One of our trusted colleagues is Michelle Bruno. She has been an active contributor for IAEE’s publications over the years. And we are excited about her new venture as a blogger for TSNN. Her first post was yesterday entitled:
Virtual Events As Marketing Channels for Live Events
Since this one of her areas of interest, she is providing us with this material.
The Internet has turned the whole concept of trade show marketing on its head. Exhibitors are no longer restricted to a 40 x 40 foot section of carpeted cement and attendees may be seated on a comfy rental sofa or their desks back at the office. The virtual and the physical space has become one infinite stretch of real estate and exhibitors have access to unlimited options for pre-, at-, and post-show marketing. The challenge for exhibit marketers is to blend the two worlds seamlessly together.
Richard Norby, vice president creative services and senior creative director at Chicago-based Live Marketing visualizes an “event ecosystem” filled with Internet-based tools, strategies and techniques that can be used as part of a live marketing mix. For example, the physical trade show can supply content for online marketing outlets. An online presence associated with the live show can capture prospects that may never attend the face-to-face event.
Norby suggests five tactics to integrate the virtual and physical opportunities associated with live events:
1. Use PURLs in direct marketing campaigns. PURLs or Personal URLs are web links to personalized web sites designed specifically for the recipient. The web sites may contain customized information, surveys, premiums or offers for attendees. They have been shown to increase ROI for each marketing dollar spent and boost email response rates. “PURLs take one-way communication and make it two-way,” Norby says.
2. Use social media customized for the event. Norby recommends starting with Twitter because “it fits best in the event dynamic.” Exhibitors can tweet interesting info or have contests and special offers that they post using the event hashtag. For example, tweets that say “the first 10 attendees to visit our booth with receive an iPad,” can be powerful traffic drivers.
Here is an example of a Kodak Tweet from today’s Tweet Deck:
Facebook is another way to deepen relationships with prospects. Norby recommends creating a fan page specifically for the trade show. “Intel has a fan page just for their participation in a Microsoft event,” he says. Facebook can archive the photos and video from the show.
Use Facebook and Twitter as part of a mobile marketing campaign, Norby suggests. Also, create an internal publication calendar that details what a company will tweet and post in advance. Call on customers and show advocates to help add content and retweet messages.
3. Develop microsites for each event focused on a specific campaign, message or theme that parallels the trade show program and objectives. Some microsites are exact replicas of the physical trade show booth. Hewlett Packard created a microsite during the SIGGRAPH Expo. A pre-show email invited attendees to a “secret” DreamLab online experience. The microsite contained information about HP’s DreamColor Technology, customer testimonials and an interactive challenge for visitors. The microsite emulated the products being exhibited at the live show and afforded HP some extra marketing mileage before and after the event.
4. Produce high quality webcasts to extend content collected at the live event and generate leads. Norby recommends providing excellent content, aggressive audience acquisition, a registration process to capture leads, and a reliable platform.
5. Use video on the Web. “Live events are excellent opportunities to capture great video assets,” says Norby. For a recent program created for Intel, the company captured footage and created 34 different videos including interviews from product experts, product demos, and customer testimonials. One effort involved asking attendees the question—“As Intel VPro (an Intel product) what super hero would you be?” After two months, the video received over 30,000 views online.
HP also was interviewed at SIGGRAPH. Here is a screen shot of that interview.
The marketing mix surrounding trade shows and other live events has become much more complex in recent years. Virtual shows and hybrid events have increased the possibilities for blending the online and offline event worlds together even further. A clear strategy is critical. “The technology is not the communication,” says Norby. Marketers must work with their agencies and internal departments to create content and design an experience that synchronizes face-to-face and virtual experiences to drive greater results.
