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.

Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

— Margaret Atwood

Although brought to its knees by Covid-19, the event industry remains vital—and can be a powerful political voice, when it chooses to be.

It's time for the industry to speak up for women's reproductive rights and boycott Texas.

Trade and pubic show organizers, convention planners, and corporate event marketers should join in solidarity. 

Exhibitors and sponsors should join in, as well. (They no doubt will.)

No events in Texas! None. Not a one.

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.

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? 

The Party's Over

 

That's the great part of capitalism, gales of creative destruction.

— Larry Kudlow

Instead of wringing their hands over the walloping face-to-face has taken, eventpeeps should be celebrating Covid-19 with Larry Kudlow: "creative destruction" has decimated their industry.

And now, after three successive quarters of negative growth, it's time for a sober assessment of where the events industry is heading in 2021 and beyond.

It's heading to oblivion.

Yes, the industry plummeted off a cliff in February, once the organizers of Mobile World Congress called it quits. That event was the first of the big dominoes to topple; the rest of the western world's large confabs quickly followed suit—or wished they had.

But Covid-19 was only a catalyst, accelerating an already-irreversible downward trend. 

As a viable marketing channel, events had peaked before the virus ever left Wuhan, and were inching toward decline. That's for two reasons:

• Exhibitors are done with them. Events are all the things a CMO shuns when choosing a marketing channel. They're expensive, unproductive, unpredictable, unaccountable, unrepeatable, unmeasurable, unsustainable, wasteful and—sad, but true—too much about the salespeople having fun.
  
  
• Attendees, too. Events are all things an attendee shuns when choosing a means to educate and improve herself. They're all of the above—and noisy, to boot.

Eventpeeps predict the channel that's provided their livelihoods will one day rise, phoenixlike, from coronavirus's ashes.

But the hard truth is: it won't. It can't. Covid-19 has clobbered it.

The party's over.

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.

Fond Memories of a Forgotten Industry

If you want to know where the future goes to be seen, look here.

― Charles Pappas

Charles Pappas, reporter for Exhibitor, has compiled a lighthearted treasury of trade show tales titled Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords: How World's Fairs and Trade Expos Changed the World. 

It's a whimsical wayback machine that whirls you through a century and a half of gadgets and the shows that made them famous.

Pappas' goal isn't to spotlight the stars, but the stage. 

Although worth about $100 billion today, trade shows are a forgotten industry, he says, "as invisible as the oxygen in the air around us."

And that's ironic because shows are much more than "product platforms," Pappas says: they help launch social movements.

You'll find tons of delightful trivia inside his 250 pages.

Among my favorite:

• We owe our obsession with dinosaurs to an 1851 London show
  
  
• We eat bananas because an 1876 Philadelphia show popularized them
  
  
• The seed money for the Statue of Liberty came from shows in Paris and Philadelphia
  
  
• Aunt Jemima owes her fame to an 1893 Chicago show
  
  
• The electric vibrator premiered at a 1900 Paris show (where else?)
  
  
• The Patriotic Food Show promoted eating roadkill to help ration food in 1918
  
  
• Space travel launched at a 1927 show in Moscow (30 years before Sputnik)
  
  
• Picasso's "Guernica" began life as a trade show mural
  
  
• The run on Nylon stockings began at the 1939 New York show
  
  
• The term "Con" (as in Comic-Con) was coined by the same promoter who coined "Sci-Fi"

Pappas' book suffers from the author's overuse of puns, but they're easily overlooked amid the fascinating stories he tells. 

Don't miss Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords. It's a lot of fun.

Events' Uneventful Downfall

Humankind's oldest, events remain, if not the cheapest, the best marketing channel.

But CMOs aren't keen on them, according to a report by The CMO Club.

While 7 of every 10 CMOs surveyed say events accelerate sales, 2 of every 3 say events aren't measurable; and 7 of 10 say events' "accountability gap" throws into question the event spend.

The accountability gap "creates challenges at budget time when the funding decisions are being made about events," according to the report. 

"While events are deemed critically important, they often lack the supporting financial data to objectively prove their value. Compared to other components of the CMO’s marketing mix that have become more sophisticated in measuring ROI, event marketers are lagging in their ability to connect the dots between activities and demonstrated results."

The accountability gap also makes choice difficult―the chief reason companies exhibit in the same events repeatedly, complaining all the while about lack of ROI.

What's a marketer to do? The report suggests you should:

Set unique goals for each event. "Not all events have the same purpose," the report says. "Some are designed to generate new leads and accelerate opportunities currently in the pipeline, while others are focused on strengthening relationships with key customers and gaining feedback to improve how marketers can better respond to their needs." Setting unique goals "will create a foundation for capturing the appropriate data to analyze the events against the stated objectives."

Create unique plans for each event. "Silos" often prevent cooperation between marketing and sales, pre-, at-, and post-event. Preparing written plans will knock down the silos and encourage both groups to capture relevant data.

Deliver an experience. This is mandatory. Quit simply checking boxes. Pick up the phone and call people before every event, be ready with a strong value proposition, and deliver it on site. If your event isn't an experience, it's a waste of time.

Feed your marketing automation and CRM systems. "Rarely are events judged on the revenue produced at that event," the report notes. "Opportunities discovered at the event take time to close and require significant post-event nurturing from marketing and follow-up from sales." Unless you import event data into your marketing automation and CRM systems, you can't track results.

Measure both activities and sales impact. Data captured at events should demonstrate ROI, not just reflect a bunch of activities. Ask your CMO to help you create C-suite-appropriate reports.

If events don't become a measurable marketing channel, they'll continue to be seen as a grievous expense, rather than an income-producing asset, the report concludes.

That could be their downfall.

How Do You Reach C-Level Buyers?

A C-level buyer, Trisha Winter plays hard to get.

"Speaking as a B2B buyer, I don’t answer my phone anymore," she writes in Business to Community. "I don’t read cold emails—in fact, thanks to overcoming 'inbox zero' tendencies, I don’t even take the time to open/delete them anymore. I used to, but with the insane influx of new technologies geared toward marketing, too many people were trying to reach me pushing their 'life-changing' solutions. It was too much noise, and it wasn’t sustainable if I wanted to get my job done."

Winter wonders if any marketing tactic works with C-level buyers—executives who are so brutally busy, they're "forced to completely ignore the noise."

She rules out the top two contenders.

Content. Content marketing doesn't work, Winter says. Although it could be effective, most content is "fluff" no one ever sees. "Even if you create the perfect piece of content, you are still just crossing your fingers that it reaches me," she says. "For content marketing to work, it has to be combined with influencer marketing to have a hope of getting in front of the intended audience."

Trade shows. Exhibit marketing doesn't work, either, Winter says. "I do attend some trade shows, but I won’t stop by your booth unless I’ve heard of you and have identified that you meet a need or solve a problem I have," she says. "Which means trade shows don’t work for top-of-the-funnel lead generation. And let’s face it, TOFU leads are way better than BOFU leads because you can shape the deal without competitors."

So what works?

Account-Based Marketing. "If a seller is researching me, engaging with me in social media, learning about my business and personalizing their approach, there is a much greater chance they’ll get my attention," Winter says. "But remember, I don’t read emails nor answer my phone, so direct mail and social media are the only options here."

Referral Marketing. "As a buyer, there is no question that this is the most effective way to get my attention," Winter says. "If I’m approached by a former colleague or a trusted adviser (like a salesperson from a vendor I have a good relationship with), I pay attention. If they tell me there is a solution out there that could solve my problems, I’m clearing my calendar to take a meeting."

Winter recommends combing both tactics.

But what if you could combine all four?

That's the philosophy behind PLAYBOOK, a lead-gen system my business partner and I have created.

PLAYBOOK—using a combination of direct mail, email, telemarketing, and an app—allows marketers to target trade show attendees with offers compelling enough to attract them to an exhibit. It also helps them motivate salespeople to chase and close deals immediately after the event—the Achilles Heel of exhibit marketing.

We're ready to assist any marketer eager to reach those hard-to-get buyers like Trisha Winter.

Just give us a call.

Why Event Organizers May Lose Their Shirts

An old joke goes:

Two partners are arguing over their shirt-retailing business.

"Sol, how can we go on buying shirts for $4 and selling them for $2?" one asks.

"Mort, don't worry!" the other answers. "We make it up in volume."

B2B marketing has long resembled Mort's approach.

But a trendy new form of B2B marketing, account-based marketing (ABM), throws out the "volume-based" approach to lead-gen, concentrating the marketing spend instead on a finite set of prospects.

And—unless they begin to help ABM practitioners—event organizers will soon find themselves losing out to digital channels.

Why so?

Because, for decades, events have always been, more or less, about volume.

Set up an exhibit. Wait for a ton of traffic. Meet and mingle. Rinse and repeat.

But ABM represents different thinking.

ABM means a "shift from volume to engagement," says Cindy Zhou, an analyst with Constellation Research and author of the white paper Why B2B Sales Success Requires a Holistic Account-Based Strategy.

By "engagement," Zhou means targeting "ideal buyers" with "personalized content."

At events, she says, ABM practitioners need to attract specifically targeted accounts to their booths, and present them content designed to convert them—quickly—into customers.

Tirekickers need not apply.

"Organizations adopting an ABM approach see higher conversion rates and deal sizes and an increase in cross-sell and upsell opportunities," Zhou says.

Zhou also say that 9 out of 10 B2B marketers she's in touch with have adopted ABM.

Yet event organizers remain clueless, refusing to provide the data exhibitors need to zero in on ideal buyers.

Case in point.

I recently asked the organizer of a large manufacturing show to allow my client to target accounts on his registration list with pre-show phone calls designed to attract them to the client's booth. Not his whole list (that would have been foolish); merely a select group of attendees.

His answer was a resounding, "No!"

"If I did it for them, I'd have to do it for every exhibitor."

Duh. What's wrong with this picture?

Event organizers are sitting on a mountain of data. Exhibit marketers—9 out of 10, if Zhou's followers are representative—need a bit of it. Why not help them?

If you won't, they may abandon events in favor of digital channels, which provide more data than they need.

What, you expect to make it up in volume?

HAT TIP: Thanks to Cindy Zhou for inspiring this post and providing a free copy of her white paper.

Doctor, Doctor

Why do 7 in 10 B2B marketers say events are the very best marketing channel?

The answer's simple: ROI.

Events routinely deliver big brands 5X ROI; small ones, 3X to 5X ROI.

"In-person events simply have more impact than all the social media posts and email newsletters in the world," says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group.

Events allow you to generate leads and close sales; connect with buyers' emotions; expand your community; drive social media engagement and website traffic; and create months' of newsworthy marketing content.

But as importantly, Brenner says, events let you diagnose the cause of buyers' pain.

For inquisitive marketers, chatting with buyers over coffee, recording their comments at conference sessions, or conducting surveys through your event app may be just what the doctor ordered.

"You may discover a problem with your product or service that is the root of unexplained customer churn," Brenner says. Just as likely, "You could uncover strengths you didn’t realize you had."

Fight of the Century

Tradeshow versus Digital is going to be a slugfest, says event-industry consultant Francis Friedman in his new, 287-page book, The Modern Digital Tradeshow.

Nimble contender Digital could handily clobber the out-of-shape champion.

Digital has already driven Tradeshow from marketing's "center stage" onto a "specialized side stage," Friedman says; and, unless the latter regains its magic, Digital could win by a knockout.

Friedman prescribes a rigorous, three-legged regimen to help Tradeshow get back in trim:

• Redefinition. The tradeshow industry's "analog" business model is passé. "Our industry must change from its static 'show' industry self-concept," Friedman says. "We must view our future as a branded content and experience provider, and integral omni-channel member of a target community." Unless the industry rediscovers a purpose—its raison d'être—it will be excluded from the b-to-b marketers' club.
  
  
• Transformation. Organizers need to embrace event tech—now. There's simply no more time to debate the topic. "The tradeshow industry must now play catch-up to the changing digital marketing landscape through a fundamental shift in its historical business model and product configurations," Friedman says. Event tech that "animates" events and enables exhibitors to verify ROI will matter most—gizmos like VR, AR, AI, beacons, bots, holograms, and drones.
  
  
• Rebranding. The event industry needs to discover and express a new and dynamic "personality," or its transformation into a digital player will go unnoticed. "In the current tradeshow organizer model, 'the show' is inanimate, occupying a specific date and time on the calendar of its marketplace and unable to 'act.'" Friedman says. "'The show' per se has no arms or legs, no voice and no ability to act or interact with its market. 'The show' is just booths on a tradeshow floor at a given time and in each place."

Friedman for years—via keynotes, articles, books and white papers—has been prepping tradeshow organizers for the coming match. With The Modern Digital Tradeshow, he's provided the playbook they need to go the distance.

NOTE: The Modern Digital Tradeshow is available free on the author's website.

Stirred, Not Shaken

An angel investor and a tradeshow producer, Marco Giberti and Jay Weintraub, have pooled their considerable talents to write the 185-page book The Face of Digital, a look-see into the turbulent tradeshow industry and the changes that will be wrought by technology in the coming five years―a time they agree "will redefine the way we think of digital media in connection with live events."

Tradeshows, "the original social networks," can stand a stirring, the authors insist. Exhibitors, who foot the bills, cannot calculate ROI; and attendees, shows' raisons d'etre, can barely navigate them.

But the improvements wrought by tech will be gentle, the authors say.

"The events industry is not ripe for a disruption, in the mold of Uber or Airbnb," they write. "Instead, it's more likely that hundreds, even thousands, of small players will emerge to solve individual problems."

Among the problems solved by digital technology:

• No attendee will ever again stand in a line to get in; apps will let them buy their badges weeks in advance, in seconds.

• No attendee will ever again feel lost in a crowd; apps will signal when friends are nearby.

• No one will waste time scrutinizing inscrutable signs; apps will recommend the best path to the next booth you want to visit.

• No attendee will ever miss a speaker's session; livestreaming will let her watch it on demand.

• No attendee will ever go home empty-handed; matchmaking apps will connect her to other attendees and exhibitors even after the show.

• Exhibitors will no longer pay a penny for drayage; products will be demonstrated in virtual reality.

• Follow-up will no longer be dismal; CRM systems will automate and personalize the activity.

• Exhibitors will no longer grouse about foot-traffic; beacons will smooth crowd-flows.

• Rainforests will no longer fear tradeshows; digital will replace paper exchanges 100%.

The solutions to these problems aren't imaginary, the authors point out: they exist now. 

Tradeshow producers just don't know it―or care much.

"Like the newspaper industry," they write, "the events industry is still very much in transition between the predigital age and an era in which digital integration will become commonplace in every aspect of our lives and businesses."

But competition against digital marketing for exhibitors' dollars will wake complacent producers up, just in time for "the Cambrian explosion of digital tools for events."

Giberti and Weintraub's book is a must-read for every tradeshow producer and exhibitor, as well as anyone whose livelihood is derived from face-to-face. Their viewpoints are sensible and admirably realistic.

My own is that the changes ahead will be less incremental; that the tradeshow business is less like the newspaper business and more like the apartment-rental one; and that an Airbnd-ish "disruptor" lurks just over the horizon.

Yes, tradeshow producers have a lock on things for the moment.

But, as James Bond might say, the industry's about to be "shaken, not stirred."

Coach

Coaches who love coaching teach players to love learning.

— The Coach Diary

Can you run a successful business from the sidelines?

Absolutely.

That’s the message of Lessons of an Entrepreneur: How to Grow, Take Risks and Survive, the new book by The Expo Group’s chairman and CEO, Ray Pekowski.

Pekowski's 113-page book is full of personal stories and anecdotes, which makes it breezy and entertaining.

At its heart are teachings only a coach could concoct:

• Innovative customer service, not growth, should be your business's goal.
  



• A servant's mentality in a CEO goes hand in hand with steady growth.
  



• Humble leaders are strong leaders.
  


• No matter your specialty, you're really in the training business.
  



• Only leaders who are mentors can influence corporate culture.
  



• Teamwork comes from setting goals specific enough to influence performance.
  



• Plan for failures and mistakes—they're inevitable.

It's little wonder Pekowski has published this little book: teaching and coaching are in his blood (he did both before joining the event industry in the 1980s).

And teaching and coaching underpin nearly all his success formulas.

"If you can teach or coach the group or department that reports to you, then in turn, that group can go out and teach the next group and so on," Pekowski writes. "I called it 'Teach the Teacher.' If you have ever taught someone something, then you are both teaching and reinforcing what you have been taught. It is the transformation of both knowledge and culture."

In this era of narcissistic CEOs, it's refreshing to learn some business leaders still put employees and customers first.

In an interview, I asked Pekowski what he'd be doing, if he weren't running his company.

"I’d be coaching in the NFL," he said. "That’s what I really wanted to do. I just love coaching and football. After I graduated, I coached in three different schools. But it’s a tough industry—it certainly didn’t pay then what it pays today. I had an opportunity to work for the Chicago Fire—a one-season team in the World Football League—but the job paid less money than I was getting paid as a teacher, and I had two children at the time."

Lessons of an Entrepreneur: How to Grow, Take Risks and Survive is available from Amazon. Proceeds will be donated to charity.

Online's Goal is Offline

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

― Woody Allen

B2B marketers―smart ones―know online must lead to offline.

Because unless prospects experience your brand, there's little likelihood of large sales.

Digital alone doesn't cut it.

Digital's too delible.

As GE's CMO, Linda Boff, told Chief Content Officer this month, "Experiencing a brand versus just seeing something in the media is more and more important. It's more indelible. We think a lot about that. How do we bring the brand to life? And how are we going to show up?"

How will you show up?

You've got an online plan.

What's your offline plan?

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.

Gamification Supercharges Tradeshow Exhibits

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.

— E.M. Forster

Seven of 10 Americans believe attending events connects them to others, according to a recent survey by Eventbrite.

Among Millennials, that proportion's even higher—8 of 10.

Seven of 10 Millennials also believe events expand knowledge better than online content does, the survey reveals. And 1 of 2 attend events to have experiences they can share on social media.

For Millennials, attending events "is all about projecting to your social media network, and painting a picture of a phenomenal lifestyle," event planner Aubri Nowowiejski told Skift. "They chase experiences over things to get those likes and comments and interactions, and that dopamine fix."

If you accept Eventbrite's findings, exhibit marketers who help Millennials polish their personal brands will come out winners at tomorrow's B2B events.

Gamification is the secret sauce.

By offering them high-yield opportunities to enrich their personal brands, gamification counteracts Millennials’ unfortunate reluctance to engage in the "real world" of sales conversation.

Gamification makes networking fun and unintimidating—and delivers the all-important dopamine fix that comes when a Millennial wallflower can update his social media feeds.

One ready solution for exhibitors is PLAYBOOK, a lead-gen system that marries pre-show marketing with gamification.

With PLAYBOOK, exhibitors can not only attract large crowds of fun-seeking prospects to their booths, but get them to look up from their phones long enough to engage in conversation.

DISCLAIMER: I'm a bit biased in favor of PLAYBOOK, because it's the creation of Bob & David James. Learn more here.

Getting Inside Attendees' Heads

B2B CMOs have struggled to measure events with the same precision they measure digital.

Mobile apps could change that.

Not only do they let exhibit marketers engage attendees and personalize events for them, many mobile apps can be used to track face-to-face engagement, and further nurture customers and prospects.

One example: Showcase XD.

This simple iPad app lets tradeshow attendees explore an exhibiting company's products—through videos, demos, photos, drawings, and other content—while visiting the company's booth.

Meantime, the app is gathering and sending the company "digital brain scans" of the attendee that reveal his or her actual interest in the products.

The company can use the analytics after the show to decide, among other things, what marketing automation score to assign the attendee.

One company isn't waiting for the show to end.

IBM uses mobile apps to track attendees' interests and harnesses Watson to make product and activity recommendations—such as downloading a trial code—on the spot, by comparing attendees' pre-show interests with the products they engage with at the exhibit.

While no one can guarantee a CMO ROI before an event, keeping tabs on attendees' interactions though a mobile app—and using the analytics to feed the company's marketing automation or CRM system—can produce real results.

Our Customers? Who Cares?

On CEIR's blog, adman Gary Slack laments the tradeshow industry's thundering indifference to customers—an indifference, alas, I can vouch for.

"More than any other B2B medium or sales channel, the exhibition industry—meaning trade show producers, contractors, CVBs—is remarkably unconnected with senior B2B marketing leadership, the people who set marketing budgets and make the ultimate decisions on how much gets invested in face-to-face marketing," Slack says.

No matter where or when B2B marketers gather, you can count on the show industry to be a no-show, Slack says.

"Go to any B2B marketing conference and rarely if ever do you hear exhibition industry execs attending, much less speaking or even exhibiting. Yet practically every other recipient of B2B marketing dollars is represented, either in the audience or on the dais or in the exhibit hall, or all three."

This week is bittersweet for me.

It would have seen the inauguration of DARE, a marketing conference I planned with two partners to help bridge the gap between B2B CMOs and the exhibition industry.

We had to cancel the event 120 days out, for lack of sponsors and endorsements by show organizers.

Despite 12 months' effort to reach hundreds of tradeshow industry players, both large and small, only three suppliers—Freeman, Kubik and SpotMe—bought sponsorships before we cancelled DARE; and only one show organizer—NAB Show—endorsed the conference.

DARE sank in the vast sea of indifference to customers.

I'd chalk it up to a severe case of "fat, dumb and happy."

"As long as exhibitions themselves remain so essential to B2B sales success, maybe you don’t have to work as hard trying to grow your slice of the big B2B budget pie," Slack says.

"But by not engaging directly with senior B2B marketers at the events they attend to learn the latest, you are jeopardizing mindshare that some day may be critical to your survival."

There's a melancholic jazz song entitled, "Due to Lack of Interest, Tomorrow Has Been Canceled."

It might be DARE's theme song—or, if things don't change, the tradeshow industry's.

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