Attention Tradeshow Exhibitors: I Am NOT Your Target Market!

The 2014 Meetings Industry tradeshow season has begun.  Before I get into this post, yes, our company will be attending and exhibiting at numerous conferences this year. 

As a business members of several organizations, Greenfield Services' sales team (Meagan Rockett and Doreen Ashton Wagner) works hard to attend as meetings industry events, thus we end up on the delegate list, as well as the exhibitor list.

The problem is that there are still companies out there who are sending us offers, including free trips, to stop by their booth at a tradeshow.  It happened again in the days leading up to the CSAE Tete-a-Tete Show.  We were invited to "explore how our association can benefit from XYZ..."  BUT WE ARE NOT AN ASSOCIATION….

We have talked about this issue in the past, focusing specifically on how exhibitors should not waste their time, why member profiles are important and how to ask the right questions to get the segmentation you need, and how lazy sales reps bank on emails making their brand a success.

Thankfully, in a few months, with the application of Canada's new Anti-Spam Law, we'll be able to tell these people, "stop it, you're breaking the law!" 

We are not even sure how we got on the distribution list for the two most recent emails we received.  The delegate registration list for this year has not been provided.  Where did you get our name from?  Must be from last year’s list….

At least the first email received did not assume that we would be in attendance.  It clearly stated that “IF you plan on attending, come see us…”, BUT their message was drafted and sent with association executives in mind.  Nothing to do with us.

The second email did not even go that far – it was a “Win a Trip/Looking forward to seeing you” email, as if they received the list pre-show.

Why annoy the industry with these messages in their inbox?  Instead:

•  Move this type of messaging to Twitter, using the event hashtag.  Stop by our booth, or Win a Trip types of messages can reach a wider audience there.  AND, you can do the event organizer a favour and include the links to register and get more info…
• (PLEASE) Segment the List:  IF you were lucky enough to receive the delegate list pre-conference, or pre-tradeshow, REVIEW it.  Half of the list may not be your target market, so remove them.  Why decrease your brand reputation?
• If you MUST send email, give value.  You may think a free trip is valuable, but you will likely get a lot of traffic with no potential for you, and are just having a meet & greet that will enter them in the draw.  These “shrimp eaters” as we lovingly call them likely will not do business with you in the future.  Instead, offer tips, best practices, demonstrations, bring a planner or client who can offer testimonials on the client experience, etc.  Shake it up a bit!

We encourage ALL companies attending meetings industry conferences and tradeshows this year to elevate the conversation, instead of, or in conjunction with, a flashy offer.  What will YOU do differently this year?

What to Do When Mike Lipkin Asks You to Connect?

Have you noticed an increase of questionable requests to connect on LinkedIn? I'm not talking about the spam requests from people halfway around the world you've never even talked to. I'm talking about the ones from people with whom you are connected at a second or third level, whom you have heard of, but have never met or even spoken to.

Recently I received an invitation to connect from Mike Lipkin. I was flattered to receive that request; I hear he's a great public speaker, and he is the president of a very large market-research company. But we've never met, and I am not sure WHY he would want us to connect.

Maybe I'm old-school, but I'm very careful about the people I do or do not connect with on LinkedIn. I've written about this in the past; stop the pollution on LinkedIn.  

It occurred on me that perhaps someone else was managing his account, an outsourced social media person. How else could I explain why he didn't write a note with his invitation to connect, stating how clever he thought one of my articles had been, or how he had heard about my work through a mutual friend?

So I wrote Mr. Lipkin a message:

Dear Mike,

Thank you for your request to connect.  My LinkedIn policy is to accept requests only from people I know; colleagues I have worked with, done business with or interacted with through a group or association.  Can you please remind me how we know each other? Otherwise, please forgive me but I must decline. Perhaps we will have opportunity to meet in the future.

With Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation coming into effect July 1, 2014, your LinkedIn connections will become very precious conduits to get your message out to the prospects and clients who trust us enough to want to connect. So treat your requests and acceptances to connect with care. Otherwise we may push this very useful tool to become as overused as our email inbox.

P.S. I haven't received an answer to my inquiry.  So Mike, if you read this, please let me know your thoughts!

Canada's Anti-Spam Law Demystified at CanSPEP Conference

On July 1, 2014, a new Anti-Spam Law takes effect in Canada.  Organizers who market events to Canadians may find themselves at odds with the new rules unless they take steps now to shift their electronic communication to potential attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.

The law says email or text marketing messages can only be sent if the sender has the recipient's consent, or if there is a pre-existing business relationship with the recipient (and the definition of “pre-existing” is a limited one).

Greenfield Services' Chief Strategist, Doreen Ashton Wagner, will address members and sponsors of the Canadian Society of Professional Event Planners (CanSPEP) on this very issue at the association's annual conference the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa on February 21, 2014.

Addressing the do's and don'ts of Canada's new Anti-Spam Legislation, Ashton Wagner will help third-party meeting and special event planners to understand the impact of the new law, provide practical steps to comply with the legislation as well as better market to potential attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors.

Questions to be addressed will include:

• How is this law relating to privacy rules?
• What is express vs. implied consent and what does it mean for events? 
• How will marketers publicize their events if consent is not obtained?
• How will data management change to ensure compliance and continued privacy?
• What elements will be required in email marketing messages in order to comply with the law?

For more information on the event please see the CanSPEP 2014 Conference website.

M&IT University, a New Education Series for #Eventprofs

The team at Canada's M&IT Magazine have announced a new series of events dedicated to meeting and event professionals.  

Because so much of the meetings industry's activities are centered in and around Toronto, M&IT University events are to be held in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal.  Organizers say M+IT University aims to give meeting and event planners "high quality networking and CE credit education in just one amazing day!" 

Doreen Ashton Wagner, Greenfield Services' Chief Strategist, will be speaking on March 26 in Montreal. Her presentation entitled, "10 Meeting Trends To Watch This Year" is based on a research review of international, North American and Canadian studies in the meetings industry as well as related industries such as travel and tourism, adult learning, and human resources.

The session will be highly interactive, with a follow-up discussion allowing participants to "dig deeper" and tackle the most important trends and how they relate especially to event marketing.

The day includes breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception to allow for formal and informal meeting time. For more information or to register please consult www.mituniversitycanada.com. 

Could Your Employer Shut YOU Out of Your Social Media Accounts?

Recently a dear friend and colleague found herself "reorganized" out of her job.

Aside from the shock of finding out she was no longer gainfully employed, she felt lost without her trustee smartphone and laptop which until then had been provided by her employer. These devices housed all her contacts and passwords to social media sites, including her LinkedIn account.

It was difficult for her to rebuild her contact list so she could let her connections know what happened. In this era when LinkedIn is your Rolodex, your resume, and your daily dose of business news, losing access can be devastating, not to mention time-consuming if you have to rebuild another profile!

That maybe why some people of my connections use a personal email address for their LinkedIn account. That way, if anything happens, they are not prevented from accessing this very important business tool.

If you want to see notices in real time, you can still use your work email address to access; just make sure you keep a record of your passwords outside of your computer or portable device. It's probably a smart thing to do from a security point of you anyway.

Fortunately, my friend remembered her password and was able to get back into her LinkedIn account. She is now happily ensconced in a new venture involving things she had, up until now, put on the back burner.  And she vows never again to be shut out of her social media accounts.

Building Trust In the Meetings Industry -- Revisited

One of my favourite sources of business inspiration comes from TED.com, where you can listen to hundreds of lectures, about a multitude of topics, often leading to a few ah-ha moments. Recently I heard talk by Baroness Onora O'Neill, a British philosopher who has studied the roles of trust and accountability in public life.  And it really made me rethink how I have viewed trust as a marketer.

O’Neill debunks the claim that trust has declined over time by pointing out that research on trust has remained relatively stable in the last 20 years. We still mistrust politicians and the media, while other professions such as judges and nurses are still relatively highly trusted. The average person, she says, is still somewhere in the middle.

She argues that polls are very bad assessments of how we trust because they do not take into account the good judgment that goes into placing trust in others.  In real life people, she points out, we place trust in a differentiated way. We trust individuals based on whether they are:

• Competent
• Honest
• Reliable

So we have it backwards when we think we can “build trust” because we cannot dictate what people give us.  We can only behave in such a way as to deserve trust. For marketers, therefore, the aim first should be on how to be trustworthy and secondly to give adequate, simple evidence that we are trustworthy.

In a previous post on the topic, I urged readers to build trust by:

• being present online, with their website or social media page
• being personal and transparent, showing us who they are, who is behind the company
• offering value, and being helpful by nature, without the expectation of anything in return (this is especially important when you are answering questions on LinkedIn, or contributing information in any social medium).

And doing all of the above consistently.  As Ottawa-based sales expert Colleen Francis says, “Trust is built with consistent behavior over time… reliably delivering your message to your clients will demonstrate you can be trusted to deliver what you said.”

But the above is all about how you communicate your trustworthiness, the second step in this process. Now I think we need start with a deeper level of introspection, starting with whether you are worthy of your clients’ trust.  Do you really believe in your product or service?  Or are you trying to be all things to all people because you need to meet quota?

These are probably more difficult questions to answer than many of us would like to admit.  But in the “new normal,” the competition is too fierce to be marketing products, services or meetings that we don’t believe in.  Being authentic is the best starting point to being a trustworthy – and trusted – marketer.

PCMA Convening Leaders: A First Timer's Impressions & Takeaways

At the First Timers' reception
Niagara Falls Tourism took green screen
photos of attendees which were turned
into souvenirs shots, printed on the spot! 

For the first time ever I attended the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) Convening Leaders' Conference, which was held in Boston Jan. 12-15. As a career-long MPIer, I had never attended this annual event.  My only PCMA experience had been the Canada East Chapter Conference in Niagara Falls a few months ago.

It had been a long time since I've been a newbie at anything!  Overall my impression was that this conference both pushed the boundaries and invited attendees to engage at a level I had never experienced before. Here are my top 10 takeaways:

• A Mindset of Innovation & Recognizing the Value of Failures: at the first timers' session, we were informed by Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP, PCMA's Senior Vice President, Education and Meetings, that her team looks to innovate with session formats, room layouts and even food and beverage. She openly admitted that they know some of these innovations will fail. But they consider failures to be valuable lessons. After all, if PCMA can't take risks to show its members how to organize better conferences, who can? This was echoed by Chairman Johnnie White, CMP at the opening session. And there were a few failures, such as the "out of the box" lunch on the Tuesday which ran out of food, and the congestion problems at the Hynes Convention Centre. But somehow I witnessed a willingness to forgive BECAUSE they were trying something new. I found the attitude of the leadership and the staff to be refreshing.

ASAE President & CEO
John Graham joins
the fun at the Montreal lunch and
poses for a #MtlMoment with
fake lips!

• Embracing Social Media: aside from assigning the customary hashtag for the convention, organizers and sponsors truly embraced social media. From an Instagram contest organized by local DMC Advantage Boston, to the Tourisme Montreal's #MtlMoments lunch snapshots, there were plenty opportunities to engage through social media. A highlight for me definitely was the tweet up sponsored by Ottawa Tourism, where I finally met people in person people that I follow on Twitter: the Velvet Chainsaw's Jeff Hurt (@JeffHurt), the Tradeshow Institute's Traci Browne (@tracibrowne), the Grass Shack Events & Media's Mike McCallen (@mmcallen), Lindsey Rosenthal (@eventsforgood) and Plan Your Meetings' Kristi Casey Sanders (@PYMLive).

• Sponsorship That Matters: I loved that key sponsors did more with their dollars than just give us the usual blah-blah-blah about their destination.  There was a concerted effort to tie sponsorship to the values held by the sponsor.  I was proud to be a Canadian and to witness the leadership of so many of our DMO's in sponsoring top-notch education; whether it was Tourism Toronto and the Metro Toronto Convention Center sponsoring the opening keynote with futurist Lisa Bodell, or Meetings & Conventions Calgary sponsoring a number of smaller breakout sessions, it was gratifying to see the Canadian presence and support of thought leadership.

• Canadian Winners: speaking of a Canadian presence, two of our own were also honored with Katie Dolan of Ottawa Tourism as one of 20 in their 20s leader, Freeman AV Canada's Heidi Welker with a Chairman's award for her leadership in growing the PCMA Canada East chapter by 42% in the last year.

• Mobile Meeting Movement: on the theme of innovation and Canadian pride, the JPdL bus from Montreal to Boston was a great experience. Aside from offering a cheaper, quicker mode of transportation (with the bad winter weather the bus got us there much faster than many people who are flying!), it was a great way to network, learn and debate issues along the way!

• A Culture of Dialogue: because PCMA does not have a tradeshow per se, and because so much focus is on education, this convention felt very different from other meetings industry gatherings I've been to in the past. With a reported 50-50 ratio between planners and suppliers, I found most "buyers" to be very approachable and open to discuss their challenges or issues. One planner I met, who was also a first-timer, said that she loved not feeling like a piece of meat in a market! I even had a "very important planner" (someone whose department plans over 200 meetings a year), approach me! Yes, I was wearing a "first timer" ribbon but the whole conference had this feeling of collaboration and no "us versus them" feel.

A participant discussion board
in the Learning Lounge.

• Engaging Formats: room layouts were varied, offering so much more than just the typical theater style or half rounds. I saw theater style combined with hightop tables and stools, small U-shaped groupings of chairs and half rounds, even chevron-style "hub and spoke" set ups. Most seemed to invite more networking and small-group conversations then what we typically experience with traditional setups.

• Excellent, Practical Education: aside from four knockout keynotes, I had the privilege of learning in five excellent breakout sessions. Two qualified as traditional lectures, albeit with very energetic speakers. Two involved highly interactive presenters who engaged their audience with lots of group discussion including input from virtual participants. And one was a panel with four speakers, facilitated by a very able moderator. Except for one of the lectures which was more motivational in nature, all sessions involved highly practical advice with examples of actual meetings. It was clear that the audience craved real-life solutions and not just theory. 

Salman Khan dreamt of "free, world-class education for anyone,
anywhere."  His dream became Khan Academy.

• Emotional Connection: The highlight of the convention for me definitely was Salman Khan's highly inspirational story about Khan Academy (proudly sponsored by Tourism Vancouver!).  A humble and engaging speaker, with a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor, Khan described how he tutored his niece Nadia and progressed to posting math tutorials on YouTube to eventually create what is now the biggest provider of FREE online education, with over 10 million unique users per month.  Khan's story for me was a classic case of the law of attraction and his description of receiving a call from Bill Gates' Foundation reminded everyone that big dreams do come true.

• Technology Trumped by People: At first glance this event was heavily focused on technology. The main hallway was lined up with various app vendors, the Tech Central meeting area and Learning Lounge seemed to be touching on everything technology. But veteran delegates were telling me those areas were a lot less busy than in years previous.  Was it because they were no longer in areas adjacent to the main session?  (a "failure" to learn from?).  All I know is that in the meeting rooms, the people I was conversing with were more focused on human connection. Could it be we've had it with technology and we are now craving good, old-fashioned, human relationships? Regardless, people were talking!

The PCMA Convening Leaders Conference for me was a great way to kick off 2014. It embodied everything I want to focus on this year: authenticity, engagement, learning and innovation.  I'm not 100% sure whether I will attend the Chicago Conference next year, but based on this wonderful experience it's at the top of my list!