Ah, trade shows…

Throngs of attendees. Hugs and handshakes. Auditoriums and breakout rooms. Cocktail receptions, client dinners and coffees.

Keynotes. Panels. Roundtables. Posters. Lightening talks.

Booths, stands and tabletops. Giveaways and tchotchkes. “May I scan your badge?” Competitive reconnaissance. Sore feet.

Stuffy or, hopefully, well-appointed meeting rooms. Crowded lounges. Nary an empty chair or sliver of a highboy table in sight at lunchtime or the reception.

Meetings. Briefings. Interviews.

Trade shows – and this includes conferences, expos, congresses, summits, conclaves and other live gatherings – have had a good, long run. But now it’s time to reimagine them. Why?

Health concerns for COVID-19 is the obvious reason. However, even before the cancellations and stay-at-home orders, return on investment should have put trade shows under the microscope.

Here’s a deeper dive on the WHY and a look at WHAT reimagined trade shows might look like.

Better ROI

It’s well-understood that, for most marketing departments, trade shows consume the lion’s share of the budget. The dirty little secret is the ROI is questionable.

The typical reasons for investing in trade shows are lead generation and brand awareness.

But most trade shows aren’t very targeted, so leads tend to be the preverbal needle in a haystack. And the more targeted trade shows tend to be attended by those we already know.

Exhibiting at the trade show? That makes the cost per lead get pretty expensive. And that assumes the right leads stop by and the leads get followed up and qualified.

Indeed, trade shows can be compelling platforms for brand visibility and thought leadership. Nevertheless, that ROI is difficult to measure.

What is measurable are the travel costs and opportunity costs associated with multiple days at the trade show and not on current, active and high-probability bookings or sales.

Other, and less valid reasons, for investing in trade shows include “Our competitors go…” “We’ve always gone…” “The industry will think we’re no longer in business if we don’t go…” You can imagine the ROI in these cases.

To be sure, trade show ROI does in fact exist. For instance, being able to have a dozen meetings with buyers or partners over two days is an efficient and effective investment. And there are myriad other examples.

Still, one has to wonder whether there would be a noticeable difference in new customer acquisition or brand awareness results if one’s company did not participate in trade shows. We may soon know whether not being at key industry events during the first half of 2020 had any adverse impact on the bottom line? (Admittedly, there’s significant unrecoverable marketing investments)

Our guess is no. But that analysis comes with a lot of caveats.

Organizations should at least reevaluate their trade show investment strategy for 2H 2020. To assist, here’s a good checklist.

Better Health Precautions

The elephant in the room is, of course, COVID-19. Every now and then, unforeseen and inexplicable forces profoundly change an industry. We believe the impact on trade shows will be pervasive and substantial.

In a recent article, Michael Beckerman blogged on CREtech, “Companies simply are not going to send their employees back to the same workplace environment. No way. This pandemic has so fundamentally changed the psyche of the workplace that the fear of who is in the office, where they came from and how the professionals in an office interface with one another is simply not going back to the way it was before.”

That’s the outlook for the workplace. But what about trade shows where one encounters tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of attendees? How many are ready to return to the trade show circuit?

Demographics may inform the outlook of attending trade shows. According to a press release from HotelPlanner.com published in March, “…younger people are significantly more willing to attend a large conference (1,000 or more attendees) over the next four months. 60% of people age 18 to 29 would not cancel their attendance at such a conference, whereas just 40% of people over 60 would be willing to take such a risk. Likewise, only about 52% of people between the ages of 30 and 60 said they would attend a large conference during the Coronavirus scare.”

Clearly, people will still work in offices. And people will still go to trade shows.

The question is what do trade show organizers need to do to convince attendees – and sponsors and exhibitors – to come back? And is there a percent who will opt out in preference to other methods of learning and interreacting?

Our guess is the majority will go back to trade shows. But there will be a drop off – perhaps some 30% — which is not insignificant, and other changes.

The Implications

Let’s get this out of the way: trade shows are not going to cease to exist. But they will be changed, disrupted and reimagined.

Here are two examples of industries that have likewise been changed, disrupted and reimagined.

In New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott observes: “Before the Web came along, there were only two ways to get noticed: buy expensive advertising or beg mainstream media to tell your story for you. Now we have a better option: publishing interesting content on the Web that your buyers want to consume.”

Now consider how expedited security programs such as Clear emerged in response to new travel screening and longer airport security lines in the post-9/11 world.

What’s noteworthy is Advertising and PR still exist. However, the Web reimagined how marketers can reach buyers and influencers. Similarly, TSA security lines still exist. But Clear reimagined how travelers can progress from the landside areas of the airport to the airside areas.

Our outlook is virtual events will launch and evolve to produce an experience that’s safer, more cost effective and better targeted than live trade shows while, at the same, delivering significantly compelling and measurable ROI.

Successful virtual event approaches will completely reimagine the trade show experience and reject merely trying to duplicate auditoriums, keynote stages and booths on a laptop. Look for Artificial Intelligence to play a key role in these technology-driven user experience platforms akin to how it’s leveraged on LinkedIn, Facebook, Amazon, Google and other platforms that “tailor” and “target” the user experience .

Attendees and participants will adjust to the paradigm to derive business benefits.

Live trade shows will inevitably shrink in audience size. In response, event organizers will need to rearchitect the overall approach – particularly the exhibit floor – to address health safety and ROI value requirements. Lastly, some live events will simply cease to exist.

More to Come

In the coming weeks and months, this blog will continue to discuss and debate ideas, examples and best practices of marketing to address the requirements of companies seeking the to grow share as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Please join the conversation and share with your colleagues.

Meanwhile, should you need help, Mindshare Advisors is a specialized consultancy focused on helping high-potential organizations architect and execute go-to-market strategy, launch, thought leadership, and branding to capture marketshare by winning mindshare.

Contact us at info(at)mindshareadvisors.com