Think Out of the Crate! Now's the Time for Hybrid Trade Shows!

Even as the air waves are being dominated by news on how the economy is being stress-tested, my phone keeps ringing as always with calls from marketers. My email inbox continues to receive emails from persevering sales folks. When budgets get squeezed, the marketers will continue doing what they do with less, by simply getting more resourceful about it.

The interest in virtual venues for marketing and other specialized purposes such as virtual job fairs, continues unabated. Medium-sized and small businesses are willing to use virtual trade show technology to find a way to differentiate themselves from competition.

We see large corporations that once resisted the move to virtual trade shows for reasons that range from political, to cultural or plain inertia, willing to talk to us and to call our customers for references.

We see new initiatives being launched using online venues. We are also seeing new uses being tested for subsets of our technology. All of these initiatives are designed to save money.

Should budgets get squeezed for marketers, the virtual venues are rightly positioned to help. 72% of show organizers polled last week by Expo Magazine say that the economy is affecting their booth sales. Even if that were not the case, given that there is widespread discontent among exhibitors about the way the trade show industry is (dis)organized it might be time for new forms of trade shows. It just might be time for some kind of new hybrid variety of trade shows to be born.

I am thinking out of the crate here, when I say that perhaps new event organizers will come up with a mechanism that uses virtual venues for pre-event research, planning and scheduling meetings. After that, the participants who pre-screen one another will travel to meet at some resort, carrying only relevant papers for conclusive face-to-face encounters, fun and socializing. No crates, no booths, just information, entertainment and connections. If there are any takers out there, we are willing to collaborate in such a social-business experiment.

No Goodie Bags? No Problem! Why Virtual Trade Shows are PhRMA-friendly

The article in Tradeshow Week Magazine titled "What’s Next for Health Care Show Exhibiting?" prompted this post.

The new code from PhRMA (The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) for marketing by the pharmaceutical industry is expected to result in readjustments to their trade show tactics. The goal of these changes and some more upcoming changes that are on the anvil is to ensure that the information reaching medical practitioners is from independent sources. While I would not be surprised if Google Health positions itself for a dominant role in this new scenario, one can be sure that virtual trade shows will be considered very seriously by health care marketing professionals.

On the one hand, virtual trade shows allow for compliance by the health care marketing professional (and for independent 3rd-party audit). On the other, they track activity and reports in such depth that establishing an ROI is just a click away.

There are some closed-corporate virtual trade shows that we at iTradeFair.com do in which the event organizer's policies mandate that exhibitors do not offer any giveaways or lucky draws. With a virtual trade show, not only is it easy to comply with these requirements, but also very easy for governance and reporting, while ensuring the effectiveness of the content placed in every virtual booth.

Goodie Bags and Lucky Draws are capabilities that are offered in virtual booths in many virtual trade shows. A virtual trade show producer ought to enjoy the ability to switch off select features to stay within the rules of the game for their particular industry. When a pharma company's virtual booth is in a general virtual trade show, such as one held by a Chamber of Commerce for a particular region, that specific booth must be capable of turning off its non-PhRMA-compliant features without impacting the other booths in the virtual trade show.

When we work with any event organizer these are capabilities that we like to highlight. Through simple procedures in our event engine we can entirely disable (show-wide) the Goodies feature or the Lucky Draw feature, or both. The reporting system enables the event organizer to assess the success of an event while staying within the customized parameters of the virtual fair. If for some reason the features are made available in a virtual fair, individual exhibitors have the power to decline using select features should they need to be in compliance with industry-specific laws.

That is why I believe that virtual fairs are PhRMA-friendly!

Psst... Want to Try a Whatchamacallit ... a "Virtual Trade Show"?

What's in a name after all, you might say. It could make a very big difference. Calling an offering a 'virtual trade show' has serious limitations, not only from a strategic perspective, but also tactically.

The names 'Virtual Trade Show', or 'Virtual Trade Fair', or even 'Virtual Show' or 'Virtual Fair' -- they are all limiting. They limit the market, they limit the vision and they limit the love. Let me expand on that.

These descriptors limit
(a) the market's perception of how they can use virtual event offering,
(b) your perception of the scope of the market that will value your offering, and
(c) your product's design, navigation, features and the capabilities that you can dream up.

You could also end up alienating the trade show industry. We were once told that we needed to bring in an expert from the trade show industry to be in the business of virtual trade shows. We did not because we could not find a single trade show executive who was willing to be associated with a new technology that had the potential to upset their colleagues, and in the process get themselves excommunicated. The term virtual fair or virtual show is easily misunderstood as something that intends to replace the real thing, evoking strong emotions, even making respectable trade show industry leaders say things like "I hate virtual trade shows".

What happens if we change the label?

If we look at what BDMetrics does, it really is a virtual trade show that runs in parallel with the trade show organizer's periodical events. However, BDMetrics labels its virtual trade show as an "attendee personalization technology" and its year-long virtual trade show as SmartPlatform or 365 - their website is not very clear on product names. However, I applaud their approach and the success that they have had with the trade show industry.

BDMetrics has a SmartBooth portal which really is the virtual booth as we have known it. I quote from an article in Expo magazine... "Perhaps the greatest ROI generator is the exhibitor portal, SmartBooth, which is sold as a booth upgrade. The Web-based data-mining tool helps exhibitors to generate more qualified leads by enabling them to define their target market demographics, see how many qualified buyers will be at the show, schedule appointments before the show, analyze their booth performance on site, and receive a post-show list of prospects they missed." (Huh? That is precisely what the virtual booth and the reporting system do.)

BDMetrics, by not calling their offering a virtual trade show, have not only steered clear of all the instintive defenses that trade show industry leaders put up to protect themselves from the phantom threat of their exhibitors rushing out the gate to go virtual, but also has steered clear of the challenges of mental associations that come from the use of the metaphor of a 'trade show'. BDMetrics, from what I can tell has been embraced by some of the leading traditional trade shows such as NAB and Packexpo, which is very impressive. The trade show industry has been so slow at adopting web based technologies, that I am glad someone figured out how to change the label on the virtual trade show and serve an industry that was long overdue for a dose of friendly technology.

The 'virtual trade show' does not really have to behave like a trade show. We have deployed virtual trade shows not only for traditional trade show organizers, but also in several niche applications that were never possible before, never thought of before, and never attempted before. We have deployed virtual fairs that are not trade shows or lead generating mechanisms. The itradefairs that we do often include specialized applications to generate efficiencies in processes through collaboration and content management. Small departments in large companies use the itradefair to showcase themselves to select audiences in remote parts of the globe. Small companies use it to showcase themselves to large companies. Academics have used it to showcase their research to the industry. There are uses that a traditional trade show industry would never have dreamed of because it was never done before on the scale that is made possible now given the available technologies.

In a future blog post we will explore possible ways in which virtual fairs can or ought to manifest with the known state of technologies - because I believe that the name "virtual trade show" is creating limitations on our collective imagination, especially in how it is being visually rendered.

Once you break free of the shackles of the name, you are then only limited by your imagination in the number of uses you can put it to, bridging distances in the nation and across the globe. Maybe we should come up with a new name for this. Or maybe we should simply refer to it the way many of our prospects and customers do... whatchamacallit... an itradefair.

3 Reasons why Virtual Trade Shows Can't Afford to Lose the Personal Touch

Virtual trade shows can't afford to lose the personal touch. Here are 3 reasons for this statement:

1. Save your show, grow your brand: With email filters and spam fighting tools getting more and more aggressive, email invitations, automated responses, email alerts and notifiers sometimes do not reach the intended recipient. I am told they simply get vaporized. In a corporate trade show for a very large Fortune 100 company, we sometimes offer to follow up on their initial emails with one or two people on the phones. All that our people do is call the intended recipient, and ask them if they have received the invitation email or alert email, and if they have had a chance to read through it. We do it mainly for those who have been invited to exhibit but failed to register. The response on the phone usually is one of gratitude for the follow-up, and often goes as follows: "I have so many emails, I know I have seen it but would you mind re-sending it to me right now while you have me on the phone so that I can go over it with you." or "I am sure I did not receive your email. Let me get your domain white-listed so that I receive future emails from you". In most of these closed-corporate virtual trade shows that we do for our producer-clients, the exhibitors would do anything to get the opportunity to exhibit and get in front of those corporations. The personal touch does wonders for the trade show and more importantly, for our brand.
2. Our natural craving for human contact and reassurance in unfamiliar surroundings: In two recent virtual trade shows as I monitored the support lines and the communication process, we learned that when an online exhibitor or attendee is not very familiar with how standard Internet experiences work, then it is best to have a member of the support team pick up the phone and call them. We had a situation where the online support was very responsive over an exchange of 4 emails, but what could have been resolved in a 5 minute call, later took an hour because the online exhibitor was pining to hear a reassuring human voice on the phone.
3. Leveraging crowd-surf: Something that I have seen work wonderfully well is to have one dedicated live chat room for Customer Support during live online events. Put a few support folks on it from your side to listen in and answer questions. Let it be the place where people can come and publicly post messages for help. There is always a small percentage of visitors who are either rushed or not familiar with online environments. When they post a question, often other online attendees answer them to help them out. From a support-perspective, it is akin to addressing a crowd in a room and letting the crowd's own dynamics form an informal safety net that carries the event forward successfully. It gives you the opportunity to have your ears on the ground and look for areas of navigation that are not intuitive, and guide the crowd collectively or through a private chat message. It gives you the ability to know if there are technical problems in environments that your testing process did not factor in.

In virtual trade shows and other forms of virtual fairs even though it is common for people to not be surprised if their requests are not answered swiftly, if you want to distinguish your event-brand, then give it your personality. Keep it real, and keep it as personal as possible. The Internet is just an efficient medium that connects real humans seeking to interact with one another. Do not take away the human element.

Uneasy Lies the Virtual Trade Show that Carries a Sponsorship

Why do sponsors align themselves with virtual trade shows? Let us see what we can infer from sponsors' approach in real-world events, and then see how it translates when it comes to the virtual trade shows.

I was talking to the tradeshow leadership at one of the nation's top manufacturers of outboard motors for the marine industry. The purpose of their participation in their industry's leading tradeshows was "to show how big we are, and to display our products". Lead-capture was not on their wish-list. I have heard this repeatedly from many sponsors - they show up as sponsors because historically they have been sponsors. To not be a sponsor after successive appearances at industry tradeshows is to risk creating the perception in the mind of the market, that all is not well in that particular year. Cutbacks sometimes begin with the advertising and promotions budget line-items. Sponsors, in a way, support the trade association or advocacy group that organizes these gatherings of industry-professionals, in return for visibility. Such support does serve an important purpose for the growth of an industry. However, from the sponsor's perspective, there is no need for creativity, no need for aggressive tactics to steer foot-traffic towards their booths on the show floor, and no need for too much marketing effort. Their brand does the talking for them. When visitors show up at their booth, they are often ignored by the booth staffers unless it is someone they already know personally, and it is generally a relaxed setting for the staffers. Visitors may come by their booth, pick up corporate giveaways and leave.

How does such a sponsor's commitment translate in a virtual trade show environment, and how does that affect the quality of the virtual trade show?

When a sponsor's logo is proudly displayed on a virtual trade show, it is often used by the event organizer to sell more virtual booth space. It also invariably helps in drawing a qualified online attendance. The hope for the other exhibitors is that the online traffic thus drawn will also stop by their own virtual booths. The expectation of the virtual attendees is to be able to interact instantly with someone knowledgeable at any virtual booth that they visit online. When the online attendees stop by at a sponsor's virtual booth the expectation is to at least be able to instantly connect online with a representative who can point them in the right direction.

I attend quite a few virtual tradeshows because there is always something new to learn in them. At a technology-related virtual trade show, I visited a sponsor's booth and asked to chat with a representative regarding a product on display. The booth staffer appeared online after a long wait, in a chat session that froze up my screen often, and to top it off this booth staffer seemed not just disinterested, but also uninformed about the product.

If organizations want to be sponsors at a virtual trade show, but do not want to work their virtual booth, then

• it is perfectly okay for them to decline to have live booth chat operators or booth staffers via their virtual booths, instead sticking with providing for relevant and current information made available to the online attendees, or
• perhaps they should consider opting for means of visiblity other than the virtual booth. If all they want in return for a sponsorship is the visiblity and the branding, then they perhaps stand to gain more by announcing an award to every 1,000th attendee who logs in live during the virtual fair. Or they could simply do nothing - just have their branding prominently placed at vantage points on the virtual trade show.

Having a virtual booth means a tacit promise by the booth-owners that they will actively participate in the virtual trade show's success by being a part of the live interaction. Unfortunately, in a virtual trade show, if there isn't sufficient many-to-many interaction, it could lose its momentum. Virtual trade shows and other forms of virtual fairs survive and thrive solely on the quality and the frequency of live interaction.

The perfect virtual booth

Since the time we were born in early 1999, we have been in search of the perfect design for a virtual booth. There are two sides to this coin.

From the exhibitor's perspective, the booth should be flexible enough to accomodate their branding needs. Virtual booth designs are such a subjective matter that no answer is right and there are also no wrong answers. When we ask event organizers what they would like their virtual booth to be, the responses are replete with descriptions such as "photo-realistic", "business-like", "flexible in size", and "futuristic". We have had requests for booth designs that reflect various sizes of booths so that more or less of the screen space (real-estate) can be offered depending on the pricing packages.

The challenge always has been to tolerate the constraints experienced when taking a real-world space and squeezing it into a 1024 x 786 flat screen, without losing the flexibility and ease of navigation.

Case in point - the AMD virtual trade show which is a fascinating high-end visual rendering of a life-like convention center. From what I recall, it had a North view, a South view, an East view, and so on. Impressive for the student of multimedia digital art. Limited, however, in its utility. From AMD and its partners' perspective, it was perhaps a new kind of advertising opportunity. The online visits and downloads over a period of time were also impressive. I would safely bet that they could have accomplished the same thing with (a) a streamed video of the presentations, or a video of a real-life conference along with (b) a receptable to collect visitor information by making them fill out a form, and (c) a mechanism to gather or download brochures.

Let us look at it from the visitor's perspective. The visitors have limited time to browse the web for marketing literature or to watch a serious business presentation for an extended period of time. It is more fun to watch a viral video on YouTube. They are looking for information that they would otherwise not find on a corporate website. They are looking to make connections with key decision-makers. They are looking to be able to bump into professional peers and potential employers. They don't have time to guess what each icon on a booth means. Their network administrators usually throw a fit if they are asked to download any proprietary software for visiting at a virtual trade show booth. Visitors want to be able to switch from booth to booth and gather information swiftly - a standardized experience for efficient research and live interaction with decision makers is all that they care about. They do not want to get on spam lists, nor do they want to have to fill out lengthy forms. They want that giveaway. They want to be able to sign up for the lucky draw and win that free trip for 2 to Hawaii. They want to be entertained.

The perfect virtual booth strikes a perfect balance between the branding needs of the exhibitors and the utilitarian goals of the attendee. The perfect virtual booth strikes a perfect balance between the needs of an exhibitor to customize the booth and the needs of an attendee to enjoy a consistent, standardized and entertaining experience, with as short a learning curve as possible.

We have accomplished the near-perfect virtual exhibit hall to some extent. The perfect virtual booth has been elusive, but not for long. So stay tuned.

Seven other (controllable) factors that impede the runaway success of virtual trade shows - Part 2 of my analysis

In a continuation of my analysis of why virtual trade shows have failed to realize their immense potential, here are seven controllable factors. On why I truly believe in the tremendous untapped potential of virtual events, I will save for another discussion. For now, I just want to address all the issues that are kind of stifling the promise of virtual trade shows.

1. The process of launching a virtual trade show often gets disjointed. Virtual trade shows can certainly be delivered in a very turnkey fashion, with every step of the process flowing through seamlessly, with no strain or extra effort by the event sponsors. We have a process that moves like an automobile assembly line. The challenge is when that process is interrupted to accomodate the specific needs of event organizers or sponsors. Every organizer or brand worth its salt will choose to assume ownership of at least some parts of the experience. Take the simple example of contacting potential exhibitors. Organizers often like to have that extra touch-point with their customers and sponsors. I don't blame them. If you have spent years building a customer base, you need to be very sure before you allow a third-party vendor's call center to start dialing your customer list on your behalf. There are ways around it, which I will save for a later post.
2. "Are you adding to my list of things-to-do?" is the first thought that crosses the minds of the operational team at the client's side. This is one of the biggest hurdles for virtual trade shows to go mainstream. The more automated the entire process becomes, the lesser the hassles.
3. Divided attention. When run simultaneously with an in-person trade show, the virtual trade show initiative does not get sufficient care and feed. "Do I focus on my in-person trade show, or should I bother about this new untested thing that my management wants to put on my already full plate". Unless an event organizer is committed to its success, a virtual trade show will not really get off the ground. Without such a commitment, it is natural for a team to play it safe and focus on what has worked well before, rather than divide one's attention and have niether do well.
4. Stuck at the initial wow. Social networks display a dynamic list of recent activities by members. It gives us a sense of how busy the network really is. When we do virtual trade shows, participants often ask us, "So what really goes on? Do I constantly see things happening on my screen? Do we get to see people approaching us? Do I get to 'fly like Superman' into a convention center and watch the speaker, raise my virtual hand, and ask a question? Almost, and subject to ideal conditions. What can be shown on a demo or a nicely edited promotional animated clip can be dramatically different from the actual experience at a virtual trade show. Which is why some kind of self-regulating mechanism is required among virtual trade show creators to not over-promise in a demo. The real experience is rarely like a video game virtual reality, and even if it could be, there are several variables beyond anybody's control right from the point a trade show is served via the Internet to the point where it is received and experienced, that the nascent industry is putting its virtual foot in its virtual mouth by overpromising in demos and under-delivering online.
5. Absence of simplicity. The virtual events industry, if one may call it so, has failed consistently to simplify its messaging. I am myself guilty of needlessly spewing out jargon. In essense a virtual trade show is just a gathering of people and businesses that would be happy to get in touch with one another at the same time via the Internet, no matter where they are located. How this experience is best manifested does not matter. Its outcome could be several online connections made between real people, an in-person encounter or it could even be a flash mob. For a virtual trade show or a virtual event to become mainstream, it has to make its message simple and crisp. Business professionals that I talk to believe that it is a really 'cool' thing to have along with all other marketing initatives. It is only a matter of time before event organizers will heed these rumblings and catch the wave as it hits their industry.
6. Absence of follow-through. In a real-world trade show, once the crates are shipped and people leave the convention center, nobody documents or traces the results of connections made on the show floor. Strangely, virtual trade shows are held so far apart from one another that virtual trade show organizers have not gone the extra mile to help users build some loyalty to their brand and make them want to come back and talk about how fruitful the connections really were. Even though it is easier to accomplish such follow-through in a virtual trade show as compared to the conventional kind.
7. Not keeping it real. A virtual trade show is still a relatively unknown concept. Participants do not often know one another (that is the whole point of coming together). In such a situation, it is up to the virtual trade show producer to keep a constant line of communication with all parties concerned, so that there is a realization that real humans are running it, and that there is a team that cares about the outcome. When we expect users to spare time and money to be at a virtual trade show, the least we can do is be instantly accessible to answer any questions. Keeping it real is important to keep it virtual.

More to come in my next post.

A dozen reasons why virtual tradeshows fail to realize their potential

Hope you had a great holiday weekend! Quote from an almost-4-year-old, "I really like these holiday days, because they make me very happy!"

This will probably be a multi-part post because I want to spend some time analyzing why virtual trade shows, despite being such a powerful and compelling method of marketing, have failed to realize their true potential.

We do several virtual trade shows in closely monitored corporate environments, very successful, and very loved by participants, held entirely online - with no in-person counterpart. The definition of success of these virtual fairs however, is different from what the convention industry would consider to be the definition of a successful trade show. What I foresee happening is for every marketing department to be weaving in virtual trade shows as part of its marketing mix. This post may seem like introspection or a set of lessons learned. As is usually the case with any exercise in introspection, some good will come out of it. By understanding and confronting the reasons for the failure of virtual trade shows to realize their true potential - of being able to connect millions of businesses worldwide - I hope to facilitate some thinking about the right climate for virtual fairs to flourish.

It is just a matter of time before virtual fairs become as popular as social networks. Social networks are limited to people who know each other through a certain degree of separation. Virtual trade shows, on the other hand, make chance encounters possible. Therein lies their power and potential.

1. Virtual tradeshows might connect businesses, but they fail to connect emotionally with business professionals. It is more interesting to hear of a real-life romance that grew out of an online dating site than to hear of a successful business deal through a lead found at a virtual trade show. Ever heard of two businesses falling in love with one another at an online matchmaker, and wanting to do business together? Even if we hear of them, there are perhaps very few scenarios in which they could become human-interest stories.
2. Virtual tradeshow participants do not like to share their success stories. When we piloted a trade show for the promotional products industry way back in October 1999, I did some follow-up calls to find out if any real inquiries and orders were generated. An exhibitor actually had someone place an order directly after visiting his virtual booth. Here's the problem. For competitive reasons, he did not want me to publicize it. About a month ago I heard that a virtual exhibitor was talking about 2 contracts she won after online visits at her virtual booth from buyers of a large Fortune 100 corporation. Again, due to competitive reasons, she has avoided media attention. I heard that it took 15 years for sliced bread to become wildly popular. I believe virtual trade shows will have greater success once it is not such a well-kept secret.
3. Virtual trade shows are too transparent. Every click of the mouse can be tracked in a virtual trade show. Trade show organizers are more easily held accountable for the return on tradeshow that they deliver to exhibitors. The return on investment in a virtual trade show is easy to identify and analyze in absolute terms. In a real-world trade show, there are several subjective aspects that factor into a participants' perception of whether they consider a trade show a success or not.
4. Virtual trade show is an underdog with no cheerleaders. Without exception, whenever I have mentioned virtual trade shows to marketers and exhibitors they have always expressed tremendous enthusiasm for its value. However, when perceived as a replacement to in-person trade shows it has evoked strong mixed reactions. Often a trade show gig is an escape from the cubicle. It is the time when one can combine a trip to exotic locales along with the family and have a mini-vacation. Virtual trade shows are not merely fighting misconceptions about what they can do for a business, but they actually compete with a marketing executive's leisure time. Virtual trade shows shoot themselves in the foot when they try to position themselves as helping a business executive spend time with her or his family. Asking someone to give up in-person trade shows and do only virtual trade shows is like asking a connoisseur of chocolates to give up chocolate. Highly unlikely.
5. "There is no such thing as a virtual trade show": This, quite literally was the welcoming remark of a veteran trade show industry executive whom I had gone to meet during our early years in business, as I was being ushered into his office. As he described the magic of bringing to life an in-person tradeshow, the magic of 'getting it right', the magic of bringing the right attendees in front of the right exhibitors year after year, the magic of seeing an empty convention center come alive over a 3-day period, the thrill of creating value and entertainment, I could see in his eyes the pride and joy of creation. He said it feels like a Hollywood movie maker. Virtual trade shows may very likely have to wait until they have learned to scale up in alternate untapped markets before they can earn the respect and the attention of veterans in the trade show and media industry. For now, it is like telling Formula One drivers that their races will be held in the video game arcade. In their present state, virtual trade shows can provide neither a comparable adrenalin-rush, nor the incremental financial incentive to get established trade show organizers excited about them.
6. The tradeshow metaphor is being carried too far. When we began in the late 90's it made sense to borrow the trade show metaphor for these online events. Making a virtual booth look and feel like a real-world trade show booth helped users scale the learning curve rather well. However, the demographics of the workforce has changed significantly in the past decade. The new entrants to the workforce view the web as an extension of their universe. There is no need for a real-world metaphor to explain what one is trying to do with a virtual trade show. Why then should a virtual booth look like a real-world trade show booth. Why should one have virtual trade shows that have a panoramic 2-dimensional view of an exhibition hall with meaningless human-like figures gliding by aimlessly? Why are virtual trade shows not defining themselves to really provide an extra dimension to the entire marketing experience of a business. Why provide a metaphor when the virtual trade show can never replace the in-person trade show and is not designed to replace it?
7. Absence of standards on what an ideal virtual trade show should do is a major obstacle. We get inquiries for different kinds of online environments. It is not possible to describe them accurately with the term virtual trade shows. They serve various purposes. They always have a business objective. They aim to solve one or more problems. They often have nothing to do with in-person trade shows. However, the absence of standards for virtual trade shows means that it is open to anybody's interpretation. When one looks at publicly accessible virtual trade shows, whether they be of HGTV or of the EPA, one never knows what to expect. The concept of same-time, different-place interaction as my co-founder aptly puts it, is missing most of the time. Making users go through meaningless convoluted pages of navigation only go to reveal that the virtual trade show suffered from lack of a clear direction, purpose or sense of ownership.
8. Use of traditional media to pull audiences into a virtual trade show is known to fail. We have learned this from experience. If you send me a post card in the mail reminding me of a virtual trade show, or if you put an expensive ad in the nation's leading journal about a virtual career fair, I still can't click through to enter.
9. Exhibitors and sponsors fail to take ownership of the virtual trade show experience being offered. Unfortunately, some of the virtual trade shows that I have experienced include cases where a media company goes through hoops to advertise the virtual trade show, pummels me with emails to stay on my radar screen, only to have no real human being available online during the live event, or have someone clueless and/or indifferent, who simply takes down an email address and phone number to pass on to the right person. Virtual trade shows fail when sponsors and exhibitors do not have sufficient skin in the game.
10. The feeling that anything online ought to be free. There are two problems with giving access to a virtual trade show for free even when a sponsor is supporting it fully. One is that without sufficient skin in the game, the groups that are supposed to show up online to make the virtual trade show a success, will more than likely not show up. Secondly, when a virtual trade show is delivered for free, it can not be adequately supported. An improperly supported virtual trade show in turn is a disservice to the users and to the concept itself. Just like in-person trade shows, a virtual trade show distinguishes itself by the quality of the traffic and interaction it can produce.
11. I danced even though I had sore feet. Trade shows usually are a lot of fun. Often they include a band and a dance floor. Virtual trade show producers then have a very poorly woven argument under which to take cover if they try to tell trade show participants that you can spare yourselves some sore feet at our virtual trade show. Sometimes, the 'no sore feet' argument sells, but it is not a sufficiently strong one to result in a sweeping acceptance of virtual trade shows.
12. Neither the green movement nor soaring gas prices can help virtual fairs become mainstream. While getting on the green movement is great, I hesitate to anchor the value proposition for our virtual trade shows on that argument. It is the same about spiralling gas prices. The virtual fairs have been compelling in their value even when gas was selling at $0.95 a gallon. It should be no different even if gas hits $8 a gallon. Virtual fairs have been compelling in their value well before see-through screeners at airports force us to spend an extra 10 minutes at the gym. No free-gas coupons here. Riding the latest news headlines have never helped virtual trade shows.

In my next post, I will analyze some more aspects of virtual trade shows. Have a great week ahead!