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Almost three-quarters of event organizers and corporate brand marketers plan to have digital media strategies in place for their events this year, while almost half use virtual events.
These are some of the key findings in a new survey, Digital and Exhibit Marketing Insights 2010, conducted by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research and George P. Johnson.
Of the 242 event organizers and brand marketers surveyed, 46 percent said they increased the use of digital media strategies to market their events this year. “Exhibition marketers have been increasingly leveraging digital media to enhance the value of their events, facilitate partner networking, and promote their products and services,” said CEIR Executive Director Cathy Breden, CAE, CMP, in a press release. “However, this data suggests that a much deeper and broader change is sweeping the exhibit marketing industry, with players at every level making a real commitment to digital adoption.” The mandate to do more with less has spurred the growth of digital media in the last 12 months, the report adds.
The term digital media refers to online marketing in all its forms, including e-mail marketing, online ads, social media, online video, webcasts, podcasts, blogs, and virtual events. The most popular form of digital marketing is e-mail, which 93 percent of respondents use. Here is what the survey found are the digital media used by respondents, in order of the most to least popular:
e-mail: 93 percent
social media sites: 81 percent
Web sites/microsites: 76 percent
online advertising: 75 percent
blogs: 53 percent
search marketing: 51 percent
virtual events: 49 percent
online video: 44 percent
podcasts: 34 percent
mobile/text messaging: 34 percent
RSS: 28 percent
online games: 8 percent.
According to the survey, 72 percent plan to have a digital event strategy—which may include either hiring people to spearhead the effort or outsourcing the task—in place by the end of 2010.
Of those respondents who use virtual events, 61 percent say they do so to complement existing face-to-face events. About 56 percent say the virtual events are used to accommodate a geographically widespread workforce/attendee base, while 51 percent say they increase the reach of an event. Around 20 percent say they do virtual events to save money, and just 5 percent are doing virtual events to replace face-to-face events.
When asked to compare face-to-face events to virtual events when it comes to making exhibition sales, 35 percent said face-to-face are more successful while only 1 percent said virtual events are better. Forty-five percent of respondents either don’t compare the two kinds of events or said that a comparison wasn’t possible. About 19 percent said they didn’t know which is more effective.
A large majority (76 percent) believe that digital marketing improves their event promotion efforts. Just 7 percent said it had no impact and 17 percent weren’t sure. E-mail marketing was considered to deliver the most ROI, followed by Web sites/microsites, and social media sites.
Monday, 18 October 2010
Can Social Media Enhance Your Next Meeting, Event or Incentive Program?
This article was written by Chris Gaia, vice president of marketing, Maritz Travel, and Neal Thompson, director, Strategic Technologies, Maritz Travel. Their company is the global leader in helping companies achieve business results through the effective use of meeting, event and incentive travel programs. Maritz Travel works with companies to reward and recognize top performers, ensure effective communications to customers or staff, spur innovation through enhance collaboration, and improve customer, employee and channel partner engagement.
Many companies today are asking if it makes sense to integrate social media tools available on today’s market into their meeting, event or incentive (ME&I) program. Social media tools can take many forms, from proprietary blogs, private virtual event platforms, forums and posts, to mobile applications, Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. These tools represent real opportunities to impact a program by exciting and engaging the audience before, during and after the live event, and extending the content to reach more people, more often.
To help navigate this ever-changing space consider the following Do’s and Don’ts for deciding how best to incorporate these various tools into your program design.
DO
Enhance communication through speaker feedback and attendee dialogue. Tweets, Facebook postings to an event wall, or even private virtual meeting platforms can help you get a quick pulse on the level of interest across agenda topics and activities prior to the event, provide a view into participant sentiment regarding how it is performing against expectations during the event, and affords you the ability to extend the content of your event. These tools are also a great way to encourage attendees to invite other people to your event via the social network platform.
Extend the experience. Many sites provide participants with the opportunity to not only post comments, but also upload photos and share experiences. These stories can help increase team camaraderie and extend the event well beyond its completion. You will want to make sure you have thought through the implications of potentially making meeting activities and content more visible to the general public. Recent security settings now available on Facebook enable you to provide greater control over who can and cannot see the content. A common approach to keep content private is to only allow invited attendees to see your private page and post to your wall. By collecting your attendee’s Facebook email address, you can invite them to the private page.
Go green(er) by replacing paper agendas, meeting notices and schedule changes through the use of mobile applications. You might think it odd to include mobile communication as a social media tool, but our recent client experience clearly indicates participants feel it is an added convenience because it enhances communications between the company and their participants. This makes sense as most mobile Internet traffic centers around social networking activities. Through our implementation on several programs, Maritz has found this provides an eco-friendly way to communicate program notices, schedule changes and set up personalized reminders. Participants are given the option of receiving information this way, and clients typically see opt-in rates of more than 70 percent!
While social media can enhance a program, there are several cautions around its use to consider during the decision process.
DON’T
View these tools as replacements for great content. Excellent meetings engage and connect your audience with your message and help people think and act differently. New technology cannot overcome poor messaging and ineffective communications. Some of the social networking tools limit the amount of content you can post and may not be appropriate for all types of communication.
View these tools as replacements for your meeting or event. People are wired to be social and face-to-face meetings help your business tap into this innate desire. Don’t short cut your event by implementing too much technology. Avoid this problem by starting small and figuring out what works well for you and your participants.
Assume all attendees want to engage in social media. Knowing your attendees’ preferences in whether or not they would like to engage in social media can make or break the impact you’re trying to achieve. Do some legwork when designing your program to better understand your audience and invest in the tools that enhance both the participant experience and your business value.
Avoid or ignore these tools. As social media tools have become embedded within most people’s lives, they are becoming an increasingly important part of how we relate to each other both personally and professionally. In all likelihood, there are varying levels of social media that occur already in relationship to your programs. Choosing to ignore or avoid the integration of social media strategies doesn’t provide you or your attendees any benefit. Embracing and educating yourself on these tools will help your program better connect with your audience members.
Social media can be an important contributor to the value created by meetings, events and incentives. Businesses should consider testing various approaches with their programs. It presents an opportunity for organizations to deliver new, exciting and important content in an effective and inviting manner. Your attendees will appreciate the effort!
Many companies today are asking if it makes sense to integrate social media tools available on today’s market into their meeting, event or incentive (ME&I) program. Social media tools can take many forms, from proprietary blogs, private virtual event platforms, forums and posts, to mobile applications, Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. These tools represent real opportunities to impact a program by exciting and engaging the audience before, during and after the live event, and extending the content to reach more people, more often.
To help navigate this ever-changing space consider the following Do’s and Don’ts for deciding how best to incorporate these various tools into your program design.
DO
Enhance communication through speaker feedback and attendee dialogue. Tweets, Facebook postings to an event wall, or even private virtual meeting platforms can help you get a quick pulse on the level of interest across agenda topics and activities prior to the event, provide a view into participant sentiment regarding how it is performing against expectations during the event, and affords you the ability to extend the content of your event. These tools are also a great way to encourage attendees to invite other people to your event via the social network platform.
Extend the experience. Many sites provide participants with the opportunity to not only post comments, but also upload photos and share experiences. These stories can help increase team camaraderie and extend the event well beyond its completion. You will want to make sure you have thought through the implications of potentially making meeting activities and content more visible to the general public. Recent security settings now available on Facebook enable you to provide greater control over who can and cannot see the content. A common approach to keep content private is to only allow invited attendees to see your private page and post to your wall. By collecting your attendee’s Facebook email address, you can invite them to the private page.
Go green(er) by replacing paper agendas, meeting notices and schedule changes through the use of mobile applications. You might think it odd to include mobile communication as a social media tool, but our recent client experience clearly indicates participants feel it is an added convenience because it enhances communications between the company and their participants. This makes sense as most mobile Internet traffic centers around social networking activities. Through our implementation on several programs, Maritz has found this provides an eco-friendly way to communicate program notices, schedule changes and set up personalized reminders. Participants are given the option of receiving information this way, and clients typically see opt-in rates of more than 70 percent!
While social media can enhance a program, there are several cautions around its use to consider during the decision process.
DON’T
View these tools as replacements for great content. Excellent meetings engage and connect your audience with your message and help people think and act differently. New technology cannot overcome poor messaging and ineffective communications. Some of the social networking tools limit the amount of content you can post and may not be appropriate for all types of communication.
View these tools as replacements for your meeting or event. People are wired to be social and face-to-face meetings help your business tap into this innate desire. Don’t short cut your event by implementing too much technology. Avoid this problem by starting small and figuring out what works well for you and your participants.
Assume all attendees want to engage in social media. Knowing your attendees’ preferences in whether or not they would like to engage in social media can make or break the impact you’re trying to achieve. Do some legwork when designing your program to better understand your audience and invest in the tools that enhance both the participant experience and your business value.
Avoid or ignore these tools. As social media tools have become embedded within most people’s lives, they are becoming an increasingly important part of how we relate to each other both personally and professionally. In all likelihood, there are varying levels of social media that occur already in relationship to your programs. Choosing to ignore or avoid the integration of social media strategies doesn’t provide you or your attendees any benefit. Embracing and educating yourself on these tools will help your program better connect with your audience members.
Social media can be an important contributor to the value created by meetings, events and incentives. Businesses should consider testing various approaches with their programs. It presents an opportunity for organizations to deliver new, exciting and important content in an effective and inviting manner. Your attendees will appreciate the effort!
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