THE VENDOR VALUE MANIFESTO

In December 2020, a group of vendors gathered (virtually, of course) to explore the current state of industry conferences and discuss ways they might partner with conference organizers to build a better experience for all.

Participants included sales executives, marketing professionals, and thought leaders from a mix of companies serving all sectors of the legal industry.

This is their Manifesto.

TO ALL CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

We know that 2020 was hard for you. Setting aside years of planning and discarding finely-tuned systems and processes in a last-minute, pandemic-driven “pivot to virtual” resulted in a mixed-bag of experiences for your attendees, employees, volunteers, and sponsors. We applauded your efforts, supported your events, and hoped for the best, but …

The excuses we all (legitimately) made in 2020 are gone. We cannot afford to repeat last year’s experience: empty virtual vendor halls, disengaged attendees, and nearly zero ROI from our significant investments in your events.

And while you call us sponsors, vendors, or even “partners” we’d prefer you view us as collaborators since we serve the same customers and each profit when the other succeeds.  

This is our Manifesto. It was originally conceived in frustration, but we share it in a spirit of collaboration  Beginning today, let’s reinvent tomorrow together as equals and improve the conference for all.

ONE: The Past Is No Longer Our Future

Though COVID changed everything for everyone, widespread immunity won’t magically change everything back.

We can’t hold our noses for one more year and assume that after “it’s safe to travel again,” everyone will want to, or their bosses will pay for them to do so.

We must resist the temptation to slide back into what we’ve done before, just because we’re better equipped to repeat yesterday again than we are to invent tomorrow for the first time.

Conferences — virtual, hybrid, and in-person — will demand new ideas, new tools, and new skills to implement them.

And the lessons we can learn from virtual events won’t be discarded in a year, but rather will inform all of our events for decades. Let’s learn them together.

TWO: Unlock The Unique Value Only Virtual Events Can Deliver

It is time to substitute the pessimism we have about virtual events with optimism.

In 2020, we tried to replicate in-person events online. We built “virtual” everythings (keynotes, panels, exhibit halls, etc.) designed to mirror the familiar experience we’d delivered for decades, without fully understanding whether that was the experience our stakeholders desired or deserved.

Instead of asking, “How can we do online what we’ve always done in person?” we should ask, “How can we do online what we’ve never been able to do in person?” And then answer it well.

Virtual events are freed from the constraints of space and time in ways in-person events will never be. Let’s use this blank canvas to create a masterpiece, not recreate a copy of a copy of a copy of what we’ve done before.

THREE: Acknowledge Us as Experts & Trust Us as Peers

We’re paying as much attention to this industry as you are and more than many of your speakers and most of your attendees.  

Free us from the old-fashioned exhibit hall and give us ways to engage attendees as thought-leaders and problem-solvers so they view us as experts in the industry and not just peddlers in the marketplace.

Trust that we know the difference between thoughtful story-telling and pushy product-selling — and leverage our thought-leadership to supplement your content and give value to attendees together in ways neither of us could do alone.

And if you fear they’ll resist being “sold” to, remind them just how much of their presence is subsidized by ours. Give them an out if you must, but charge them more for their vendor-free experience so you can charge us less.

FOUR: Partner on Data and Share in Our Success

Because we no longer are able to trade swag for leads, we must redefine how we measure value from virtual events.

For example, an email address has more value when it helps us continue a conversation started in person than it does to start one online.

As you explore new ways to collect data from (and for) your attendees, work with us to identify things we want and need. We’ll help you pay more for platforms and formats that deliver the insights we value most, and gladly tie the price of sponsorship to the success opportunities we realize.

FIVE: Make Sponsorship Simpler

Even when the value of sponsorship is certain, the price of it is not.

Eliminate pricing frameworks that demand multiple meetings with your sales team to communicate what’s available from dozens of options and for how much.

Our struggles to understand our “price” of participation in your event creates unnecessary friction in our relationship and is time better spent by both our teams on more productive things.

The less time we need to understand your cost gives us more time to justify its value.

SIX: Let Us Be Your Lab Partners

There is not a single model, tool, format, or technology that fixes everything for everyone. The journey to perfecting virtual conferences is just that — a journey. Invite us along.

Tell us the problems you’re trying to solve and explain why they’re important to you and we’ll do the same.

Invite us to offer suggestions, give feedback, and share the lessons we’re learning (and the solutions we’re seeing) before you go your own way.

We are willing to share in the risk of trying new things, but don't be surprised if we push you to do more.

Together, we can design “Lab Tracks" that explore unique methodologies, employ creative facilitation, focus on specific problems, integrate vendors in different ways, and generate revenue for conferences without significant downside risk to either of us.

After all, learning together halves the price of failure and doubles the chance of success.

COLLABORATION IDEAS

1. Convene a Conference Innovation Summit: Invite your peer organizations to a Conference Innovation Summit and discuss ways to make virtual conferences more valuable to all — including your vendors.

2. Pitch to Our Shark Tank: Looking for near-instant feedback on your most innovative ideas for 2021 and beyond? Pitch to a panel of vendors and we’ll give you honest feedback — and might even be willing to write you a check for the coolest new opportunities right on the spot.

CONFERENCE IDEAS

1. The Future is Hybrid: We’ve learned so much in 2020 — including that it was just as easy to be bored by a bad presentation online as it was in person. Post-COVID conferences must embrace a mix of in-person and virtual experiences, leveraging the strengths of each to deliver value to all.

2. Increase In-Person Collaboration: When the world’s information and the most inspirational speakers are a Google search away, we must focus our in-person energies on the things we can only do together and in real time: collaboration, connection, and networking. Conferences infused with peer-driven problem-solving are worth more to attendees and vendors.

3. Embrace Virtual Education: Embrace online, asynchronous learning that gives attendees what they need when they need it. Create communities for sharing and engagement before they convene, and don’t forget to invite us, too.

4. Turn Off the Firehose: You no longer need to deliver a year's worth of content in 3-5 days. Create opportunities for year-round learning (and sponsorship) that's evergreen and just-in-time.

5. Smaller Bites of Everything: Build smaller, more easily consumable "bites" of content including vendor pitches, top 10 lists, short podcasts, etc. that make it easy to grab smaller chunks of attendees' attention instead of demanding they participate 60-minutes at a time.

VENDOR HALL IDEAS

1. Let’s Get Virtual: Because a virtual vendor hall is not constrained by physical limitations, disconnect sponsorship opportunities from in-person possibilities and let vendors "live" in multiple places at once.

2. Rethink the Neighborhood: Organize the hall around the problems attendees wish to solve or the tracks of the conference. Vendors might choose to be in more than one "neighborhood" depending on the breadth of their solutions(s).

3. Long Live The Hall: Open the vendor hall early and close it late:  make the vendor hall persistent -- or at least not limited to the times the sessions are happening.

4. Exit Through the Gift Shop: Make attendees "leave" their sessions through a curated, mini-vendor hall where they might be exposed to solutions connected with the session they just attended.

5. Pay to Play (in a way): Give attendees a discount — or additional opportunities to engage with sessions, content, or even giveaways — by requiring them to meet with us. Curate those attendees though, so the value given and received is mutual and let each side rate the interaction.

DATA IDEAS

1. Trade Data for Discounts: Give attendees the option to deliver more data to you (and ultimately to us) in exchange for lower prices or additional benefits.

2. Slice and Dice: Help us connect with only the attendees who need what we have to sell. Give us real-time data on who attends which sessions (as an example) so we can see who might be interested in topics that fit our offerings.

3. Share Data Basics With Others: Just like electronic medical records (EMRs) follow patients from provider-to-provider, imagine if we had standardized data that was connected to attendees from conference to conference — making things easier for them and for us.

4. Customize Everything: Use the data you receive in real-time to recommend the other sessions attendees might like and the vendors they might appreciate. Delivering a customized, data-driven attendee experience can make your conference better for everyone.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND IDEAS, CHECK OUT PERFECT CONFERENCE AND FILAMENT.

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