Ceir Predict Conference for Trade Shows: Slow but Steady Growth
This month, the Center for Exhibition Industry Research held their 3rd annual CEIR Predict Conference, aimed at analyzing global business trends with a lens on their impact on the exhibition industry. Bringing together 150 of the industry’s most successful at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, they issued a forecast for the coming business years that’s a bit mixed.
So, let’s talk a bit about CEIR and what their analyses suggest for your business’s upcoming trade show plans. While it might seem less than stellar at first, it’s actually not as bad as it seems for trade show suppliers, and offers lots of opportunities for exhibitors.
CEIR Predict And Your Upcoming Exhibition Strategies
Much of the CEIR conference focused on slow growth in the trade show industry, which continues to lag behind GDP, 0.8% to 1.4%. That’s been the case for the past 18 months and is likely to continue for the next few years. Consumer spending lies at the heart of it: while the trade show industry is generally B2B, consumer spending dictates marketing dollars. Currently, the only group showing strong sales are those consumers making $100,000 or more. Otherwise, there’s slow growth among the less-affluent markets, slowing the economic recovery.
According to attendee Austin Kim, senior economist, Bain & Co, full consumer recovery is unlikely to happen until the end of the decade. Globally, China and Africa are currently best-positioned for growth, but global recession will be slowing them as well through 2018 to 2020. Stresses in the Eurozone will also have increasing impact on all their trade partners, adding to the global uncertainty.
In short, CEIR Predict is showing slowed growth through the end of the decade. Continued slow growth in consumer spending points towards better times eventually coming to the trade show industry, but the next few years look to be lean for industry suppliers.
But Now, The Good News…
So, times aren’t great. As consumers, I think most of us realize that. But, for one thing, growth is growth. Even if the exposition industry isn’t growing as fast as it could, it’s still growing and should continue to do so. And the reason for this is that trade shows and exhibitions continue to be a good investment, for both cities and businesses.
One example comes from other talks, where the mayors of Houston, Dallas, Baltimore, and Orange County, Florida discussed the positive nature of trade shows, and their impact on local business and tourism. Baltimore sees a return of $4 on every $1 they invest, meaning the investment is paying off well for everyone who gains new business through the venture. The mayor of Orange County, Teresa Jacobs, credited the exposition industry with $2.1 billion in local economic impact.
So those cities, and exhibitors, that keep investing in trade shows are seeing that there’s still plenty of money to be made through trade show displays and exposition appearances.
Smart Trade Show Booth Design Strategies Create New Opportunities
Accepting that the next few years may a challenge, what can you do to continue to get strong returns on your trade show investments?
In certain ways, the global recession has leveled the playing field in the trade show and marketing industries. There’s still money to be made, and slow growth among the large companies means plenty of consumers whose needs are going unmet.
In our view, if CEIR’s predictions continue to bear out, the two key areas to focus on in current years will be targeted outreach, backed by increasing digital interaction.
In terms of stretching your trade show dollar, focus on reaching out specifically towards targeted groups. While expositions are always going to have some broader appeal, especially at bigger events, business need to develop an actual corporate identity, with substance behind it, that appeals to specific markets.
Everyday consumers are increasingly unswayed by marketing that’s too generalized. They’re aware of the global nature of business, and are wary of “faceless” large corporations. With their own budgets stretched thin, most consumers are looking to stretch their dollars as well. That means they want solutions to their problems, and they want solutions that they believe are a good fit forthem, personally, rather than a focus-grouped one-size-fits-all solution.
Digital Strategies Enhance Your Trade Show Displays
Additionally, among both consumers and businesses, the use of the Internet in making marketing decisions continues to grow rapidly. According to forecasts, this year will see the install base of smartphones and computers to exceed that of PCs.
The ability to research a product from anywhere is being widely embraced by consumers, and Internet marketing continues to grow rapidly as a specialty industry. The combination of its global reach, along with its relatively low costs, suggest that trade shows are going to continue to embrace more and more digital-based presentations.
After all, CEIR did it themselves. They established an online web channel with a wide array of free content from the CEIR Predict conference which ran throughout the show, and will remain online as documentation of the event and its ideas. CEIR President Doug Ducate spoke directly about his desire to reach out to a wide audience, and insure the information remains available for people to see.
Your trade show display can now be, in effect, a permanent exhibit. Any important events can be easily documented, livecast as they’re captured and then archived for anyone to see in the future. You can simultaneously broaden the reach of your message significantly, while you bring more people to see your exposition displays for themselves.
When combined with strategies that look to target your most likely markets, it leads to a lot of payoff in terms of both your reach and your overall returns on your expo display investment.
Look to find ways to have events happening simultaneously online and off during your trade show display. Just having someone running around liveblogging\tweeting the event with their smartphone goes a long way towards bringing your online crowd into the show. Microvideo continues to be popular, so try using Vine to create moving snapshots of your exposition events.
Adding interactive online elements, especially through social media, brings fans closer to your show, generating a lot of new interest. Look for opportunities to encourage them to sign up for your email newsletter, or follow you on social media. Everyone who signs up is another interested lead.
In this vein, we have been steadily adding to the available media element choices that we offer clients, including lots of different styles of iPad stands, free-standing monitor stands, and combined iPad and monitor stands. This year we’ve also added truly interactive media presentation tools like the Wave Interactive Touch Panel Media Player display, and our newest item, the inTouch interactive media presentation tool, which is THE ultimate latest technology for successful media presentations, lead capturing, and LOTS more – check it out in the video below.
Invest Wisely In the Years Ahead
The key takeaway here is: look to extend the value of your trade show displays by enhancing them with digital and online elements. Digital media outlets are extremely inexpensive to utilize, and often free aside from equipment costs.
They also offer a broad range of options for targeting your message towards specific online communities and likely buyers that are researching online, bringing in better-qualified leads than broadly-targeted campaigns.
It’s the combination of effective trade show display designs, smart targeting, and broader online appeal from using digital lead generation tools that will help to ensure your sales growth continues to be strong through slower years to come.
For more, check out our guide to trade show service manuals or how to find your trade show why.