There were approximately 9,400 B2B trade shows and exhibitions held in the U.S. in 2019 contributing $101 billion to the nation’s GDP.&nbsp; The global spread of Covid-19 brought trade shows and exhibitions to a halt in early 2020, with large cancellations including SXSW, the Mobile World Congress and Google I/O. With the right technology, these virtual trade shows can fill the void as we wait for a return to open life.

Trade Shows And Exhibitions 

There are many companies that can help the organisation take their shows to the virtual level. The experience is similar to a high-end computer game with rich graphics and the ability to interact with others. Users will experience a lobby, resource centre and exhibit hall.

Creating a successful virtual trade show

The need for virtual trade shows has led to many innovations, products and services, designed to create an attendee experience that can compete with live events. <ul><li>The key to success for virtual events is to increase customer service in order to reduce friction for attendees.</li><li>Another is to simulate an in-person networking experience.</li></ul>

The attendee experience

According to the Center for Exhibition Research, there were approximately 9,400 B2B trade shows and exhibitions held in the U.S. in 2019, contributing $101 billion to the nation’s GDP. These events…

Stashed ideas

Trade Shows And Exhibitions In The Post-COVID-19 Era

Matt Dixon, customer service expert Matt Dixon thinks that customers don't really care about a surprise. They care for delight.&nbsp; The delight comes in the form of an effortless experience that ends with a happy customer. You don't need to surprise them with a gift or discount. Instead, just give them what they want without any hassle or stress.&nbsp;

When Surprise and Delight Becomes Surprise Without Delight — Shep Hyken

That’s exactly what happened to my friend and fellow professional speaker, Beth Terry. She has a three-bedroom home. The third bedroom is used as an office. She hired a cleaning service to clean her…

When Surprise and Delight Becomes Surprise Without Delight — Shep Hyken

The idea of a virtual workforce is not new. In 2013, Richard Branson said, “In thirty years’ time, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed.” &nbsp;He noticed that technology was presenting the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with people all over the world.

The virtual workforce is inevitable

<ul><li>Trust. If you don't trust your employees, it won't work. Empower people to do a good job and let them do it.</li><li>Culture. Virtual companies should design personal connections into how they operate to build relationships and feel engaged in the company.</li><li>Hiring right. People that fit into a virtual culture are great at collaboration.</li><li>Continuous feedback. Employees can leave honest feedback about their employers on Glassdoor.com.</li><li>Collaboration tools allow virtual teams to be more efficient and collaborate better.</li></ul>

What it takes to create a remote culture

Sometime in March of this year, it seemed as if the entire world shifted to a remote workforce. This went beyond just support centers where, in the past few years, many agents have been able to…

Going Remote: When The Office Is Optional-Or Even Obsolete

Through personalized data gathering companies hope to connect with their audience in more relevant ways. Due to the changes in consumer behavior, brands are shifting towards a conversation-based approach. However, with the introduction of AI-based technologies comes the eagerness to automate consumer processes. Brands should be careful in using this approach because automating all processes can take away the dynamic and responsive aspects of marketing that consumers have come to value.&nbsp;

The Consumer is More Than a Participant

Brands need to take a proactive approach towards data privacy in order to avoid serious consequences.&nbsp; Identity and consumer privacy will continue to be a major theme across the industry therefore companies should combine data-driven identifiers with creative automation platforms so that they can set themselves for long-term success

Navigating Consumer Identity Privacy

Consumers have been standing up to demand more fairness and transparency for their privacy online. Browsers and device manufacturers have also been on the same page. Companies should keep in mind that traditional use cases for third-party cookies won't simply disappear, but will instead evolve.&nbsp; By maxing out the value of first-party data to effectively personalize experiences for consumers, brands will be in better position to ride out these changes and evolve with the industry.

Cookie and Device ID Depreciation

The walled garden ecosystem is growing rapidly as big players such as Amazon anf Facebook erect walls to protect their data and assets. Walled garden are disruptive to the future of data-driven advertising because they block the gathering of data from any outside advertisers. For publishers and marketers to survive this large-scale shift of content to closed ecosystems, companies need to improve their first-party data and bolster their direct relationships with consumers instead of relying on platforms such as Google and Facebook to connect them.

Walled Garden vs. Open Web

There are four trends driving the future of consumer identity that marketing professionals should keep top of mind.

Four Trends Driving the Future of Consumer Identity

Marketing needs to be laser-focused on generating leads that fit your ideal customer profile in order to reduce churn. We do this because it is inevitable that some poor-fit leads will still be generate and passed on to the sales division.&nbsp; Questions to guide with vetting:<ul><li dir = "auto">Is your sales team trained and actively encouraged to vet and quickly reject poor-fit leads?</li><li dir = "auto">Do you have a concrete feedback loop between Sales and Marketing to minimize the generation of poor-fit leads?</li></ul>Success and support teams should regularly review the sales team's pre-sales qualification and requirements checklist.

1. Actively vet your leads

The approach of "move fast and break things" no longer work. If you focus too much on releasing new features at the expense of stability will backfire on you and increase churn. It is important to balance stability with new feature releases. Therefore, leaders must align on the priorities and acknowledge the consequences should they choose decisions on their own.

2. Balance product stability with new feature releases

Business acumen is keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a "business situation" in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome. Teaching business acumen to your hardworking folks will improve financial performance and leadership development and they'll know which questions to ask to your customers to truly add value to their relationship.

3. Teach business acumen

Support is an incredibly valuable listening post to help mitigate churn because customer's issues are usually first escalated to them. They have the best and possibly the earliest gauge on customer temperature and likelihood of churn.&nbsp; Thus, your product and and customer success teams should treat the support team like one of your top customers.&nbsp;

4. Listen to your customer support team

The foundational requirement for reducing churn is ensuring you have a companywide cultural and behavioral mindset dedicated to customer success.

Your company may have customer success and account management teams, but that is not enough to reduce churn. Read more about a culture of customer success.

customersuccess

Trade Shows And Exhibitions

Trade Shows And Exhibitions In The Post-COVID-19 Era

When Surprise and Delight Becomes Surprise Without Delight — Shep Hyken

When Surprise and Delight Becomes Surprise Without Delight — Shep Hyken