Earlier this year I visited a tradeshow in London and found it quite a sad experience.  The organisers had obviously struggled to sell the space and had brought in some companies that had paid the money but obviously didn’t really care or understand the tradeshow.  Many exhibitors seem to be questioning whether they’ll attend next year but whose responsibility is it to get the audience?

Over the years I’ve heard many exhibitors complain about the cost of exhibiting and how the show organisers are just not delivering the right quality of visitor but are they right in doing so?

I would always dispute that exhibitions are expensive. They can be but it’s all about working out why you want to be there and what you want to get out of it - then matching your expectations to your budget.  But that’s a whole new blog.  

For now I want to look at the role of show organisers to bring in the visitors.  Yes, show organisers have a marketing budget. Yes, they have some responsibility to get visitor numbers – they certainly have the incentive but do you really think that once you sign on the dotted line you just need to get the stand and staff there?  

Even if a show organiser has done a tremendous job of getting visitors to the exhibition, you as an exhibitor need to make sure that your clients and prospects know where you are within the show and have a reason to visit you.

I would always encourage clients to have a pre-show campaign – it can be a simple banner or link on your website or a signature on your emails.  Hey, why not do that anyway and then think of more targeted elements? What are you showing at the exhibition?  Is it new and exciting?  Why should people come visit you?  Create a call to action then add it to your newsletter or make a specific email campaign.  

Again it all comes back to why you’re there – if it’s a branding and PR exercise with existing clients and prospects then get your sales people to call their contacts and make appointments to show them the latest and greatest offerings.  If you’re exhibiting to meet new prospects then work with your whole team to decide how you’re going to handle passers-by.  Who’s good at walking up to strangers and engaging them?  Who’s best at evaluating whether the person is a worthwhile lead?  How do you deal with time-wasters?  If you have a strategy and use it effectively then you will make the most of your investment and really get the quality leads you need.

Lastly, why not work with the organisers on joint marketing campaigns?  Like you they’re interested in making the most of their investment and want to engage with new visitors.  What can you do together to target new and existing audiences?  Can you encourage them to use social media to extend their reach?  If they’re already using Twitter, what stories can you feed them?  Can you work together to come up with new ways to engage the visitors on the show floor?

So take a step back and look at the exhibition objectively – work out what you want to get out of the event and then get your sales and marketing teams working on how to pull those visitors in.

Here we go again but once again an informal meeting struck a cord that I wanted to explore.

I was in a meeting having an informal chat with a journalist, a council employee, a business owner and a bank manager...this sounds like a joke but that's not my style so I'll get back to the story!

We were talking about different ways that school children could raise money and one of the group caused instant silence when they said that organising events was easy, it was the easy option.  The rest of the room went quiet as we let it sink in that she could have just insulted me and my profession.  I tend to be a fairly easy going person and so wasn't hugely offended, especially since it's a fight I have to fight every time I win business.

Why are we considered that way?

Humans are naturally organised and naturally pig headed - hence do we all think we can do everything?  I actually agree that event management is not a mysterious art - it's just a case of being organised, starting at the beginning and just ticking things off a list. Isn’t it?

Well let’s not get into the different ways that people learn and manage data other than to say that to some people being organised is harder than getting to the moon on a balloon.

I just fundamentally think that knowledge and experience enable me to do my job much more effectively bringing major cost and time savings to my clients.  Does everyone explore why they attend events?  Whether or not it’s really a good idea or just the MD having a need to prove that his company is great?  What are your objectives – branding, PR, sales or a combination of all three?  Do you want to make money directly from selling on the stand?  Do you know which suppliers can do the best job for that particular event? Which ones are all talk and no trousers?

It’s all about experience and knowledge – I’d love to put it in a bottle and share it with you but I haven’t found a way yet.  However, by hiring a professional you can borrow their skills and build some very successful, stress free events.

To me, events are easy but are they easy to people who don’t do it everyday and prefer mind maps to To Do lists?

It's been an interesting week - one that has questioned my assumptions and led me to question the role of an events professional.

This week, I had my first Linkedin originated meeting ie I didn’t know the person before we met on Linkedin. I met up with another person heavily involved in the events industry and inevitably our talk turned to the future and how events would fare in the new Social Media world.  I've always been keen to promote the benefits of events to companies large and small and compared the ascendancy of our services to that of PR agencies.  My position being that many, if not all, companies now recognise the need for someone to help them write and manage PR - it is seen as a profession.  Events, unfortunately are still considered a “nice to have”, an expense and not a must have.  My vision was for Events to evolve and become the third essential hand to marketing managers.

Hence I was interested to hear at this meeting that he felt that PR was a dying industry!  If they were dying where did events now stand?  It was a fascinating conversation, more so as it was the third time in 7 days that I’d heard this.

No, I don’t think PR is dying, I think it just needs to evolve and evolve quickly.  Do PR consultancies merge with Social Media agencies or do they just switch focus from printed releases to including a plan for social media?  Printed PR has it’s place, particularly in specialist industry magazines but surely PR consultancies now need to prove that they can manage a social media campaign effectively and that they can use their skills to best use on this media.  In this new world many companies will think that their staff can manage the Twitter feed but wouldn’t it be so much better to use a professional who can write effective, focused copy?

I do believe the same can be said for events.  Anyone can organize events but a professional can really focus on the essentials and get you further quicker and with less stress.  However we also need to evolve and whilst events will not be replaced by online meetings and virtual exhibitions we need to work out how they can be combined effectively into the promotional plan for the event.

I firmly believe that we'll be much worse off if we don't meet face to face, if we don't explore new products with all senses and not just eyes and ears.

So maybe PR is evolving and so are Events - we just need to keep focused on our clients and what their clients need.