Exhibitions and trade shows are as old as the concept of selling itself. The way we organize and also more specialized. Exhibitions let buyers today explore every aspect of the market; however, the fundamentals remain the same. Our mission? To trade face-to-face. To establish relationships. To explore products.
Beyond 2018, the staggering speed of technological advancement and the explosion of big data as well as the need for a more connected experience, have forever changed the way the process is carried out. As CEIR note, today’s exhibition attendees require two main engagement requirements, and that is people-to-people engagement as well as people-to-product interactions.
If the concept is the same, the implementation could not be any different. Let’s take a look at the major changes in the marketing of exhibitions in the past two decades.
1. Technological advancements that explode
The technological advances are worthy of attention due to the fact that the technological environment is drastically different from 20 years ago. Take a look at how we’ve witnessed an explosion of technology over the past two decades. Technology has reshaped our industries and disciplines frequently by introducing new products. As marketers and business people, we need to be aware of this speed and try to keep pace to stay in the game.
Even so, however dramatic the changes, the motive to implement the new technology isn’t changing in any way.
Today’s technology news talks about the virtual world, AI, and robotics; 20 years ago, you could have been discussing new lighting technology or the resurgence that digital videos offer. In 2018 and beyond, we have the option of choosing from a wide array of technologies that allow us to create truly thrilling experiences that resonate emotionally with viewers. This lets us make subjects come alive and connect with our viewers in a way that was impossible prior to.
A study from 2016, New Media Display Technology and the Exhibition Experience demonstrates this: The owners of the Chinese National Palace Museum identified the need to enhance the quality of exhibits. The presentation of museum content and artifacts was strictly physical, with no form of digitalization or interaction. Therefore, a massive modernization program was launched, with the aim of digitizing the content and the integration of creativity and interdisciplinary technology like floating projection, augmented reality and other forms of sensory media.
The rapid change in this new technology produced remarkable results.
Their main exhibition about East Asian maritime history was hugely successful and won an award for its innovativeness. Of the more than 54,000 people who visited the new exhibit, 99.4% were satisfied, and the interest of the public grew from 58.9 percent to 81.6 percent.
This stunning glimpse of a radical shift from conventional exhibit technology to a modern interactive design provides an illuminating example of the power of our current “toolkit.
2. The increase of big data
You’ve probably read about the fact 90 percent of the data in the world has been created in the last two years. IBM believes that 2017 was the year in which 2.5 million bytes of data was created each day.
What do these means to us as exhibition marketing professionals? In simple terms, we learn more about our exhibition customers than we ever have before. We’re able to achieve consistently the most cherished goal, which is “joined-up customers’ experiences’. Think back twenty years ago, when we didn’t have the Internet or any method of tracking people’s journey from one channel to another. Omni-channel marketing wasn’t a thing. CRM systems did not exist, at least not in the way we use them now. There was no idea of the way a potential buyer had connected with you. Moreover, guiding prospects to make a purchase was much longer and time-consuming. Nowadays, we are able to determine, track and follow leads throughout an omnichannel customer journey starting from the time they contact us until the point they purchase.
Actually, more people were doing trade on that day trade show twenty years ago due to the fact that the mechanisms to extend buying cycles were not similar. This meant that an opportunity missed was often not taken advantage of for the best. Today, we’re able to communicate and interact with our fellow citizens in a more intricate and multi-faceted way for longer. This is definitely a good thing.
The growth of big data has a significant impact on the world of data.
20 years ago, marketing professionals weren’t as accountable since they had less knowledge of methods of holding them accountable. If your marketing department told you that they did an excellent job, they believed them. That is, until numbers come in, but even after, there are many factors that affect the performance of your sales.
International studies, even in the last five years, have highlighted the trust of marketers as well as accountability as the most important issues, largely because of how marketing operations are no longer decentralized after tasks are put in the local management of marketing. Therefore that proving ROI is an arduous but necessary requirement- and exhibition managers are not any different.
Big data has revolutionized the way we measure ROI in a dramatic way. Today, we can comprehend and assess the effectiveness of an exhibition using new metrics such as participation in social networks, organic and direct website traffic, as well as in-depth satisfaction surveys. More than ever before, it is easy to see the things that are working and what’s not.
We’re more flexible, and this is great news for businesses that are able to understand and make use of their data. Particularly those who are not afraid of experimenting with their ideas for the most effective outcomes.
3. The interconnected web
It’s easy for us to forget that things weren’t always this different 20 years ago. However, it was a far cry from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Your visitors to your exhibition were generally similar to your actual attendees at your exhibition. The word-of-mouth phenomenon was still present, but to a lesser extent.
Take a look at the present the present day, and visitors to the exhibition are part of an active and interconnected community that goes well beyond the exhibition’s four walls.