Convention Insider (Conventions.net)

One of the things that see a quite a bit is the fact that many exhibitors just show up and hope people will come to their booth and buy their products or services.  This is such a missed opportunity if you don’t take advantage of the fact that you are giving your customer a chance to meet face to face and experience your conversation first hand.

I try to make as many appointments wit all my contacts that I can. This helps me set a good schedule before the event and sets out my time.  I can stay on track that way and make sure I get the biggest bang for my buck.  There is also another underlying thing that happens, people talk about you and the fact that you will be at the event.  Many of the people that you make appointments with will talk about you to your friends, your competitors and others in your industry. You ge4t seen as the expert or as the person in the know about what is going on at the event.  You are seen as the person that they need to know and meet or compete with on the floor.  This increases your stock exponentially.  Make your contacts now and get your calendar set before the show and you will see great benefits.

I have been asking many of the event coordinators I know how they gather feedback from their attendees.  With all of the social media tools that we have that allow us to listen in online to conversations that others are having, we get a chance to hear first hand what many are saying.   We can see what they say on Twitter during the show and we can see what they say on their Facebook pages after they get home and finally blogs are a great source for reviews of how your event went or how the show was perceived by those in attendance.

Listening to that feedback can be invaluable when you are wanting to implement changes to your format, your exhibit space or other parts of a show to make sure you are keeping the sponsors happy, the attendees and the exhibitors.  I was reading recently that a convention that was taking place in Las Vegas is now moving due to the feedback received by the attendees.  This is a bit of a drastic move on the part of the organizers but it may provide to be the best move for their business. They listened to what was being said about the location and now are moving from Las Vegas to Anaheim.  Listening to your detractors is hard but you can make it a positive.

I just recently purchased a new smart phone and I am trying to change from the Blackberry I had to the new Droid X. I am not afforded the luxury of having the iPhone as I am not with their carrier.  I know that many of you also struggle with the technology as it comes out and I know that most users have no idea the capabilities of their phones.  This makes our smart phones for dumb users as I like to tell my wife.  The problem is that the technology is growing faster and faster and we have no way to keep up with what is available in most phones.  We have somewhat of the problem with the Go Go Gadget syndrome, never knowing what is going to pop out next.

I know that most organizers of events are now looking to become more mobile as the technology grows and as we become more sophisticated with using it.  Are you “mobile” yet?  That is the question I get from a number of vendors and suppliers of mobile applications out there.  We are seeing the number of iPhone apps being very difficult to review let alone, even count at this point in the game.  They are growing at a pace nobody can seem to keep up with.  We have the mobile applications section of Conventions.net and I encourage you to take a look at that page and familiarize yourself with what is available.  I have the new Android phone and that also has an applications store and we are now into complete overload as it relates to the application market.  We are now entering into the mobile world and we are seeing many new applications that are related to the event and conventions and conference world.  Are you mobile?  If you are mobile what is your favorite mobile applications?  If you are a mobile applications builder and you have an application for the convention industry please let me know about it!

I am asked to speak at a number of events and conferences.  One of the things that I see is on the rise is the fact that many speakers are cutting there speaking fees to the bare minimums to get more work.  This is undercutting the industry for those that have been charging fees for their services for a number of years at the same rate.  The competition is creating price wars due to the sliding economy.

Some of the things that I see speakers are doing is not figuring in their normal fees are things like expenses for travel, expenses for being on site, and the expense of their time.

Conferences will often times pay for the plane fare to their event, pay for a hotel room for them to be at the event for the duration, and will provide the stipend for their speaking fees.  This is becoming a rarity for the event space or conventions and trade shows.  We are now seeing speakers lining up to speak at events for the exposure they get and not charging for those other areas.  They figure that this is a marketing or an advertising vehicle for their true businesses.  They are giving away their expertise on the bet that they may get business from the speaking gig.  If that proves not the case, they have lost that opportunity and they are then on to the next gig.

Meanwhile, speakers are devaluing their services and the services of their peers.  Their peers are unable to compete with those that are giving away services for free and not charging for things that they normally wold as they are hoping to make that up in the sales cycle.  The enabling of this are event planners and convention organizers that are having to cut costs and cut budgets for the content they are providing their attendees. We are seeing the economy change how we do business in this industry and speakers are being hard hit by the new changes.  How is the economy changing how you do business?  Would love to hear your opinions here.

I have been meaning to write this post for a while but I thought that it was interesting to note that Las Vegas convention attendance in the month of July showed an increase of 28%.  Trade Show News Network reports:

The month of July, though, saw a huge uptick, with 320,724 attendees coming to the city, compared with 249,692 during the same time period last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority’s Executive Summary.

They say that the upswing was due to some new shows that are in town and that makes sense as Las Vegas has a better draw for those going and attending conventions.  The economy is driving shows to where they can have the best attendance and where the professional convention planners and the capital of conventions occurs.  This is actually good news as we see some solid numbers increase in Las Vegas the good news will only begin to spread.

Other indicators like room rates that have increased slightly may point to further indicators of economic recovery in the world of conventions and trade shows.  We will continue to take a look a the numbers as they are released.  Are we looking at a recovery?  Or perhaps a short blip in the screen?  My gut tells me not to start throwing a party.

I am constantly going over submitted speaker submissions for ideas about speaking at the events I manage.  Many of the speakers have much the same talk and it is some of the usual suspects that I see get a shot at speaking.  Some of the speaker agencies out there submit 10 applications to speak and all they do is change the name of their client and that can be especially frustrating when you are the one that has to read every application and determine those that make the cut for speaking engagements and those that you have to tell, “Maybe next year.”  It is tough to make those calls and it is even tougher to tell the folks their submission didn’t make it.  I think there are a number of things that can be done by speakers when applying to speak at events that can help your chances.

Be Unique – That may sound very basic but like I said many of the speakers out there all want to talk about the latest and hottest item in their industry and if you don’t stand out you can be assured you will be added to the “No Thanks” pile.

Know Your Organizers – This is not so typical of what I think is on the windshields of those that apply to speak but if you know more about those that are involved in the decision making process the better.  Do a little research on who those people are and what they do.  This can provide invaluable if you get a chance to pitch the idea later.

Keep It Simple – Organizers of events have a very limited amount of time to go through 100′s of submissions.  Keep your title catchy but simple and your pitch should be very much an elevator pitch.  If the organizer reading your submission has to spend too much time getting to the money portion of the pitch, you may end up on that pile quickly.

It’s Not About You – The worst thing I see in the pitch is that the applicant want to make the talk about them and how cool they are.  What you need to do is make it about the event and their attendees.  You pitch from the stage and you may never be asked back to an event. They want to make the best conference for their people. Make it about them.

Speaking at events is for some the best marketing you can have.  You get to be seen as an expert, you get exposure and you get to be the rock star.  Remember that organizers also are looking for the person that understands that from their point of view.  Your applications should be selling to the organizer and it should be your best stuff, but they see it as an honor for them to invite you to their show not that you have graced them with your presence.  Keep your egos and your chest thumping to a minimum.  Make it your mission to make their conference the best it can be and they will respond favorably when it comes times to make a decision on who gets to speak.

One of the things that is becoming common in the new world of new media is many companies are now publishing blog posts about their experiences at your convention of trade show.  Many companies are now blogging and they have Facebook pages that they are using to publish articles about your convention, your trade show and event the meeting they attended.  These articles, photos, and conversations can be re-purposed in recap posts.

Recap posts are feedback and review of attendee experience, exhibitor experience and sponsor experience.  These can be some of the best advertising for your event as it is generally not a biased opinion of how well you did in your planning, or your organization of that event.  You can also thank those that are writing about you by recognizing their blog post by putting it in a gathering of those posts in a single post on your own company blog.

Finally, by finding and listening to the content that is being generated, you can also get that valuable feedback that I discussed yesterday.  Feedback and reviews written are great opportunities for find out what people that how you did.  Publish they good bad and the indifferent and then follow that up with your own review and feedback of what you think went well and the things you intend improve on in the next event or show.

Are you providing the product that your attendees want?  That may seem like a simple question and it may be an obvious one but many organizers and people that are setting forth the program of a convention may not have a clue about what their attendees really want.  One of the best ways to get this information is through the use of surveys.

Many of the conference and convention organizers already have the ability at their fingertips to reach out to their attendees and find out what they want.  I am not talking about the post event feedback that we always look for, but as the event is being planned.  Many organizers are already sending monthly newsletters and those are perfect times to poll or survey their attendees with questions or what they wan to see most at the event as speakers and content being presented, and whether it be workshops or panels.

Facebook and Twitter are a great place to poll your attendees with questions about “chicken or beef” or even the most basic of questions about what they want at your event.  Listening to the industry in the social networks are great ways to find out what is hot in the industry and what the community is talking about and what is garnering their attention.  Keeping an eye on these areas can be quite revealing.

Finally, remember to refer back to those post event surveys that you sent to everyone when your event was over.  If you are not sending post event surveys, you need to find a way to do this to find out what people thought could be done better and then try to implement those changes.  Getting feedback from your attendees is important.  Implementing the changes to make it better is more important.

With the ever increasing media distribution channels and now the many citizen journalists your show floor needs to adapt to meet the needs of today’s new media.  The new media I am speaking of is the attendees themselves. Many of them are now producing their own media, through blogs, podcasts, video and photos.  They are now the new media replacing perhaps the more traditional media that we as convention organizers have been keeping in our planning for our events.  We have sent news release after news release to the more traditional folks trying to get them to run a story on their news sites or to do a quick story about how their viewers, readers or listeners can find out how to attend.

Now we need to figure ways to make it easy for the attendees themselves to have a way to make media on the show floor. We are now seeing many step and repeat back drops for people to do impromptu interviews of experts or speakers and other attendees.  Are you making these types of interviews happen by providing a place for this new media to distribute their product?  If you are not making it simple for the attendee citizen journalist to have a place to make their new media you are missing a most important distribution channel for your event right on your show floor.

Photo via ShashiBellamkonda

It is one of the new catch phrases of the year, “How Do I Make My Business Hyper-Local?”  It is often asked and rarely understood.  Businesses everywhere are going global with their reach as they branch out to areas only now offered as a result of the Internet and Social Media.  They are finding new ways to reach the masses and finding ways to cats a wider net to garner more customers.  This is a great new phenomena that is taking hold and will be a new way of doing business for years to come.  Is this a good thing?  I think it is a great thing, but not at the cost of dealing with the customers in your own backyard.  Are you losing the customers in your backyard?

So many times we are seeing that conventions are growing at leaps and bounds as a result of their newly found reach using tactics that allow them to market to a whole new audience.  They love to talk about getting attendees now from other places in the world and from across the globe, but what they are failing to understand is that they are also forgetting the people right there in their own backyard.  The Internet not only allows you to have a greater reach, it also allows you to drill down within the local communities to find those attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, and others right in your own backyard.  Take some time to research not only that customer on the other side of the world that you can now communicate with, but find that customer right on your own street that has been there the whole time.  You will increase your reach even farther just but seeing what is right in front of you.