Anagram Events

Ever heard this one before ?

"Exhibition organisers need to do more to provide exhibitors with more ways to easily measure their ROI - otherwise we will lose out to Google and other online media - which do offer more measurable results".

But what's always puzzled me about this is that I can see nothing inherent in the exhibition model that means exhibitors can't track ROI for themselves. They can work out the cost of participation (much of which the organiser never sees anyway) - just like online. They can count the leads they generate - just like online. They can track those leads and see which turn into sales - again, just like online. So what's the big deal?

I've been playing with Google Adwords for a few weeks now (and how many tradeshow executives have actually done that themsevles I wonder?) and as a result I now have a slightly different opinion on what the diffrences between online and exhibitions actually are.

Google Adwords (for those of you who don't know) lets you create the adverts that appear on the right hand side of any Google search results - Google for "flights" and any number of airlines adverts will magically pop up next to your results.

Because Google want the ads to be clicked on - so they get paid - they give advertisers access to a huge range of tracking data. You can set up dozens of slightly differently worded adverts, you can make them appear at different times of day, in response to different search terms. There are lots of clever features, but the beauty of the system for an advertiser is that you don't pay each time your ad appears, but only when someone actually clicks on it.

In exhibitions terms this is like exhibiting at a highly focused event (your ads only appear when relevant search terms are keyed in) AND paying a variable space rental rate based for the leads you generate on your stand.

So again - what's the big deal? Focused events? We already do that. Payment on results - well, it does sound scary - but frankly, it wouldn't be impossible for an organiser to deliver something close to this sort of model if they really wanted to, would it? There are plenty of automated lead capture systems out there. Offer exhibitors the option to either pay rack rate, or opt for a lower base price per m2 with a variable supplement depending on leads taken? Hard, but not impossible.

So what stopping us delivering ROI just like Google? Is there something else?

I think so.

With Adwords the real USP isn't that you pay per click. It's that you can create and run loads of different variations on your advert all at the same time. You can try different sets of wording, you can change when and where it appears, you can even specify sites where it won't appear. But by trying them at the same time you can see how each variant alters the response rate instantly, so you can then make modifications "on the fly" improving your campaign as you go.

This sort of iterative, incremental and "market-tested as you go" design philosophy is pretty much mainstream business practice in many sectors of the economy. Have you noticed how often each model of car gets a "facelift" these days? Read any management books where big retailers talk about empowering local management to run local initiatives in-store? Ever accessed Wikipedia, or added an application to your own homepage on Facebook? It's the norm in all sectors - not just media and marketing.

But it does however sit rather uncomfortably with the annual tradeshow. Have a poor tradeshow and even if you know what went wrong, it's probably at least a year until you can try and fix it. As an exhibitor, all your investment is committed up front to just one booth location/stand design/staffing plan - which you can't change once the hall doors open ("sorry sir, health and safety, you can't bring a trolly in nw the show is open...").

But this again is not really an online-offline thing. If one of our exhibitors runs their own series of experiential roadshows - or hosts their own expo-sized event - they can make changes to the model whenever they want - even overnight if they need to. They choose when next to run it again, what themes and formats to keep, what things to ditch.

The difference with booking a tradeshow is huge. It starts to look like the buying process we require customers to go through is sitting increasingly uneasily alongside the iterative, incremental just-in-time philosophy that many other forms of marketing are gravitating towards right now.

So, are we in danger of missing the point of what makes e-marketing such a compelling proposition to some of our lapsed customers? Will offering better data, and helping them measure ROI make much difference anyway?

Providing our customers with more data is only part of the solution. But it's nothing unless we also understand how our customers want to apply that data.

The harsh truth is that redesigning the tradeshow business model to accommodate this new, iterative approach to marketing that Google and the other online media have made possible will require a far more fundamental rethink of the expo business model than just providing audited visitor numbers and some barcode scanners as part of the booth space price.

Labels: online media, ROI, trade show