Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

The Next Logical Phase of Event Hybridization and Why It Will Be a Game Changer

hybrid eventsThe merging of live events with digital content and remote attendees was bound to happen. When the Internet poked her head through the ceiling of the convention center, the industry expected something interesting to follow. The divide between face-to-face and virtual experiences has already been narrowed by hybrid events, but the convergence won’t stop there.

There is another side to opening up the Pandora’s box of digital and pouring the contents out onto the trade show and conference room floors.

 

Phase-one hybrids
Hybrid event producers and platform providers have done a fabulous job of providing remote attendees with access to the live event environment. Live presentations are streamed out, while virtual “visitors” chat, tweet and Skype their thoughts and images back into the physical event. Everyone is happy; the “outsiders” are rewarded with great content and some engagement and the “insiders” reap the benefits of increased visibility and net-new live attendees.

But, what happens when live attendees are given access to the digital environment, all of it, even exhibitors, presenters, and content that isn’t physically there?

When we can harness the universe
Imagine a time in the future when a face-to-face event attendee will be able to visit a physical trade show, come upon an interesting booth, engage the exhibitor in conversation and collect product information, BUT instead of moving on, he will linger in the aisle to learn about all of the other companies that offer similar products and services—even the ones that aren’t at the show.

Also in the future, a live conference attendee will be able to sit in a presentation, hear something compelling, life-changing, even transformative and afterward learn about other presentations, companies, ideas, books, white papers, movies and Ted Talks related to the session topic—even those not featured at the conference.

This blending of live and digital is a game changer. Where before, the remote attendees extracted value from the live environment (and craved to experience it), in this new scenario—the next logical phase of event hybridization—live attendees will be able to obtain value from the virtual environment (and they will crave the live experience even more). Going forward, the blending of the real and digital worlds will come full circle.

Mobile will bring it all together
We have all of the tools now to make the convergence happen. Using mobile devices and specially designed applications, live event attendees can scan barcodes, QR codes and augmented reality symbols or tap NFC-enabled phones on posters, columns and signs to access new content, be “transported” into another realm or simply direct the information they desire to a central database for later review.

I haven’t even mentioned Google Goggles.

Before the riot starts
What live event organizer in their right minds would agree to flinging open the digital doors and exposing their existing customers to the competition of companies that aren’t even there? What exhibitor or sponsor would pay to exhibit in or sponsor a live event that supports their competitors? ALL OF THEM. Here’s why:

  • Some time soon, fewer attendees will use live events to initiate buying decisions or learn new information because the events won’t be representative of all of the products, topics and solutions that exist. They will only come if and when they are ready to buy, choosing instead to collect digital information to narrow down the field.
  • Blended (phase-two hybrid) events will be more compelling than stand-alone events. Live attendees will have (and want) the best of both worlds to experience and reach their goals.
  • Exhibitors and sponsors that participate in the live event are automatically privileged over companies that only participate digitally.
  • Organizers are paying much more attention to the attendee experience. What could be more fulfilling for conference-goers than to be able to compare, contrast and continue the learning from a single location?
  • Additional content (from digital participants) represents potential revenue streams for the organizers and introduces a type of tiered participation scheme.
  • Nothing replaces the face-to-face event (so it’s been said a million times) and if the convergence is inevitable, live events will be the only environment where live and digital can exist together.
  • A certain percentage of the companies that participate digitally at first may one day exhibit in and sponsor the live event. It is a brilliant onboarding strategy.

The takeaway:
As the next phase of hybridization emerges, event organizers will have to rethink the value proposition of stand-alone events. They will have to become curators as well as planners and use technology to make sense of the digital landscape as an extension the physical floor plan. More than anything, they will have to understand that hybridization will eventually become a two-way street—remote attendees looking in and live attendees looking out—and it will change the live event game for good.

Monetizing Digital Events

Apparently it’s fairly easy to monetize a virtual event if you have the customer base, an understanding about what works and what doesn’t for your audience and a platform with ample monetization opportunities. A recent Thought Leaders Live Webcast from INXPO shed some light on the myriad ways to earn revenue from digital platforms. Attendees also received a copy of the company’s white paper (registration required, but it’s worth it) detailing the assets (banners ads, messaging, Webinars, directories, lounges, etc.) and bundling strategies that event hosts can deploy.

Ali Libb, online event manager, American Marketing Association and a Webcast presenter, explained that she takes her cues from live event sponsorship opportunities.  A veteran of 11 virtual events since February 2010, Libb outlined her success using tiered sponsorships—each level having a different mix of offerings from speaking opportunities to logos in email and branded landing pages. She offered three specific takeaways in her presentation:

  • Matching presentation topics with sponsors who would like to be associated with those specific subjects, while taking care not to allow overt selling, is a successful approach for attracting sponsors.
  • Content—Webinar presentations, videos, white papers—is easier to monetize than sales opportunities such as virtual trade show booths.
  • Making the content (and the sponsorship opportunities) available for at least 90 days after the virtual event is a good selling point for prospective sponsors and a benefit that physical events can’t offer.

Danielle Belmont, senior online events manager, BNP Media was the second presenter on the INXPO Webcast. Having produced 15 virtual events, she offered a long list of revenue earning tactics from her experience:

  • Virtual booths
  • Event sponsorship packages including a virtual booth, marketing collateral distribution, booth survey, promotional piece in attendee briefcase, attendee list and a podcast
  • Resource center sponsorship
  • Networking lounge sponsorship
  • Exhibit hall video sponsorship
  • Prize sponsorship

Matt Goodwin, senior account executive, INXPO, offered additional monetization schemes including entrance actions (slides on a screen or video playing as attendees take their virtual seats), interactive web space, sponsored polling in slides, product placements in the virtual environment and exit actions (directing attendees to a web site or booth at the conclusion of the presentation). Goodwin also left open the possibility of using game mechanics and mobile extensions as monetization platforms.

As with live events, the revenue potential is only limited by the sponsorship “real estate” and the event organizer’s imagination.  As virtual and physical events continue to merge into hybrid experiences, the potential for monetization becomes even greater with online and offline strategies combining virtual and physical event properties.

Have you implemented any monetization tactics at your virtual events that were particularly lucrative?

 

Making your Cash Register Ring with (Event) Affiliate Marketing

At the risk of seeming like a Rick Calvert Groupie (I’ve already written about BlogWorld twice at TSNN.com: The “Networked Beat” Approach to Curating Event Communities and The Day That Banners Died: BlogWorld and the QR Code Trip), I’m going to take yet another shot at it. Earlier this month, I was able to attend the MTO Summit in Washington, DC where Rick Calvert, co-founder of BlogWorld and New Media Expo, gave a presentation on affiliate marketing for trade shows and conferences. He has used the techniques he described at his own event with impressive results. For all of those event organizers still unsure about the value of cultivating a strong community, this post should make you sit up straight in your chair.

Affiliate marketing is a system for rewarding individuals who recommend your event by asking their friends, followers, and colleagues to click on a link, banner, or widget on their blog or Web site. The link takes said friends to event registration or some other desired destination on your Web site. You reward the individuals (your affiliates) with cash. The new registrant receives a discount on registration or some other benefit. When done well, i.e. the program is transparent, the affiliates are ethical, and the discount is worthwhile, affiliate marketing works.

So, “What can event organizers sell with affiliate marketing?” Calvert asked the audience members:

  • Registration
  • Lead generation
  • Exhibit space
  • Sponsorship
  • Housing
  • Virtual events
  • Content

Your affiliates could be past attendees, exhibitors, speakers, trade associations, media, and of course bloggers. Affiliate marketing can also be carried out with email (and newsletters) eliminating the barriers for affiliates who don’t have their own Web sites. All of the “accounting” is done behind the scenes with embedded code and the assistance of third party Affiliate Networks such as ShareASale, LinkShare, Commission Junction, and AffinityClick who take a percentage of the transaction (10% or so according to Calvert).

Affiliate marketing isn’t an overnight success story. Calvert began in 2007 with revenue under $10,000. In 2010, his affiliate marketing efforts put nearly $120,000 (less the 10% commission) in his pocket. Besides the obvious benefit of revenue, affiliate programs help organizers market and socialize their events. If one blogger puts a link on his blog, and twenty people retweet the blog post, the event is marketed to at least twenty new people and so on. Discounted registration, hotel rooms, sponsorships, etc. would be hot commodities not to mention being able to fill hotel room blocks. Anyone heard of Groupon?

Like any marketing program, someone in your organization has to monitor the affiliate behavior (as much as possible), work with the Affiliate Network, and do the math. Obviously, if it costs more to offer discounts and pay commission and staff to execute the program, it may not be for you. However, BlogWorld with 3,000 attendees (mostly bloggers) was able to earn $100,000+ in a few years, what could larger events do?

The Takeaway: Today’s affiliate marketing isn’t like the MCI Friends and Family Offer of yesteryear where customers were “encouraged” to turn over the contact info of their family and friends to the telephone company. It is much more widely accepted and practiced than network marketing (multilevel marketing). It is another way to leverage the Internet and take advantage of social networks and yes, it is another way that a well-developed and loyal community built around an event CAN deliver tangible results.

The NAB Show’s Virtual Trade Show Odyssey

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show is the annual embodiment of all that is content-related including the creation, management, commerce, distribution, delivery and consumption of audio, video and film. It’s only natural that they would entertain the idea of offering a virtual trade show and conference at some point.

On January 20, the show organizers will launch a one-day virtual event called DigitalVision 2010. Obviously, they need to demonstrate that they are proponents of digital content and its related delivery systems in order to fulfill the face-to-face show’s mission to service the “broader-casting®” industry. Still, they are approaching the virtual launch with a healthy dose of skepticism.

DigitalVision 2010 will offer up to twenty virtual exhibitors (Including the NAB Show that will use the platform to promote its large face-to-face exhibition and conference scheduled for April 10-15 in Las Vegas) an opportunity to connect with at least 4,000 visitors (projected). Admission is free of charge.

NAB’s virtual show will utilize a platform from ON24. In addition to the virtual booths, the event will feature live Q&A, keynote presentations, online chat, downloadable materials, moderated chat and a virtual lounge for idea exchange and social networking.

Brad Williams, vice president member benefits and development for NAB, has been researching the virtual option for at least three years to address the need to create a year round experience for show participants. “We do a great job with the physical event, why not utilize technology to touch our audience year round? Exhibitors want to touch prospects year round and attendees want information year round,” he says.

NAB Show organizers worked out a relatively low risk (no net expense) way to test the concept, earn some revenue and experiment with new (for them) technology. They are partnering with NewBay Media to provide conference content and moderate the chats and lounges.  The two will share revenue (they are already in the black) on the virtual event.

NAB chose to kick off DigitalVision in January because it’s the time that exhibitors normally kick off their sales seasons and face-to-face attendees start thinking about the April exhibition. They are hoping that the virtual show will help drive attendance to the physical show.

Williams and his colleagues will analyze specific metrics to determine the virtual show’s performance. The ON24 platform provides reporting on event activity such as the amount of time a visitor spends at the show, number of log-ins per person, materials downloaded, booths visited, sessions viewed and chat session activity.

Organizers will also look at virtual attendees to see whether they attended past NAB Shows and match virtual attendance against physical attendance at the April show to identify who attended both. During registration, they will ask virtual attendees, “Do you plan to attend the NAB Show? Yes/No/Maybe,” Williams says.  Virtual attendees will receive coded (complimentary) exhibits-only passes as well as some coded discount codes ($100 off) for conference registrations for the April Show. When the coded passes and discounts are used to register for the face-to-face show, the information will be recorded.

Despite the fact that virtual shows offer a “nice business model with serious revenue potential,” says Williams, the NAB Show organizers have their reservations. Cannibalism is a concern. The organizers don’t want to see exhibitor budgets shifting from the physical show to the virtual show or for attendees that are accustomed to attending the face-to-face mega show to suddenly decide that the virtual event is good enough.

When considering potential revenue opportunities via a virtual platform, the Association itself (as opposed to the NAB Show) is less involved in the deliberations. Although the NAB Show is, in terms of income, “the tail that wags the dog,” Williams says, only 20% of the association members attend the annual trade show because the association represents free, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters and broadcast networks. “The show is about content, which includes our membership base, but we want to create business opportunities for entire show community of digital content professionals, he adds.

Despite its trepidation, the NAB show wants to extend its brand and create a “mix of technologies driving year round engagement” for its customers. They are hoping that the virtual show will be an extension, NOT a replacement, for the face-to-face show. “We would rather be seen as an organization that is trying to do some new and creative things for its customers. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else,” Williams says.

The Takeaway:  The NAB Show really has no choice but to experiment with virtual events. Digital content is what they do. Fortunately, they are approaching the issue prudently. They reduced their risk and investment by partnering with another company. If the virtual show is a success, everyone wins. Either way, it’s important for them to determine what works and what doesn’t for their specific audience.

Apart from whether the virtual show will or won’t cannibalize the physical show, the NAB Show and others have to utilize different mediums for growing their shows now and in the future. Traditional marketing, including email has its limitations. Virtual outreach is one way to touch the customers you already know and tap into the growing number of “digerati” who don’t know you.

Money, Money, Money, Money, MONEY: Social Media Revenue Streams for Trade Shows and Conferences

You may not remember “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays from listening to your own records, your parent’s or watching Soul Train on TV, but that’s what the quest for social media ROI reminds me of. Once the business model for social media provided event organizers with new revenue streams, it suddenly became more than a “shiny new object.”

For a cool multi-sensory blog experience, try playing the song in the background while you read this post. 

Smartphones

The Follow Me app from Core-Apps is a great example of the types of revenue opportunities available on smartphone platforms. There are two flavors of Follow Me. One is Web-based (an Internet connection is required but the app is free) and includes a show floor map, exhibitor search function, trade show alerts and local merchant/exhibitor advertising capabilities. 

An interactive, full-featured application that does not require an Internet connection costs $1.99 and includes all of the features of the Web-based application plus interactive scheduling, links to friends, interactive mapping and routing and the download of exhibitor brochures.

Follow Me offers revenue opportunities including application sales (downloads), exhibitor banner ads, click-through coupons, enhanced exhibitor information, local merchant advertising. Core-apps charges a one-time overhead fee but allows event organizers to recoup the fee at 50% of the captured revenue until the fee is recouped and 30% of the revenue after the overhead fee threshold is met.

ChirpE from A2Z, Inc., is another Web-based mobile application that offers revenue generation opportunities for exhibition organizers. It replaces the printed exhibitor guide eliminating some or all of the printing costs. 

ChirpE allows attendees to access exhibitor and conference session information, create a personalized itinerary, receive updates on event buzz (text messages posted on a ChirpE channel by a designated Community Reporter) and schedule changes.

ChirpE users can e-mail exhibitors directly and access exhibitor Web sites. Event details and personalized itineraries are synchronized in real-time between Facebook®, ChirpE and the event Web site. It also integrates LinkedIn® and Twitter® as well. 

A2Z, Inc. charges exhibition organizers a fee to access the premium version of the ChirpE platform, however a basic version is offered free to existing clients. Attendees can access both basic and premium services at no charge. Additional revenue can be generated through sponsorship opportunities and banner ads placed on ChirpE screens and notification emails.

Private social networking platforms 

It’s fair to say that most of the event-centric social networking platforms such as Zerista, Pathable, Crowdvine, TheSocialCollective and others offer revenue streams to event organizers. John Kanarowski of Zerista was kind enough to send me some specific information on the revenue options for his platform. “Keep in mind, these are incremental revenue opportunities that are not available to event organizers on general purpose social networks [such as Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube],” he says. 

The primary revenue sources that Zerista offers event organizers include: 

  • Sponsorship of the entire networking platform for a specific event. Zerista packages custom banners, welcome messages, links within event related emails and data on exhibitor and attendee usage and interest patterns in the sponsorship offering. 
  • Exhibitor upgrades to a “virtual booth” within the event networking platform. The virtual booth is “an online space that provides additional communication and networking features,” Kanarowski says. Organizers can bundle the virtual booth upgrades into premium booth packages.
  • Access to conference content by virtual attendees. Zerista’s platform offers solutions for running a blended event (live and virtual) or virtual only event. Zerista’s platform allows the distribution of streamed and archived content as well as an ecommerce engine to sell and manage online access. 

Virtual Tradeshows and Conferences 

Aside from the usual sponsorship and advertising opportunities such as banners, sponsorship of the various components (speakers, rooms, networking, prizes, etc.) booths and other content that virtual events offer, VConferenceOnline is also offering a turnkey program to independent meeting planners. 

VConferenceOnline’s philosophy is that there are certain tasks that meeting planners have to do whether the conference is live or virtual such as coordinate speakers, manage content and handle registration. The company is developing an online conference called Virtual Event University scheduled for some time in October. The conference will define the role of the meeting planner in online event presentation and outline specific revenue opportunities such as a mark-up on the cost of the event. 

Twitter 

Twitter has infiltrated the minds of the entrepreneurial event marketing types with and without the use of third-party platforms. The Friday Pint blog highlights some of the Twitter-based revenue opportunities. “… at least two new sponsorship opportunities emerge: for starters, invite sponsorship of your tweetup. Forward-thinking trade shows have already benefited from displaying live tweets on a large screen at their event – offer sponsorship of the screen. Plus, a post-show write-up of the key themes emerging on twitter during the event sent to all attendees offers additional branding opportunity.”

The Takeaway:  If part of an event organizer’s social media strategy involves developing new revenue streams, there are seemingly unlimited ways to slice and dice the social media pie of offerings. Most of the opportunity lies with third-party event-centric platforms. Additionally, the limited ability to generate revenue streams from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others may make them less attractive even though the initial out-of-pocket costs are lower. Don’t blame me if the O’Jays song is stuck in your head now.

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