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 3 Brands Found Their Content Niche

Kara Whittaker contributed today's post. She is a content marketer with Ghergich & Co.

When you think of Red Bull, what do you think of?

You probably associate the brand with its energy drinks, of course. But Red Bull has an interesting backstory that provides key lessons for content marketers looking to make more of their brands.

Red Bull actually got its start in Europe, where extreme physical challenges—biking, hiking, mountain climbing, and sky diving—are already an established part of the culture.

When the company realized it was in the sports, not the beverage, business, it decided to capitalize on that heritage, creating a series of extreme sports events that challenged the stamina of participants.

The events were so successful, the company created an entire division dedicated solely to producing edge-of-the-world content.

It's worked, which is why Red Bull is one of the globe's leading brands—and one of its foremost content marketers.

Content has been part of marketing for more than a century.

When Michelin realized it was in the travel, not the tire, business, it published travel guides; and they gave rise to a what has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon: the Michelin Star rating system for restaurants.

And when GoPro realized it was in the user-generated content, not the camera, business, it leveraged UGC to build a fanatical fan base—and a world-class brand.

You can emulate brands like these by asking, "What business are we really in?"

And, yes, it takes time, testing and chutzpah to find your content niche.

But once you do, the sky's the limit.

What's the Right Content Mix for B2B?

Apps. Blogs. Case studies. Digital tools. E-books. Events. Games. Graphs. Infographics. Newsletters. Photos. Podcasts. Presentations. Reports. Quizzes. Videos. Webinars. White papers.

What's the right content marketing mix?

Begin with the essentials:

Blogs. The Number 1 source of leads, says Search Engine Journal. Without a blog, your strategy's spineless.

Events and webinars. What's better than blogs? Three of four B2B marketers say events. Webinars are a close second. A single event can pack more punch than 100 blog posts.

Newsletters. Newsletters help you keep customers, and keep prospects interested. Weekly is the best frequency, if you can manage it.

Videos. Six in 10 decision-makers visit a brand’s website after watching a video, according to Inc. And four in 10 contact the company.

White papers. White papers trumpeter your authority, essential to persuading customers to buy from you. 

Case studies. Case studies provide social proof, equally essential to persuading customers.

E-books. E-books can gather repurposed blog posts. They offer an outlet for dazzling design work, inviting to readers turned off by other formats.

Other content. Apps, digital tools, games, graphs, infographics, photos, podcasts, presentations, reports and quizzes are all just icing on the cake.

Windfall for Event Organizers

Event organizers can expect a windfall as companies boost their spending on face-to-face, according to Reuters.

The windfall comes at the expense of publishers reliant for revenues on companies' ad dollars.

"Organizers of conferences and trade shows are benefiting from a shift in the way marketing budgets are allocated, with companies spending less on advertising and more on events," write reporters Esha Vaish and Noor Zainab Hussain.

Research firm Outsell pegs the spend for B2B events by US companies this year at $28 billion, a 4% increase over 2016. US companies will spend $35 billion on ads this year, a 6% decrease.

"While the battle between traditional and online media outlets has grabbed headlines, companies are often skeptical that advertising with either translates into sales," write Vaish and Hussain. "Hence the shift towards events."

While conferences' and trade shows' prospects are closely linked to the economic health of the industries they serve, the shift of marketers' dollars to events offsets revenue losses due to other factors, such as government-imposed travel bans.

Tradeshow Malcontents

Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

— William Shakespeare

UK exhibit builder Display Wizard recently asked 100 marketers whether tradeshows have a bright future.

Their answers might disturb you: 75 said yes; 25, no.

The 25 nay-sayers cited the rising digital tide as the reason—and their nagging disappointment with organizers, who are molasses-slow to adopt new technologies.

You might, as a hard-working organizer, respond, "Sure, we're not perfect, but attendees love our event!"

Maybe, maybe not.

Late last year, the event research firm Explori found, worldwide, tradeshows earn abysmally low Net Promoter Scores from attendees (from a high of 20 in the US to a low of -6 in Asia).

To put that in context, an "average" company's Net Promoter Score ranges from 31 to 50. (The worldwide Net Promoter Score exhibitors gave tradeshows was worse: -18.)

Explori's analysts noted that attendees' low scores can't be attributed to "so-called 'hygiene factors' such as venue layout, signage or catering, but highlight far more fundamental problems." T

radeshow exhibitors aren't displaying the innovations attendees crave.

Again, as a hard-working organizer, you might say: "So what? Many thriving industries have low Net Promoter Scores."

And you'd be right: duopolistic industries (where customers have little choice) all have negative scores. (Think cable TV, for example; Comcast and Time Warner Cable both have negative Net Promoter Scores—more unhappy than happy customers.)

But the tradeshow industry isn't a duopoly.

Attendees and exhibitors have choices. They can participate only in segment-leading shows. Or only in niche shows. Or they can meet elsewhere; at virtual events or—more likely—proprietary ones.

And, as a hard-working organizer, you might say: "I'm not worried. We're used to exhibitor churn. There'll always a few malcontents."

But you should worry.

Malcontents don't just represent the portion of customers who aren't satisfied.

They represent a potential mob that can become radicalized—that can pick up the weapons of social media and declare jihad on your plush bottom line.

B2B Events Get Hip

Expect more annual B2B events to market themselves like music festivals, according to Cramer.

Meetings once held in convention center halls and hotel ballrooms will migrate outdoors and to hip, alternative venues, offering inspired music and entertainment.

"Festivalizing" your B2B event means adding not only rad surroundings and music, but the other hallmarks of a big festival: frictionless registration, entry and wayfinding; a "choose-your-own-adventure" schedule; post-modern structures; exotic food and beverage; cause-related happy hours; playrooms and coffee houses; co-created artworks; social media extravaganzas; and event themes that celebrate coolness, community and creativity,

Festivalization's dual goals are "reinvigorating attendee bases and attracting millennial prospects, who prefer experiences, touchpoints and connections at events," Cramer says.

B2B event planners are riding a wave. According to Billboard, 32 million Americans attended a large music festival last year.

Events are for the Rest of Us

Most companies aren't great; indeed, they struggle to stay "good."

And that average ordinariness is what events are for.

Gartner Group upset the apple cart in 2011 when it predicted that by 2020, thanks to martech, B2B customers would manage 85% of their relationships with suppliers without ever interacting with a human being.

But in the years since, the event spend has grown by double digits. Last year alone, it grew by 6% (today, events are used by 73% of B2B marketers.)

So did Gartner get it terribly wrong?

Advocates of events say, yes: Gartner's prediction will never come true because we crave contact.

Advocates of martech say, no: martech adoption is merely lagging Gartner's prediction.

I think there's another reason for B2B events' enduring popularity.

The reason's economic, and lies in average ordinariness.

While the owners of the overwhelming majority of companies would love to lay off everyone, they can't afford best-in-class martech. They're good, but not great.

But the overwhelming majority can afford events... and that's okay.

Can You Dig Out of the Hole?

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

— Will Rogers

A new survey by the Association Research Board shows most association executives lack urgency and direction in their search for non-dues revenue.

The survey found only one in three association executives is “very committed” to tapping new non-dues revenue streams in 2017; the rest are only “somewhat committed” or “not committed.”

It also found one in four executives never discusses non-dues revenue-generation with her board.

While one in two association executives tapped a new revenue stream in 2016, the survey says, only one in four describes her revenue-generating activities as “highly successful.”

Association membership and dues revenue continue to decline year over year. So why do most association executives give non-dues revenue-generation so little priority?

Don't they see the only other way to dig out of the hole is to trim expenses—and members' benefits?

Journalist Michael Hart recently hosted a webinar exploring some alternative ways out of the hole.

Take a peek, if you're interested.

Corporate Wedding Planners Strike Back

An "aspirational" ad campaign of the late 1960s proclaimed, "You've come a long way, baby."

It took event planners a while to catch up.

But they assuredly have, as made clear by Kerry Smith and Dan Hanover's 200-page Experiential Marketing: Secrets, Strategies, and Success Stories from the World's Greatest Brands.

No longer "corporate wedding planners," experiential marketers in the 2010s have become marketing kingpins—the drivers and integrators of all the marketing "silos."

"Live experiences have ignited a marketing revolution in which brands around the world have committed to upgrading their marketing strategies, budgets, and platforms," Smith and Hanover write. "And that revolution has driven a much-needed evolution of the marketing channels and silos used by brands for 50 years."

The heart of the book lies in Chapter Four, "Anatomy of an Experiential Marketing Campaign," where the authors describe the 11 "Experiential Pillars" underpinning the channel.

"As with a great recipe in which the ingredients are blended together to create a unique flavor, these pillars work together to optimize engagement and will allow you to achieve the brand-building, value-creating, clutter-braking power of experiential marketing," they write.

They base the chapter not on hard knocks or gut feelings, but an analysis of the 1,000+ winners of the Ex Awards, the annual awards competition for live events they've produced since 2002. And the events they consider take not one form, but many, from PR stunts, in-store events and road shows, to trade shows, user conferences and sales meetings.

Reading Experiential Marketing tempted me to update my recent post, "My 5 All-Time Favorite Books on Marketing," because the book has the same quality as the "mind-blowing game-changers" I listed there.

No matter how much you've dabbled in event production, the authors give you a palpable sense while you're reading the book that you're on a path of discovery; that you're like one of those "Pioneers of Television" who's in at the inception of a powerful new medium with a yet-understood capacity to build large audiences and fundamentally reshape worldviews.

Buy it. Read it.


You've come a long way baby! by JustAnotherJester

The Marketing of Tomorrow

What's ahead for marketing tomorrow?

Writing for Forbes.com, Kimberly Whitler, a professor at the University of Virginia, asked CMOs for their predictions. 

She discovered:

• "B2B influencer marketing" will become all the rage. CMOs will turn to popular business authors, speakers, podcasters, and executives with large followings and pay them to hawk their products.

• CMOs will also begin to rely more on employees to spread brand messages through social, knowing they can speak more effectively than ads. And, because buyers hang out on many social platforms, CMOs will begin to think "multichannel first."

• B2B CMOs will embrace "account-based marketing," but not without a struggle, because it's hard to influence every decision-maker on every buying committee. To that end, CMOs will begin to use a "recommendation engine" like the one used by Netflix.

• Design will become the key brand differentiator, because big data is now just a "commodity." And educational content will become king. Unfortunately, CMOs will produce too much of it for buyers to absorb.

• CMOs will quit focusing on new martech (although thousands of new martech products will flood the marketplace). CMOs will focus instead on cybersecurity. They're spending up to 25% of their budgets on social, and have made their companies targets for cybercriminals.

• 30% of CMOs will be fired next year, because they lack the ability to drive results. Polish that resume!

At the Zoo

Are mammoth trade shows dropping like flies?

That's what AmEx predicts in its new 84-page report, 2017 Global Meetings and Events Forecast.

Companies' event marketing spend won't change next year, but where that money's spent will, according to the report.

Event marketers' spend will increase by 1% in 2017, while their participation in big North American trade shows will decrease by 20% (the average event marketer will participate in 8 of those shows next year, down from 10).

Event marketers will spend the money they would have spent on those big events on small, content-rich ones, instead.

Presaging next year's downturn, four flagship shows recently shuttered: ASAE's Springtime, CTIA's Super Mobility Week, FMI's Connect, and NCTA's INTX.

Which big fossils will be next to sing a swan song?

Event-industry journalist Michael Hart recently observed that, right now, tortoise-like associations are exceedingly vulnerable to their hare-like counterparts, the for-profit organizers, as more money chases fewer events.

While associations dither, "Nimble players can swoop in and launch a competing 'pop-up,' worrying little about legacy issues and more about profits," Hart wrote.

It's time for associations to give up the ostrich-act and take the bull by the horns. There's simply no time to monkey around.

Learn to ape your for-profit competitors!

Foxy Photo Sharing

Cybersecurity pros are clever. It's not easy to outfox them.

But Brian Reed has the animal instinct.

Reed is CMO of the early-stage social media security company ZeroFOX. His firm protects innocents from becoming prey to hackers, spammers and scammers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and dozens of other social media platforms.

Reed has tamed social to romance the cybersecurity pros attending mega events like Black Hat, SecTor and RSA Conference, and transform them into advocates for his scrappy new brand.

"Our participation in security-industry events like Black Hat and RSA represents a substantial business investment," Reed says. "So we have to do interesting things wrapped around those events to achieve the maximum results."

Reed believes social media today is all about pictures.

So before a recent event, he bought a Snapchat Geofilter, branded it, and hired a troupe of actors to pose with attendees for snapshots. Thousands of snapshots.

"Social media engagement is now largely photo-driven," Reed says. "That's why we make sure to arrange our participation at all large events around photogenic spots, bring backdrops and props, hire and costume an actor as our mascot, and have photographers at the ready."

Reed customized the Snapchat Geofilter with his company's graphics and tagline for the event, "They've weaponized social media." He also embedded hashtags in the filter, and in all his other social media outreach, to drive sharing.

"We leverage social media at all events where the audience is heavily Millennial," Reed says. "Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all allow geotagging and audience engagement."

At past events, he has also deployed video walls on site, to billboard the thousands of posts generated. And when the organizer has its own video walls for social media, Reed's team leverages them heavily, to drive on-screen promotion of his brand.

Reed's antics aren't contained to the convention center. At a Skyfall-themed after-party at Black Hat, he set up photo booths replete with a cast of James Bond characters, who hammed it up while attendees posed with them for shots (photos, not Tequila). The photo booths automatically added hashtags to every photo and printed funny signs that displayed the hashtags. Attendees could pose holding the signs, and further drive sharing and engagement.

"I like using social around events for a number of reasons," Reed says.

"First, it's purely user-generated content, so your investment in creative amounts to buying a filter. The rest comes from team engagement and creativity.

"Second, social extends the value and shelf-life of the events you participate in. A conventioneer actually will engage with your brand and help you grow it.

"Third, while you're aiming to reach non-attendees, attendees feel good about your brand, because you help them make new connections on the floor. 'I saw you with James Bond last night," a total stranger will walk up and say to someone. "That was awesome!"'

Reed has advice for convention center and hotel operators, based on his recent successes.

ZeroFOX's obsession with photo-sharing means the marketers at the company now choose booth locations, popup meetings and activities, and party rooms based on how photogenic the backgrounds are.

"There's no reason a venue's signage, lobby art or building features couldn't be part of that background, even if it's just part of a portable photo backdrop," Reed says.

"When I do site walkthroughs, I'm always looking at the visuals for social photo engagement. I encourage all event professionals to consider this a whole new way to market your space. Venues should become more open to thinking about the cross-promotional opportunities we can bring them."

NOTE: You can find Brian Reed (aka ReedOnTheRun) on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

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."

Digital and Events: They're Cousins

Yes, we get it: digital's hip and events are square.

But they're cousins, identical cousins all the way. One pair of matching bookends, different as night and day.

B2B CMOs know they spend 50 cents of every marketing dollar on events.

But they don't recognize, in reality, they spend even more.

John Hall, CEO of Influence & Company, recently told me an ever-growing portion his clients' digital spend directly supports customer engagement through events (before, during and after).

B2B CMOs are using online channels to drive face-to-face results; they simply don't assign that spend to the events.

That means CMOs are oblivious to the true picture. Spending surveys don't capture it either.

In this family, the brash, hip child is gets all the parents' attention, while the shy and dutiful one goes quietly about her business. What a wild duet!

Live Events: Wanamaker's Worry and the Pedigree Problem

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

John Wanamaker

B2B CMOs spend more than 50 cents of every dollar on live events.

But they don't share Wanamaker's Worry.

They never ask, how much of my money is wasted? They simply boost event budgets when sales are up; and slash those budgets when sales are down.

Event managers will gripe all day about spotty crowds, the cost of drayage, and the bungling of lead follow-up. But the foolhardy spending begins and ends with CMOs—specifically, with their pedigrees.

CMOs ascend to their lofty jobs through predictable routes. Advertising. Digital. PR. Research. Product management. Sales. 

Have you ever heard of a CMO who once held the job of event manager at his—or any—company?

The consequence of their pedigrees is: CMOs bring blinders to the job, when it comes to live events.

It's why they don't share Wanamaker's Worry.

Cash Cow

Event producers are gaga over a cash cow who never stops lactating.

It's the broadcast technology known as live-streaming.

American Association of Occupational Health Nurses exemplifies those bullish producers.

AAOHN wanted to engage the 80% of members unable to travel to its 2016 annual conference, says David McMillan of PCMA. So it live-streamed the content, charging the same price for the virtual as the face-to-face experience. Sixty members ponied up the $500. Better yet, a sponsor paid $25,000 for the right to hand out free tickets to customers.

With more footage in the can, AAOHN is "sitting on a stockpile of additional educational content and potential revenue," McMillan says.

But live-streaming does more than immediately monetize events; it publicizes them.

Live-streaming "operates far beyond the traditional broadcasting model," says Tom Owlerton on CMO.com. 

"At its best, live-streaming helps brands go from storytelling to storyliving; they can broadcast behind-the-scenes at big, topical events to share footage that people wouldn’t otherwise get to experience first-hand."

Live-streaming from events, due to the buzz it creates through social media and word of mouth, "can create a huge impact."

The kind that converts to moo-lah.

Preaching to the Choir

Today's post was contributed by Michael J. Hatch. Mike is managing director of DARE, a one-day conference that helps CMOs leverage the spend on B2B events.

So often we hear from event-industry leaders and organizations how powerful and important face-to-face is. 

More often than not, though, they are preaching to the choir.

While attending a family wedding in Detroit recently, I heard that message delivered loud and clear in a most unexpected setting—a Sunday morning church service.

Here's an excerpt from the sermon delivered by Rick Barry, Middle School Pastor, on August 7 to the congregation of Oak Pointe Church in Plymouth, Michigan:

"I want to pause and talk directly to my middle schoolers and millennials here this morning about my sixth and final point about communications and relationships. 

"Put down your electronics! Face to face is the best way to communicate. 

"In our technology-driven world, with texting, phones and emailing so prevalent, we need to make sure we are committing to communicating face to face.

"Hands down, face to face is by far the best and most effective way to communicate with anyone. Because in face-to-face communication, we see all of the non-verbals that are missed in digital communication: we see a person's eyes; see their smile and facial expressions; hear the tone of their voice; see different emotions that are being felt; and the body language that you never see, hear or feel when texting or emailing. 

"If you find yourself hiding behind a text or email, fight that urge and try to go face to face with the person you want and need to communicate with."

After hearing this message from the pulpit it occurred to me that the event industry does not need a big-budget ad campaign to get our "power of face to face" message to mainstream America. 

Rather, we should adopt a completely new guerilla marketing strategy.

All we need to do is rally the preachers of America to deliver the message about the power of face-to-face communication and relationship-building to the millennials in church every Sunday—allowing our message to take root and rise throughout the land, and into the halls of Congress and the board rooms of Corporate America.

Event-industry Brothers and Sisters, can I get an Amen?

POSTSCRIPT BY BOB JAMES: With a little push, Mike's idea is could catch fire. Clergy often turn to online sources for sermons. Were the event industry to submit a sermon like Rick Barry's to these websites, who knows how quickly the message might spread? Influencer marketing worked wonders for the gas industry. Why not the event industry? Now you're cooking with gas!

DISCLOSURE: I am a part owner of DARE.

Complaining isn't a Strategy

When the world changes around you and when it changes against you—what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind—you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn't a strategy.

Jeff Bezos

A new survey by Sydney-based The Exhibit Company shows 91% of trade show exhibitors "struggle with leads." Respondents identified six component challenges:

• Attracting visitors to their booths
• Attracting the right ones
• Engaging them
• Qualifying them
• Tracking them
• Following up

While they grouse mightily, many exhibitors hold onto the very practices that assure failure. Most:

• Pick shows wrong for their products 
• Set no objectives, or unmeasurable ones
• Fail to promote their presence
• Mount unwelcoming exhibits
• Muddle their message
• Assign booth duty to novice salespeople
• Forget to turn the salespeople into a team
• Turn off or simply ignore passers-by
• Produce distracting stunts
• Make giveaways a focal point
• Annoy visitors with stupid questions
• Neglect to ask strategic questions
• Refuse to automate lead capture
• Dump leads on salespeople after the event
• Allow leads to go un-nurtured

Exhibitors who bungle their part are like the substance abuser. 

Each one of the bad habits is easy to kick, but the abuser's addicted to her self-pity.

Complaining isn't a strategy.

Events: Working in a Coal Mine

This week I asked a savvy agency head, Cary Hatch, if B2B marketers were really as deep down into F2F as many event-industry people claim.

Her response: "Yes, they're into events, for the sales. Events are the currency of business today."

B2B agency head Gary Slack has told me that, with the exception of digital, his own clients devote more dollars to events than any other channel.

That exuberance is confirmed by Outsells' research analyst Michael Balsam: “Digital is still king, but events play a large role when you need to touch and feel things as part of the sales process."

And according to content agency Brafton's Molly Buccini, three of four B2B marketers boosted their event spend this year.

"When it comes to bridging the gap between digital and traditional marketing activities, events are an easy way to combine forces," she says.

Something's amiss, however—despite the spend-fest. As B2B marketers continue to sink more into events, they plan and execute them without objectives, strategy, or cognizance of corporate goals.

They've done so forever, as B2B marketing research analyst Julian Archer notes: "We at SiriusDecisions currently see a familiar pattern of too much emphasis being placed upon the activity of an event and not enough on outcome."

I ask, as the lyric to "Working in a Coal Mine" does, how long can this go on?

Brevents Face Tight Marketing Budgets

Event producers in the UK on average spend only $10,697 to market a B2B event, according to a new survey by Eventbrite.

That amount is paltry compared to a US producer's average marketing spend, which is 28 times greater.

Brits spend the majority of their marketing money on outbound email. 

They also rely heavily on word-of-mouth to draw attendees, the survey finds.