The following post is part of a partnership with Creative Influence about marketing innovation happening in industries across Atlanta. The article is part of our Marketing Next series, which tackles both the marketing of innovation and the innovation of marketing. It publishes twice a month.
I was scrambling to start an online meeting with a venture capitalist friend when my iPhone rang. I had run late because I couldn’t remember whether we were supposed to talk through Zoom, Teams, GoToMeeting, GlobalMeet, Google Meet, FaceTime or something else. “Hey, I decided to just call you and talk by regular old phone because I can’t stand looking at myself on the screen anymore,” the VC half-joked. If we’re burning out on screen time, what’s that mean for bigger business meetings like industry conferences and events?
Many marketers are ambivalent at best about the nearly complete shift from in-person to virtual encounters. The move has especially scrambled the marketing and sales plans of companies that rely heavily on face-to-face conversations to build trust, communicate complex ideas and demonstrate their difference through tangible experiences. For several of my B2B clients, nearly half of their pre-pandemic marketing budget had been spent on in-person conference attendance, sponsorship and exhibition.
Now what?
In a typical year in the B.C. era (Before Coronavirus), Atlanta ranked regularly in the top 10 cities for hosting conventions with 750 major conventions and events held in Atlanta in 2018 according to the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. Atlanta has more than its fair share of meeting experts and I reached out to several to get their perspectives on the innovation and transformation of conferences as a marketing and sales tool.
Reinvent the Experience
Conferences are experiential marketing. How do you replicate the experience of a conference when your event space is, at best, confined to a 15” laptop screen?
Not only can’t you, you probably shouldn’t try. That doesn’t mean you can’t create a great experience though. “If you’re wondering how to replicate an in-person event online, you’re thinking about it the wrong way. Instead of asking how you substitute online for in-person, focus on the more essential question. Ask how you can best drive engagement remotely,” said Mark Roberts, Chief Marketing Office for PGi, the Atlanta-headquartered collaboration technology company which created the virtual conferencing solution, GlobalMeet.
So far, though, that’s not generally the way industry conferences have operated. Many hadn’t given refunds or lowered pricing in the switch from in-person to virtual. Attendee experience took a back seat to keeping the lights on. Atlantan Doug Hope is a retail business-to-business consultant who launched the RetailX trade show 27 years ago and was most recently Senior Vice President/Show Director with Emerald X which operates 142 events annually. “The business model for conferences this year is collecting cancellation insurance,” Hope said.
“One of our clients is a telecom company that planned to sponsor a big trade show. When the pandemic struck, the conference shifted at the last minute from an in-person event to a virtual one. They wouldn’t in any way reduce the $25,000 sponsorship fee my client had planned to pay,” said Monica Compton, a Certified Meeting Professional whose firm, Pinnacle Productions, manages event participation for major companies. “Then, one week after the event they were immediately pushing for early bird sponsorship commitments for 2021 even though they had yet to tell us whether or not the event would be in-person, virtual or hybrid.”
“No one has virtual events 100% figured out,” said Wendy Wilkerson, VP of Strategic Accounts with Sparks, a leading global event marketing agency. “We do know that the experience is key to success and that starts with a defined strategy. Aligning objectives and KPIs, optimizing virtual agendas and leveraging best-fit content and engagement formats is crucial,” she said.
One area where Wilkerson noted that online events are missing the mark is in communications.
“We’re seeing a lack clarity about where and when to tune-in and many have no closing calls-to-action. Using two distinct platforms for registration and the main event hub has been another source of confusion, with overlapping communications not clearly delineating where to log on,” Wilkerson said.
The need for better experience management for online conferences and events has led online meeting tech provider PGi to add a team of event production managers to manage not only the technical aspects of events but to guide the human and relationship issues too. “We’ve moved beyond just equipping our customers to hold an event to being more complete business communications and event experience advisors,” said PGi’s Mark Roberts.
Ramp up the Content
The typical in-person conference track is five to six hours a day but, done virtually, most of us can’t stare at a screen for that long. “Online events bring us back to basics. What’s the quality of content and what is the participant’s journey that you’re offering?” Roberts said. “The quality of video and audio, for example, are all important and massively overlooked. Too many online event solutions aren’t built to scale and that’s one place quality breaks down,” he added.
Jeffrey Emenecker is Senior Director of Analytics with Cvent, a leading cloud-based enterprise event management platform. “From a marketer’s perspective, you have radically up your content game and, ultimately as events become hybrid, you’re going to need content that is engaging enough for both in-person and virtual delivery,” Emenecker said. “One positive with virtual event content is that people can consume the content in a much more comfortable environment – their own home – and it’s easier for them to lock in on the information than if they’re jammed in a room with others.”
Cvent runs its own annual user conference, Cvent Connect, and this year found it had to bring increased firepower to its content to ensure audience engagement. This year the event was intended for Dallas but moved virtual and had to scramble to adapt content and create new material for the online venue. For one content initiative, the company created a digital happy hour including a virtual tour of restaurants along Dallas’s Margarita Mile narrated by a famous Dallas chef. “Expect content production expenses to increase significantly to get the level of quality needed to break through,” Emenecker said.
“Variety in content formats and visuals is essential for holding attention in virtual conference sessions,” said Wendy Wilkerson. “Content that is too long or lacks visual variety is all too prevalent. The way people consume TV, news, videos and other digital content in their personal lives sheds light on how virtual event content can be improved in the future. Dynamic content looks like different camera angles, slide content, smart graphics, short videos, and speakers,” she said.
Rethink the ROE (return on events)
For marketers, the return on in-person events like trade shows and conferences has been measured by lead generation and sales as well as overall brand awareness building. In part, both of these are accomplished at in-person events through organic networking. When the conference moves online, it would seem, these opportunities diminish but so do many of the costs to participate. Travel expense, for instance, disappears. What does success look like, then?
Maybe it looks like higher quality leads. It’s possible that the online environment may reduce the number of schmoozers visiting your booth to get free giveaways and kick tires. “At a recent virtual event, one of our clients got far fewer leads than in past years but the ones they generated were very high quality,” said Monica Compton.
Maybe it looks like more brand visibility. Jeff Emenecker said, “Our Cvent Connect conference in 2019 drew about 5,000 in-person attendees. Our virtual event in 2020 drew 43,000.” PGi has seen its numbers soar. Mark Roberts said usage of PGi’s GlobalMeet platform grew 450% so far in 2020 and they’ve seen a 500% increase in how many people are attending webcasts.
On the other hand, networking success at in-person conferences happens as often by serendipity as by intentional planning. When you’re walking the floors of a conference it’s easy to experience the happy accident of unexpectedly meeting someone helpful to your business. It’s also easier to provide the visceral experience of a tangible product or to dive into direct discussion than when you’re in a virtual meeting room. Emenecker suggested that what was formerly blended into one in-person conference – the educational and exhibition/networking components of an event – may need to be separated when orchestrating an online or hybrid program.
A recent survey of event marketers by Sparks found that 70% of audiences are looking for networking/connectivity in virtual experiences. Wendy Wilkerson of Sparks noted, “Networking remains one of the top reasons attendees go to events, both in-person and virtual. More innovation is needed in this arena to fulfill attendee networking wants in a virtual setting.” She added, “Many observed networking integrations have not made it easy for attendees to connect. We’ve seen third-party applications that take too long to set up or access, losing attendees in the multi-step process and removing them from the main event. And when attendees do get into group forums there’s too often a lack of moderation or curation which leaves it up to attendees to find and connect with peers on their own.”
Like so many things in our current pandemic-shaped business world, event marketing - whether in-person, online or hybrid - is an area ripe for transformative innovation. Based on Atlanta’s history as a conference destination, telecommunications hub and marketing mecca, it is likely that the city’s entrepreneur community will answer the call of this opportunity in short order.
About the Author:
ANDREW DIETZ
Andrew brings marketing strategy, business development, and sales-enabled content to services clients. After a career at the intersection of technology, marketing and media he has - since 2003 - focused on growing revenue for services companies. He is the author of The Opening Playbook: A Professional’s Guide To Building Relationships That Grow Revenue (McGraw Hill, 2014). Andrew has a BBA, University of Michigan and an MBA from Duke University.
