Born Again Tradeshows

If you want the latest news on technology product launches, you no longer have to wait for the next Comdex or Supercomm. Events that lead to a buzz about products and services are taking different forms, whether it is a post on GigaOm, TechCrunch, Gizmodo or others, a passing mention on social media, or news of an investigation into a lost prototype of a yet-to-be launched product found in a bar. Depending on which industry you belong to, there could be new ways in which to learn about developments in your specific industry, without having to wait for the next big event in your industry.

So what would be a good approach to reinvent a trade show, revive it or and prevent it from extinction? Here are a few of my thoughts on 'Born Again' Trade Shows. I am using the name of Supercomm to focus my thoughts, but it could be any trade show brand that has been canceled or hurting.

• Start building a by-invitation-only online community under the Supercomm brand - believe it or not, even a simple list-serv will do the trick. Do this a year before you plan on serious revenue-generation.
• Help members identify the year and location in which they were at Supercomm last - thus recognizing veterans in the industry, and enabling kind of an online reunion by year of participation.
• Regain the trust of the past attendees and exhibitors with special offers of visibility, recognition, held online.
• Legitimize the grapevine by becoming the most trusted source in your industry that gives information to the members about who has joined what company, and who received a promotion, who retired etc. - stuff that one normally learns from conversations on the trade show floor.
• Aggregate all relevant news feeds for your members, and deliver it to them in whatever format they prefer - online, mobile, email, printer-friendly or printed mailers - give them the choice.
• Needless to say, every piece of communication that goes out, carries with it the potential of targeted ad revenues - just make sure they do not get annoying or dominant. Let your members know that the sponsors are making it possible for you to bring them relevant and verified information.
• Create a qualification process for new members to join your exclusive 'club'.
• About 6 or 9 months into the process of building the online community, get a feel for whether members of your club are itching for in-person contact - if yes, then introduce small local networking events - let your community members choose to do it themselves -simply facilitate the use of meetup.com or other (pardon the buzzword) geo-locational technologies available, in conjunction with your Supercomm brand. Let them meet in local restaurants of their choice, a local country-club - wherever they like. Do not meddle with the community's local preferences. Instead, support them with co-sponsorships.
• Immediately preceding these local meetups, create an itradefair or a virtual trade show - so that those who are meeting have a chance to pre-screen one another's business or offerings in a structured manner, and schedule a time to meet with one another on any of the nearest meetups being organized. This would be a grassroots revival of the Supercomm brand.
• Based on how the meetups start growing, get a sense for whether there would be interest in an sponsored meetup in a few regional centers so that members can drive for an hour or two and meet with other Supercommers. If yes, then have a few big regional parties - simultaneously - music, food, fun, no work. Let them mingle. Let the friendships bloom.
• Once the regional parties gain momentum, have a national party. Same thing - music, food, fun, no work. Keep them short and close them just as the momentum is building. Leave them wanting more. Leave out the trade shows, the heavy lifting, the educational sessions, the product pitches. Leave those to the online environment. When your members meet in person let it be for socializing and (pardon the buzzword) connecting. People like to do business with people they like. Create super Supercomm memories. Watch your brand come back to life.

You think it is far-fetched? See how Seth Godin is doing it.

Checklist - How to Create Sponsorship Packages in a Virtual Trade Show

This checklist will help organizers of Online Exhibitions to mix and match various elements of a virtual trade show to create Sponsorship spots.

Before we begin, a word of caution. One must not forget that the key to successful sponsorship packages is to stop short of becoming an annoyance or becoming obnoxious - try stopping way before that point. Over-exposure can hurt. If you design your Virtual Exhibition in such a way that every click of the mouse forces a visitor to watch a sponsor's message, you are hurting the sponsor rather than helping them.

Given below are 17 examples of sponsorship spots in the virtual space, for an event organizer to use in building sponsorship packages.

• Sponsored message in each invitation email
• Sponsored message in each system-generated notification such as password retrieval, and registration confirmation
• Banners in the Virtual Lobby
• Specially designed Sponsor’s Gallery
• Parade of logos on the main Virtual Trade Show page
• Sponsored messages at the start of kick-off conference sessions, be it webinars, webcasts, tele-presence calls or the good old telephone conferences.
• Commercial sponsored messages in featured Virtual Exhibits
• Use of a Sponsor’s Booth in Demos – live or on-demand archived demos
• Use of a Sponsor’s Booth in Instructional Videos
• Featuring Sponsored Virtual Exhibitors in stories in your event newsletter and event blogs
• Specially recorded Sponsored video messages in the Video Theater at the Virtual Exhibition
• Priority for Sponsored Virtual Exhibitors with reserved Buyer-Meeting slots when you run a virtual or face-to-face match-maker in conjunction with your itradefair
• Sponsored messages through your social media alerts
• Sponsored messages in Virtual Exhibition Reports page
• Branding and naming an entire Virtual Exhibit Hall or a Virtual Pavilion for a Sponsor
• Branding and naming the Conference Center or the Video Theater at the Virtual Event
• Branding and naming the entire Virtual Exhibition for the Sponsor.

There may be more - especially if you are able to tie your virtual exhibition along with tactile experiences - because virtually, one can do only so much.

Simplicity and subtlety is the key to delivering sponsor messages effectively, in the virtual trade show. In-your-face sponsorship can backfire. After all, you want your audience to leave feeling grateful to the sponsors for bringing them the virtual event, not detesting them.

Checklist - How to Get Started with a Virtual Trade Show

This checklist is the outcome of two separate phone conversations that I had this week, one with a print-media professional in Africa and the other with a trade show professional here in the United States - both of them knew they wanted to do a virtual trade show. They just did not know how or where to get started.

This checklist is hopefully, the first in a series of checklists I will create and post on this blog. The goal is to demystify virtual trade shows.

In the words of a happy customer in a call earlier this week, "people say they are impressed when they hear about us doing a virtual trade show, but I tell them it is really no big deal because it is not hard to do at all. It is really easy to do a virtual trade show."

Thanks are due to Dr. Atul Gawande for reminding us through his book 'The Checklist Manifesto', that life is a lot easier with checklists. So are virtual trade shows and virtual 'any' shows. So here's the checklist.

• Select the media-property, if you have one, or vertical in which to do the virtual fair
• Select a technology provider for your fair.
• Select a Liaison at your end – could be a part-timer for starters.
• Decide on the technology for Keynotes and kick-off – even a conference call works!
• Poll your audience on what they would like to see or do at the virtual fair.
• Determine the frequency and the timing of the itradefair.
• Reach out to Keynote Speakers - only if you are adding a Conference.
• Identify an upcoming face-to-face meeting to link with the itradefair.
• Pick images and branding - consistent with face-to-face (f2f) event, if you own both.
• Understand what your virtual fair technology provider can do and can't do for you.
• Create sales packages – keep them as simple as possible.
• Create messaging for different audiences – one size may not fit all.
• Get your itradefair site ready for pre-registrations.
• Consider writing a newsletter to keep your target audience updated with stories.
• Consider social media to post teasers about what to expect at the itradefair.
• Sell sponsorships – try to recoup all or most of your early costs.
• Sell virtual booth spaces – exhibitors build booths by themselves, so it’s easy.
• Sell attendee seats – worthy content can command greater fee than f2f.
• Plan an outreach campaign – no more than 4 email-reminders.
• Launch your itradefair – but keep it short in duration; repeat it each quarter.

If you need help with any of these, please email the good folks at iTradeFair.com at info@itradefair.com and someone will be happy to help you out.