nothing compared to the innumerable iterations we're going to experience at marketers' hands in the coming years.

Event marketing has become the new content marketing. 

The event-flood may not rise to the same water-level, because marketers can't outsource events to India, like they can content; but it will feel like it.

The sheer volume of events will be unprecedented.

And overwhelming.

Event Shock is here.

HAT TIP to Mark Schaefer, who coined Content Shock to describe the "tremor" felt when content supply overwhelms content demand.

Hedging

"Lead-gen leaders" are twice as likely to use a multi-channel approach as "mainstream companies," according to a survey of 1,000 B2B marketers by Digital Doughnut.

You could say lead-gen leaders understand hedging.

They know that "no single class of content asset stands out as particularly effective for driving good-quality leads," as Digital Doughnut reports; and yet, at the same time, that every class―if used well―can drive good-quality leads.

The channels they find most effective? The answers below might surprise you.

Source: The State of B2B Lead Generation, courtesy Digital Doughnut

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."

Marketing Misfires are Maddening

Old-line retailers are deluging holiday shoppers with irrelevant emails this season, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Among other misfires, retailers have been promoting luxury underwear to broke college kids and women's clothing to men.

"Retailers have their work cut out for them when it comes to customizing and personalizing their email offers," the paper says.

So do many event marketers.

They're swamping attendees' in-boxes with vague offers of "must-attend" conferences.

Attendees are growing angrier and more resistant by the day.

The counter-move is targeting, and you shouldn't be surprised if 2018 turns out to be the year event marketers mastered it. 

The stakes are too high to do anything less.

Targeting demands not only that you segment your lists, but that you think hard about the relevance of your value proposition, and its expression. Can you:

• Distill your value proposition? Can you convey is a few short, simple sentences why anyone attends your event? Can you make the sentences memorable?
  
  
• Capture the message in a Subject line? Can you convey that value in 10 characters?
  
  
• Personalize the email? Can you avoid sending generic emails? Simply including the reader's name in the Subject line boosts open rates 26%.
  
  
• Assure readability? Can you design emails that encourage speed-reading and comprehension (especially on a mobile phone)?
  
  
• Leverage your content? Can you put content and speakers center stage? Will attendees meet celebrities, thought leaders, and influencers at your event?
  
  
• Provide social proof? Can you persuade readers they'll miss opportunities others enjoy by attending your event? Dropping names and including testimonials do this.

The Seven Pillars of Lead Gen

Businesses that depend on salespeople for lead generation cannot grow rapidly or steadily.

Salespeople aren't good at it. 

While slow, uncertain growth may be—in fact, is—just fine for most business owners, for the rest lead gen is the job of marketers.

I'm aghast at the number of marketers I encounter who don't grasp lead gen's fundamentals, perhaps because they've never had to do more for a business owner than "make us look pretty."

Those marketers need to master the seven pillars of lead gen, if they hope to avoid tomorrow's scrap heap of outmoded jobs.

The seven pillars are:

• Email. Of all the pillars, email has the best ROI; but it's overdone and threatened with extinction on many fronts. And many marketers have no clue how to write compelling emails, or leverage prospect lists.

• Events. Events are expensive, but unbeatable for generating leads and accelerating conversions. But many marketers don't grasp the importance of speaking at events, engaging attendees, or following up. They believe it's sufficient merely to show up.

• Telemarketing. Outbound telemarketing. although not cheap, has the highest response rate. But many marketers shun it, due to its unfortunate association with "boiler rooms."

• Direct mail. Out of favor for over a decade, postal mail is the Comeback Kid, because it delivers leads at high rates. But many marketers aren't even familiar with the basics.

• Content. Content is marketing, the secret sauce the generates leads—and SEO. But too many marketers lack the imagination and discipline to produce and publish quality content—whether written, recorded, or illustrated—at a regular pace. And too many don't know how to syndicate content.

• Advertising. With the targeting tools and niche websites available today, web ads have become solid sources of leads. But many marketers don't know what makes an ad click-worthy.

• PR. PR isn't dead, it's just different than it used to be. It's still storytelling par excellence and a powerful lead-gen tactic when used correctly.

Sponsors Want Spillover

Rigid thinking causes most trade show organizers to continue peddling sponsorships like they were ads, when today's sponsors want something much more valuable.

Sponsors want spillover.

Spillover results when attendees transfer their good feelings about an event to its sponsors―an effect no ad can produce.

While today's marketers believe awareness―the outcome of advertising―is hard to measure and cost-justify, they don't feel that way about engagement―the outcome of sponsorship.

Today's marketers will sponsor an event to engage people within communities; to build relationships and demonstrate market leadership, customer care, and social responsibility. 

They'll even do it merely to block a competitor from doing it.

But they won't sponsor an event for awareness.

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.

Where Should a B2B Marketer Spend Her Money?

It's September. You're being bugged for next year's marketing budget.

Spending is an art form. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sure, year-over-year analytics tell you which channels have produced, but—like any investment—"past performance is no guarantee of future results." We'd all still be buying full-page ads in trade magazines, if that were so.

For my money, your mix next year (ranked by percent of total spend) should look like this:

1. Events
2. Telemarketing
3. Direct mail
4. Retargeting
5. Email
6. SEO
7. PPC
8. Social

Too many channels for your paltry budget? Then work the list from the top down. You can't go wrong.

Don't be tempted to lay all your money on low-cost channels (like email and social), just because they're low cost.

A handful of proprietary events or an exhibit in a couple trade shows, done well, can generate enough leads to keep you in the black for 12 months. A well-conceived telemarketing campaign can do the same. Even a regular stream of pretty postcards can.

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.