CHICAGO — The Exhibition Industry Research Center (CEIR) hosted a webinar on January 31 titled “Positioning Your Attendee Acquisition Approach for Success,” which focused on approaches that have been successful in increasing attendance at B2B exhibitions.
Digital transformation has revolutionized the way organizers market to their target audience. As technology continues to evolve, so must marketing approaches.
The webinar presented key preliminary findings from CEIR’s latest research documenting attendee acquisition approaches for recent B2B trade shows. The findings show that marketing approaches that focus in a disciplined manner on personalization, both in the alignment of marketing channel tactics and messaging to key target audiences, are most effective in driving registrations.
According to preliminary results from the CEIR Attendee Acquisition study, event content and message approach are the main factors considered when defining a marketing approach for an event. In messages aimed at exhibitions, the words “community” and “face-to-face engagement” are effective because they let people know what they will experience at the event.
“When we get ready to plan another year, another event, the first thing we look at is the feedback from last year.” Jennifer Yarber, Senior Marketing Director, Design Group at Emerald, “What are their evolving needs, what problems do we need to solve, and what content is a priority for them? We use all of that to inform our programming. If we don’t create priority content, attendees will sign up for a competing event that’s thinking about it more thoughtfully.”
To create the best marketing approach, CEIR’s study identified three key areas: hyper-targeting/personalization, multichannel mix, and collaboration. Digital tactics were found to be effective in driving registrations, with 98% of respondents using one or more digital tactics. These include waitlist emails, social media content marketing, marketing automation, retargeting, discounts, and personalized marketing to attendees.
“Personalization outperforms more generic approaches, with 43% saying they are using a personalized marketing strategy with attendees. Email is a digital tactic that people love to hate, but still works. It’s one of the most effective tactics for generating signups,” Nancy Drapeau, IPC, Vice President of Research at CEIR, said.
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A multichannel approach doesn’t just mean digital: traditional tactics including telemarketing, direct mail and print advertising in trade magazines have all been powerful ways to drive signups.
“Don’t overlook telemarketing, it’s been surprisingly effective for us. Our scripts are short and conversational because we’re targeting segments that are already familiar with BDNY. We’re not calling people and telling them for 10 minutes what the brand is and what the event is,” Yarber said.
Collaborations can also help drive attendee acquisition, and tactics such as exhibitor and partner invitation programs, sales relationships with key buyers, and working with local organizations to maximize local attendees have all proven effective.
“One of the collaborative efforts we have is we partner with a healthcare magazine and at our event we do a joint Hall of Fame Awards Gala,” said Gregg Lapin, CMP, director of event experience at the American College of Healthcare Executivessaid. “We advertise on their website, and one of the metrics we’re seeing this year is that traffic is much higher than previous years, almost double.”
The metrics that track attendee perceptions of an event are positive, according to the study, but there is still much to be done. The top five areas where organizers are looking to improve are ensuring content is the best it can be, maximizing the return on channel marketing efforts, better understanding audience digital media behaviors, extending engagement throughout the year, and better understanding how to reach and resonate with young professionals.
CEIR plans to begin publishing study reports on participant acquisition later in February.
Contact Nancy Drapeau at ndrapeau@ceir.org; Gregg Lapin at glapin@ache.org; Jennifer Yarber at jennifer.yarber@emeraldx.com