Learnings From Virtual Trade Shows In 2020

 COVID. It’s changed a fair bit. Including, for almost all enterprise sales organizations, how they connect and interact with new people. The concept of the trade show, with hundreds of people descending upon a convention center or hotel conference facility, has been evicted from 2020.

In it’s place the virtual trade show has evolved – a digital, COVID-safe equivalent, being (to varying levels) embraced by people globally. RedEye is no different on this front – in the last quarter of 2020 we attended three virtual events. What did we learn? Read on to find out.

Why Attend Trade Shows?

First and foremost, I think it’s critical that you ask yourself “what is the point of a trade show?” After having now experienced both virtual and in-person events, I believe trade shows really only serve two key purposes:

1. Dissemination of information
2. Building and/or maintaining a community/ network around the topic of choice

Filtering these two topics through the prism of a virtual event, and it’s evident that #1 is relatively straightforward. Recorded presentations, group chats via Zoom, shared written documentation – it’s not a stretch to draw similarities between an in-person and virtual event.

The challenge, as I have experienced it, is #2…. How to effectively build and maintain your community, remotely? For myself, and many people I’ve met during events, this is a key activity. Relationships that are built during these events can be critical, for immediate projects or later in people’s careers.

What (And Why) Did We Attend?

In the fourth quarter of 2020, I attended three virtual trade shows on behalf of RedEye – two water industry events, and one specialist records management event. All of these events shared a few similar points:

• International events – all events had attendees from multiple countries and time zones
• Specific niches’ – they were all addressing a comparatively small market niche within their target markets
• 100% virtual for the first time – there was no hybrid in-person/virtual events happening

As a vendor, we attended for a few core reasons:

1. Primarily, to have conversations with new people, and to pick up conversations with old friends (in sales talk, this is called lead generation and nurturing, respectively).
2. To learn how the industry is doing, what other organizations are coping and managing in our new shared reality.
3. To support the industries that we rely on. Our support ensures that these events continue, ultimately benefiting our clients.

Lessons Learned

After we’d attended

Overall Duration

• The three events we attended were vastly different in duration: ? day (one solid uninterrupted block), 4 days (different starting and finishing times to allow for different time zones), and 2 days (effectively 9-3 both days). The 4-day event was by far the most successful from an engagement perspective for RedEye. Time zones were also a factor for the first time – no more jet lag, just constant geographic disconnect!
• Key Takeaways: For a vendor like RedEye, 2-3 days is the sweet spot for a virtual event. Despite anticipating the ? day session would be better (more focused attendees), the opposite was correct – a longer overall duration allowed people to manage their (remote) day jobs around attending. Their focus was still on the event, and – more importantly – they had the focus to check us the vendors (like RedEye).

Vendor Content

• All three events allowed sponsored vendor content, almost exclusively through either: a) pre-recorded presentations, or b) facilitating live networking sessions. In all cases, attendance seemed quite strong, to us indicating that there was a strong interest from attendees to consume information.
• Key Takeaways: a lot of the vendor produced content I saw was overtly ‘salesy’ – nothing much more than a veiled sales pitch. Vendors, and event organisers, need to do more to enforce information sharing, and adding value to event participants. Also, for live sessions, using digital tools to engage with participants is key. RedEye chose to use Mentimeter, but we also saw Miro and Lucidspark work really well.

Event Chat / Messaging

• For 2021, in-event messaging took the place of all the conversation one generals has at an event – networking drinks, exhibition hall, meals. Of the three events we attended, one of the platforms didn’t provide in-event messaging at all, and the second event was only a ? day long, which we found meant nobody had any interest in engagement – they were there for a short, focused time to watch specific sessions, and nothing else. The third event, over multiple days, had in-event messaging, and provided us enough time to contact people, introduce ourselves, and request a follow up chat later in the week. This was quite effective.
• Key Takeaways: because of the lack of in-person engagement during the event, live chat was critical. The event with no chat was much less beneficial for us

‘Virtual Booths’

• All the events we looked at, and the three we attended, much was made about our “virtual trade show booth” that we would have as a place to interact with attendees. Although these varied in scope and complexity, they were fundamentally just landing pages for RedEye, where we could provide a mix of downloadable PDF’s, video’s, and some free text fields about us.
• Key Takeaways: without great data on their use (see point below), RedEye really didn’t get any value out of these. Ultimately, we felt they weren’t anywhere near as valuable as other aspects of the events.

Post-Event Analytics

• As is the norm with all forms of digital marketing and sales these days, we expected detailed engagement numbers after each event – things like page views, PDF downloads from our virtual booth, page click etc. Unfortunately we received next to nothing from any of the events.
• Key Takeaways: when researching events to attend, OR if you’re hosting an event, make this a priority. It’s invaluable to justify vendor attendance, as well as for follow up engagement activity.

In closing, I would strongly encourage you all to attend virtual events. RedEye has experienced a lot of success with them, and they are pretty important revenue streams for so many parts of our various discipline ecosystems. Support the communities that support you.