MICE market analysis and tips for successful new business in 2023

Dear Reader,

Welcome to issue 24 of #SupplierPost(s) ?? - the biweekly newsletter with information and thoughts for MICE marketing and sales in a changed market. Yours Peter

The MICE market will change in the coming year and open up new opportunities and measures in marketing and sales. It is not only the pandemic that will continue to occupy the industry in 2023, it is also the permanent cost increases and especially a change in customer behavior that will influence the market.

Events - conferences, congresses, trade fairs, events and incentives - are put to the test. They will be fundamentally questioned as to whether they are necessary. A rigorous cost-benefit analysis will decide what can stay and what cannot! This is where the failures of the event industry over the last 25 years will take far too little revenge for the actual measurement of the success of numerous events. Events will become fewer in 2023. But they will be better.

In 2022, numerous events took place, so that there was talk of a comeback of "live events". However, what actually caused the number of events to explode in 2022 was the fact that many events that had been postponed due to the pandemic were made up for in a short period of time, namely from May to October 2022.?

In 2023, no postponed event will be made up for, but the market will be measured by new bookings and these have taken place and are taking place significantly less than in 2019 and the years before.

What's changing?

Event planners from Germany and the German-speaking European region must - as in many other countries - be much more convincing with their events and prove demonstrably, measurably and credibly the raison d'être of each individual event. And this on two sides: the organizer (the event must be demonstrably positive for the company!) and the participants (it must motivate the participants to take part despite changed consumer behavior and possible acute health risks!)?

The change in consumer behavior means that online plays a much greater role today than ever before. Department stores and city centers all over Germany are currently feeling the effects. Consumption is shifting to purchases via the internet. The model of the classic department stores' is reaching its limits. Germany's largest department stores' chain has just gone bankrupt for the second time and even supermarkets have to contend with competition from e-bikes that deliver groceries to the doorstep within minutes and 24 hours a day. These are changed times and time for changed, adapted concepts.

Never before have event planners spent more professional time in front of computer screens and smartphone screens than today! And never before have event planners been so disinterested in early face-to-face contact with MICE suppliers as today! Event planners no longer see much sense in walking around trade fairs and sales events just to look around. It is considered as a waste of time. All information on the way to the decision with which supplier (destination, locations, hotels, DMC's, transport companies, technology, catering, etc.) is obtained exclusively online! At least 75% of the decision-making process takes place online.?Only when the decision-making process is on the final home stretch is a face-to-face meeting with a Supplier Sales person desired and sought. Not before.?

This new behavior of the customers hits the previous sales and marketing measures of the suppliers very hard. Until now, they have invested a lot of money in MICE trade fairs and in various sales formats. But even before the pandemic, this cost-benefit calculation no longer worked. Trade fair costs were too high for too little real new business. Most of the new business generated at trade fairs would also have taken place without the trade fair.

"We closed this MICE fair 2022 with a full order book. But most of them were with companies that have a framework agreement for hotel beds with us. Honestly, for these orders, we wouldn't have needed a stand, not even this fair. We could just as well have closed the deal with video calls, phone calls and client visits - just as we did last year when this trade fair was cancelled." (Head of MICE Sales of a major hotel chain)

What does this mean for MICE Supplier Sales and Marketing?

The fight for buyers and orders is getting stronger. International MICE suppliers also have to contend with growing and very strong supplier competition from Germany. Rising prices make regional events attractive. Especially because flight costs have risen sharply and will remain expensive in 2023.?

Fact 1:

Only those who get into the minds of event planners and decision-makers very early and permanently, and who keep reminding the buyers, have a chance of winning new business. To achieve this, the online content measures must be increased many times over. But not just any content, but content that is tailor-made for the respective target groups. In concrete terms, this means that content for the German-speaking buyer market - Germany, Austria and Switzerland - must fulfill the following points:

• The content must be tailored to the wishes and needs of this specific target group. A buyer from Germany is not comparable with a buyer from e.g. Spain, France, Asia, UK, etc.. And vice versa. Therefore, the same content cannot be used worldwide.
• The content must be in the language of the target group. If only for the reason that it stands out from the thousands of supplier publications in English. German-language content achieves a much higher level of awareness among German-speaking target groups and is remembered much more deeply and for longer.
• The content should not just be posted on the internet, but it should also reach the right target customers there. This is only possible if it is posted in the relevant communities of the target customers. Content needs its community so that it can be spread virally, commented on and liked. Online publications without access to the relevant communities are like blindly standing in a pedestrian zone and loudly advertising your products in the hope that someone will happen to pass by who is interested.?
• Content must be adapted to the individual social networks and their publication formats. On Instagram, there are formats for posts, videos, for stories and for reels. These are four different formats with four different requirements for size, format and content, which must be taken into account accordingly. The same applies to YouTube (videos and shorts), Facebook (posts, videos, stories), LinkedIn (videos, posts) Twitter (videos, posts) and TikTok (videos).

Fact 2:

Sales formats such as the usual sales events and sales forums are being considered by more and more suppliers. In their reorientation of sales measures, many suppliers have already decided not to participate in such sales formats in the future. This is right and sensible, because it is completely pointless and stupid to register for sales forums where the organizers do not inform the participants (buyers) in advance which suppliers at the sales forum are to be met. This is like choosing a restaurant for a candlelight dinner without knowing what food and drinks the restaurant offers because the owner does not have a menu.?

The only reason that guests (buyers) attend such sales forums and sales events is because they get free beer, free food and wine, parties, accommodation in great hotels and free travel to and from the event as part of the Hosted Buyer Programme.?

None of the participating buyers take part because of the suppliers, but only because of the amenities of the Hosted Buyer Programme. To put it more clearly: no buyer takes part out of serious business interests, but only because of the free personal experience. That is silly. But that is only possible because many suppliers want exactly that.?

The more attractive the personal experience is for the participants, the more buyers sign up and thus suppliers can collect business cards during forced mandatory appointments. And the more business cards a supplier-sales collects, the more successful the participation will be evaluated by his supervisor, because each business card is classified as a lead. Collecting business cards as proof of work and as a benchmark for lead generation. Honestly, it would make more sense to collect mushrooms in the forest.

Now, a supplier could communicate his participation in a sales forum aloud himself if the organizer does not do it! When a supplier participates in a MICE trade fair, such as IMEX or ibtm world, he does exactly that: he sends mailings to his entire database and invites them to the fair and to visit his stand. And he eagerly posts his participation in the fair on social media. In some cases, he organizes his own hosted buyer groups, which he brings to the fair - in consultation with the fair organizer - and for which he spends additional budget (for. e.g. evening dinner and networking events). If you look closely, it is the trade fair participants recruited via the exhibitors themselves who are the real business potential at the trade fair.?

The supplier not only pays very high amounts to the organizer for his stand at a trade fair, but also brings him the most valuable trade fair visitors from a business point of view. But none of this happens when the supplier takes part in a sales event or sales forum. Isn't that curious? ?

These facts show why sales formats in their existing form and also MICE fairs have no or at best a debatable future. In this form, every supplier is well advised to reconsider its participation and turn to formats where it also receives the corresponding online awareness from the organizers. When deciding whether to participate in a MICE trade fair or a MICE sales event, one should always consider how much online awareness the organizer will generate for me through my participation and the participation fees. If this does not result in an online media value of several thousand euros, you should refrain from participating.?

• Do not participate in any sales forum where the organizer does not generate sufficient online awareness for the participating supplier in advance. An awareness that seriously motivates buyers to register because of the exhibitors (suppliers), their brands, products, services and offers and for no other reason.
• Do not participate in a sales forum where the organizer uses forced appointments to determine which suppliers have to attend appointments with which buyers. Many of these forced meetings are worthless because no business can ever result from them.
• If you participate in a sales forum as a supplier, you should take the same communication measures as you do when you participate in a MICE trade fair: Send mailings to your customer databases and communicate your participation loudly via social media, because this is the only way to actually motivate interested business buyers to participate. Why not? What is the difference between a 15-minute buyer appointment in an exhibition hall and a 15-minute buyer appointment in another location? There is none!

Fact 3:

Only credibly sustainable events will have a future. In 2023, the focus will be even more on making events of all kinds as sustainable as possible. This is not a trend, but a necessity for the survival of the MICE industry. This poses a challenge to many suppliers to offer corresponding offers and services. But it also poses a major problem for destinations where human rights and/or gender equality are not given, namely that they will be much less considered for events in the future.?

In 2023, the political stance of a state or regime will also play a decisive role in whether the destination is selected for events. Sustainability is not only about economic and ecological aspects, but also about social justice. And some destinations cannot offer this and companies cannot afford to risk brand and image damage through events in these destinations. MICE suppliers must therefore carefully consider from which countries and with which countries they want to recruit MICE business in future. A sensitive touch is required here!

Tips for successful new business with event planners from Germany

In order to successfully generate new business in Germany (and also in German-speaking European countries, especially in Austria and Switzerland), much more information will be needed in the future about the supplier's offers, products, services and benefits. And this information must be tailored to the target groups and communicated online in German. Regularly and persistently! But it should not only be published somewhere online, but in the relevant communities where German-speaking event planners are to be found in order to inform, inspire and exchange information for their international event planning.?

The largest German-speaking MICE community for event planners with a genuine business interest in international suppliers is MICEboard.com. This community is regularly used by German-speaking event planners to get information. It is visited by almost 10,000 users per month and ten times that number visit the MICEboard communities in various social networks.?

Online content in the form of photo-text postings is mostly boring and interchangeable. Multimedia content, on the other hand, is attention-grabbing! MICEboard offers international suppliers the production of multimedia online content tailored for social media.?

An overview of the multimedia online content offered by MICEboard:

• Advertorials (texts, photos, videos, presentations) on MICEboard.com - in German and tailored to the wishes and needs of the German-speaking buyer target groups.
• Postings of these advertorials in the relevant MICE groups and the MICEboard communities in numerous social media and in the weekly MICEboard newsletter, which is sent to approx. 2,500 subscribers every Tuesday and is also read online around 1,000 times in parallel.
• MICEboard waves: 60 second videos in portrait format for Instagram reels and stories, for Facebook stories, for YouTube shorts, for TikTok, for Twitter, LinkedIn and for the MICEboard newsletter.
• MICEboard Stream TV: Online events, webinars, live and recorded via social media. Live participant interaction via live chat. Communication of recordings via advertorials on MICEboard.com and social media.
• MICEboard 60 seconds: 60-second videos in portrait format re-cut from footage of MICEboard Stream TV episodes to be shared via Instagram reels and stories, via Facebook stories, via YouTube shorts, via TikTok, via Twitter, LinkedIn and via the MICEboard newsletter..
• MICEboard Podcasts: free podcast productions for all customers and for the first MICE podcast (since 2018) in the German-speaking region. You can find the MICEboard podcast in any good podcast app and on Spotify on your smartphone.

In summary:

In 2023, event planners do not want to have early personal contact with a MICE sales person. The decision with which suppliers they want to work in which destinations and locations is made online. Only when it comes to the last open questions is personal contact desired. And buyers seek this personal contact when they know where they will meet the supplier in person.

Therefore, the following applies to MICE Supplier Sales:?

1. To actively participate in the online decision-making process of an event planner, to catch the eye and in this way to be considered for an event! Online first, in person second.?
2. A supplier must announce online and loudly and in the relevant communities in advance where he can be found? Which sales call visits in which cities, at which fam trips, trade fairs, sales forums and sales events and on which other occasions he can be found! Up to now, suppliers have not communicated this information at all, or only via mailings to their databases. That is far too little. If a supplier in Munich plans appointments with agencies or wants to invite people to a family trip, then this must be communicated loudly online. Because even event planners who can't or don't want to participate will become aware through such communication alone. But they won't if the communication only takes place according to mailing lists on which they are not registered! ?

MICEboard offers suitable and successful communication solutions for this purpose and suppliers participating in the MICEboard trade events in 2023 - the Green Mile from 11 to 13 May 2023 in Copenhagen and the MICE by melody roadshow events on 12 September 2023 in Düsseldorf, on 13 September 2023 in Frankfurt and on 14 September 2023 in Munich - benefit from the fact that they receive numerous online content measures for their participation. This will generate buyer enquiries and orders online and at the MICEboard trade events. There is no better way for an international supplier to acquire the German-speaking buyer market.

#SupplierPost(s) ??

This newsletter is aimed at suppliers from the MICE industry. It aims to stimulate, criticize and confront. It does not want to embarrass anyone, but to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. To have the courage to critically question the existing and to question methods of MICE marketing and sales.

It is not about right or wrong. It's about securing the future of an industry. If you are a MICE supplier, we would be very happy to hear your opinion on the topics.

The newsletter is published every 14 days and aims to stimulate thought with an article. Thank you for your time, we wish you a successful week!