SEEING THE SITES

A key determinant of the success of an exhibition or conference is its pre-publicity. As the Internet joins the marketing armoury, its technology is affecting the way in which organisers market their events. Most significantly, the Internet can bring up-to-date details of events to the desktops of potential delegates or visitors.

David Conn, UK-based marketing director of hi-tech company Softbank, says: “Over the past 18 months, we have seen a huge switch to using the Internet. At our last exhibition, the biggest single source of registrations was our Website.”

The process of familiarising people with the Website address was simple: it was printed on all the company’s communications – 2.6 million pieces in total.

Conn is passionate about the need to extend a Website beyond the simple function of publicity medium during an event. He is dismissive of people who set up a site just because they feel they ought to.

“The great temptation is to put up a Website while the show is on. It takes a lot of time and commitment to use the Web properly and to keep a site up to date, fresh and accurate,” he says.

Marketing through the Internet is most effective when recipients are well-versed in new technology. A conference Softbank organised in May exploited delegates’ familiarity with the Net by virtually eliminating paper from the entire process.

Conn explains: “We started 12 weeks before the conference and attracted about 6,000 people. Everything was done on the Web and through e-mail. We hardly printed anything at all.”

Easy to do if, like Softbank, you own 30 per cent of Yahoo!, one of the major Internet search engines, as well as significant interests in a variety of other Net companies. Yet there are important lessons to learn from the comfortable familiarity bred by online communications, particularly e-mail.

“You find yourself building personal relationships by e-mail with people you have never met,” says Conn. “I am still corresponding with people now. Essentially, each show becomes a physical manifestation of a community we’ve been building throughout the year. The show may run in eight places around the world, but we can extend that community worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using the Net,” he says.

This ethic of constant accessibility and added value is shared by Ajaz Ahmed of AKQA, a new media agency which handles, among other things, the BMW business. At a recent motor show, BMW’s Website address was in great demand, and Ahmed says that interest has not receded.

“We use the Net as part of a package, to give people an entertainment experience in addition to the cars. The idea is to offer something of relevance to the audience that they couldn’t get anywhere else. For example, we created a virtual room in which you could see inside and outside cars,” explains Ahmed.

BMW also decided to offer a Net preview of the motor show. Listing practical aspects, such as the cost of tickets, train times and how to find the stand, the Website lured potential visitors and served as advertising for BMW.

Ahmed says: “If you couldn’t make the show, it gave you the opportunity to experience it anyway. We also ran a competition exclusive to the motor show at the stand and through the Net.”

Exhibition centres are currently testing the waters by offering their clients the option of Internet marketing drives, many of which link to Websites of companies in related industries.

According to Michael McCormack of the Northern Ireland Conference Bureau, a sophisticated Internet strategy is needed to attract meetings to the region. The bureau is currently developing a site which will link its aims with that of its parent organisation, the Northern Ireland Tourist Bureau.

This type of overlap is particularly important for smaller players, says Gill Price, commercial director of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. While many large organisations have their own Internet servers, independents do not have that advantage.

Price adds: “The problem is, how do people find you? Random hits at your site are unlikely and you have to decide if you will get more out of the Internet by going on as part of a larger organisation such as a local tourism and convention bureau.”

Hotels offering conference accommodation are discovering the commercial benefits of the Internet, with online bookings revolutionising the reservation process. Grand Heritage Hotels recently launched an online Net bookings scheme through Places To Stay, a US company specialising in Internet reservations.

The chain’s development director for Europe, Timothy Hadcock-Mackay, says that online bookings are a valuable resource as they provide information such as photographic images of hotels. They enable users to search for hotels according to a range of key criteria such as availability and location, and to make reservations. The convenience of this system has already begun to attract conference organisers, who can use the Web pages to book conference accommodation for clients.

The capacity of the Internet to offer choice to exhibition visitors is important, says Caroline Moore, of Earls Court Olympia.

“We see the Net as a means of broadening our promotional platform for events, and also of providing value-added services to exhibitors. At our Website, users can make decisions based on calendar or type of event. If show organisers themselves are not directly hot-linked to our site, we pass on information to them,” she says.

This sort of service often renders valuable data about visitors, says Moore. Recent research undertaken by Earls Court Olympia showed that in a single week, there were more than 6,000 hits on its show pages. Of these hits, 46 per cent came from the US, 21 per cent from the UK, six per cent from Europe and two per cent from Australia. Twenty five per cent were of unknown origin.

“We went on to analyse that on a daily and hourly basis and concluded that to get an equivalent response using other marketing media, we would need a mailing of 34,000 or an advertisement in a title with a circulation of 2 million a week,” says Moore.

The next step is to employ information such as this to encourage direct action on the part of the electronic visitor. It is here, admits Moore, that things become a little less clear. “We do have certain reservations about online registration. How hot is a lead on the Internet? Is a registration over the Net as firm as one that is done in the conventional way?” Another difficulty arises out of the very open nature of the Internet.

Says Moore: “In the running of a trade show, visitors hitting a site are not necessarily eligible to come to the show. You may need to be a member.”

One way of getting around this potential problem is to target information just as you would in a print-based marketing drive. For conferences aimed at readily identifiable groups, passwords are the answer, says Nick Rosen, founder of Website production company Intervid. This way, only invited guests can access data about an event.

Intervid has hosted several virtual conferences, in which delegates from a number of different countries participate in discussions without ever meeting face to face. This type of conference is already commonplace in the US and is growing in popularity in the UK.

“Delegates pay to attend and the conferences make use of closed user groups with passwords. We recently organised a virtual conference for a law firm, to discuss copyright on the Net,” says Rosen.

Are there particular sectors of the business market that are naturally more receptive to marketing initiatives on the Net? Rosen believes there are. “For anything where academics, IT managers in corporations, or Americans are being targeted, the Internet is a must,” he says.

As more sectors of the business world come online, it seems likely that David Conn’s vision of a community knit together by friendly e-mail, or Nick Rosen’s virtual conference delegates chatting avidly in select interest groups, will become the norm rather than the groundbreaking exception in the world of exhibitions and conferences.