Trade Shows and Events

Business-to-business (B2B) media and information industry revenues reached $25.5 billion in 2012, representing 3.4% growth from $24.7 billion in 2011, details the Association of Business Media (ABM) in its latest Business Information Network Report. The industry posted slightly higher revenues in the second half of the year ($13.1 billion) than the first ($12.4 billion), as growth stood at 1.3% overall when adjusted for inflation. While inflation-adjusted revenues have grown for at least a couple of years now, they still haven't recovered to 2008's high of $28.7 billion. Read more »

Perhaps the exhibitions industry shouldn't be too worried about younger, digitally-obsessed generations shunning face-to-face contact. According to a new study [download page] from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), 61% of Millennials aged 18-27 believe that exhibits at exhibitions, conventions and annual meetings are more valuable today than they were 2 years ago. That's the highest percentage of any generation, with older Millennials and young Gen Xers (aged 28-39; 53%) the next-most confident about the growing value of face-to-face interaction in this setting. Read more »

Talking to people works, according to results from Ifbyphone's "State of Marketing Measurement: Survey Report" [download page]. Asked to rate various marketing tools for their effectiveness in generating sales leads, respondents ranked inbound phone calls highest, with a rating average of 3.4 on an 8-point scale (where 1 represents the highest potential). In-person visits were virtually on par with inbound phone calls, with a rating average of 3.48. Read more »

Recent research indicates that many marketers consider events to be of significant importance to their businesses, and that small businesses share that belief. According to a new study [download page] from the Virtual Edge Institute, attendance at physical and online events is on the rise, though that appears to be the case more for online events. Roughly two-thirds of online event products report that event attendance is trending up, with another 18% saying attendance is flat. For physical events, 42% say attendance is trending up, slightly more than the 39% who say it is flat. Read more »

The CMO Council and Exhibit & Event Marketers Association (E2MA) have released a new report [download page] examining events and trade shows and their contributions to customer engagement. Among the key findings, 31% of respondents believe that trade shows, conferences, conventions, and channel events are essential to doing business in their target customer markets, while another 42% believe them to still be very valuable. Read more »

More than 4 in 10 small businesses host events, with 71% of those believing that they're important to their organization's success, according to new data released by EventSpot by Constant Contact. On average, these businesses are hosting 13-14 events per year, with the most common types being workshops/seminars/lecturs (63% B2B; 56% B2C) and classes (52% B2B; 48% B2C). Somewhat intuitively, the results show that conferences are more popular among B2B than B2C businesses (44% vs. 23%), while the opposite is true for social gatherings (36% vs. 47%). Read more »

TV ads might get just a small share of SMB marketing budgets, but they're perceived as extremely effective, according to results from a soon-to-be-released Vocus survey, conducted by Edge Research. The study found that 53% of respondents rated TV ads a top-2 box score on a 10-point scale of effectiveness. TV ads were rated as more effective than radio (43%), outdoor (43%), online display (42%) and print (31%) ads, and also beat out popular marketing channels such as search (SEO - 42%), social (40%), and email (39%). Read more »

Senior marketers are lukewarm about mobile's importance to their local marketing agendas, according to [download page] results from a new study by the CMO Council. Asked how mobile will impact their local marketing mix in the year to come, a plurality 33% said they are still investigating the opportunity in mobile. Separately, just 6% rated mobile as important to the success of their local marketing strategies. Read more »

Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the marketing services and technology sector saw strong growth in 2012, according to a new report from The Jordan, Edmiston Group (JEGI). There were 458 announced transactions during the year for a total value of more than $20 billion, highlighted by Nielsen's acquisition of Arbitron Research for $1.2 billion. The number of deals in the marketing services and tech sector grew by 67% year-over-year and the dollar value of those deals increased by 36%. Read more »

45% of business leaders expect to increase their marketing budgets in 2013, according to [pdf] survey results from StrongMail. Email marketing and social media are top of the spending agenda, with a majority 55.5% and 51.8% of those respondents expecting to increase spending on those channels, respectively. Not far behind, roughly 4 in 10 plan to spend more on mobile (42.8%) and search (SEO/PPC - 39.8%), while traditional channels such as direct mail (15.4%) and PR (13.9%) sit at the bottom of the list. Read more »