Author Archives: Gary Schwake

The Race Director Experience – Crim Fitness Foundation

Are you a race director thinking about using a Virtual Event Bag for your race? You’ve come to the right place, where other directors share their experience using a Virtual Event Bag.

In our second installment to our webinar series, we sat down with race directors Ali Harris and Joe Dimambro of the Crim Fitness Foundation to discuss their annual event, The HealthPlus Crim Festival of Races. For the past three years, Crim has used the standard plan of our platform, and we want to share their journey.

Highlights of this post

  • What The Race Directors Said
  • Attendee Q & A
  • Takeaway

What The Race Directors Said

1. Share with us a little bit about your event.

Joe: The Festival of Races is a weekend of fun in downtown Flint, Michigan for runners and walkers of all levels and ages. It includes five separate running events ranging from a 10-mile race to a .29 mile teddy bear trot and reaches over 15,000 racers!

2. Why did you choose a Virtual Event Bag?

Ali: The user-friendly dashboard is fantastic and the automated scheduling has helped us hit the ground running year after year. Another huge plus is not having to find hundreds of volunteers to stuff thousands of bags amidst the chaos leading up to the race.

See a bag example here!

3. How did you position the bag with your sponsors/vendors?

Ali: As part of our contract, we include the Virtual Event Bag as an added value for all of our sponsors. However, sponsors are not the only ones that can benefit. We allow community members the ability to create a placement for 250 dollars, a fee that they are willing to pay due to the value of our audience.

*Crim was able to cover the cost of the bag and then some by having five community members come in at the $250 level.

4. How did the platform make executing the bag easy?

Ali: The schedule made it wonderfully easy because it provided us with a checklist of items to do, which we were able to incorporate into our master timeline for the event. We also found it easy because any time we had questions we were able to reach out to the VEB team for support.

5. How did using the bag evolve over the years?

Ali: We’ve stayed consistent in our use of the bag over the years. However, we are noticing that more sponsors are using it each year, and being able to share a preview of the bag has helped them create great placements. Also, with all of the improvements that are made to the platform each year it’s gotten even easier to use, and we’ve hit our stride with managing it and our sponsors.

Joe: Another point with the evolution we have noticed, is that each year more and more people are signing up for our race via mobile or tech application. With that in mind, we’ve tried to shift towards using more technology and using a virtual bag goes right along with that theme.

6. Words of Wisdom?

Ali: If you are thinking about using it we strongly encourage that you do, it is so easy to use and will save you a lot of time. Work together as a team to help get it going or provide it as an intern project because it’s a great learning experience when working with sponsors.

Attendee Q & A

1.What ideas do you recommend for getting sponsors to pay for a placement?

Ali: For the paid placements it was about communicating the value of the reach they would have with the number of our participants. We also found it helpful to discuss the benefits of being able to receive a report and how we want to be able to provide them with ROI.

Takeaway

As Joe pointed out, the use of technology with endurance events is growing. Race directors are finding easier and more sustainable ways to replace cumbersome processes. The Virtual Event Bag helps directors accomplish those goals. So don’t hesitate, in today’s world time is money, show your sponsors and volunteers that you respect theirs and schedule a demo today!

sales@virtualeventbags.com

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

The History (and Future) of the “Race Bag”

The physical “race bag” is the fax machine of sponsor promotion. It still works and some people still keep them around, but the forces of change have rendered it obsolete.

So what happened to the old fashioned “race bag?” First, a quick history lesson. The “race bag” likely began by a combination of three factors:

  • Event participants were picking up their bib, timing chip (remember those?) and tee shirt prior to the event. A brand or local merchant was willing to provide bags to the event in return for advertising their logo on the bag.
  • Local merchants wanted to promote their business to runners, so they requested to place coupons and other promotions in the bags.
  • Consumer packaged goods companies focused heavily on sampling to promote their product. Events with bags became a natural source for sampling.

These conditions collided to provide running events with a “goody bag ” that often contained:

  • Flyers or discount coupons from sponsors or other companies
  • Race applications from other races
  • The official race program
  • Small gift items such as toiletries
  • Food items like energy bars or gels
  • Last minute instructions from the race
  • Something valuable and useful, like a pair of gloves or a cap or visor

So what changed to bring about the slow demise of the race bag? Two forces:

The Running Boom(s)

In 1977 (the inaugural year), the Chicago Marathon had 4,200 participants, making it the largest marathon in the world. In 2014, there were over FORTY FIVE THOUSAND participants, making it the 2nd largest marathon in the world.

In addition to the explosion in the size of races, the number of races also exploded. Running USA estimates that there are now over 26,000 running events in the U.S. Do the math, that’s 5 events every weekend in every one of the top 100 DMAs in the U.S. (for reference, Birmingham, AL is #100 with a population of over 225,000).

For consumer packaged goods companies, it became impossible to provide samples to 26,000 running events with over 16 million participants. In addition, the rapid growth of data-driven sampling opportunities has made the “spray and pray” method of sampling much less compelling (see below).

The Internet

In less than twenty years, the Internet has destroyed once lucrative, print-based business models. Consider the plight of classified ads in newspapers and yellow page directories. While the death of paper coupons is happening more slowly, very few businesses, especially local businesses, continue to utilize this method of marketing, turning instead to the web, email, social media and loyalty programs.

So what’s left to include in the physical “race bag?” Let’s revisit the list from above:

  • Flyers or discount coupons from sponsors or other companies
  • Race applications from other races
  • The official race program
  • Small gift items such as toiletries
  • Food items like energy bars or gels
  • Last minute instructions from the race
  • Something valuable and useful, like a pair of gloves or a cap or visor

So now what does an event organizer do? There are two alternatives:

  1. Eliminate the race bag
  2. Provide a digital race bag

Going Digital

We are often asked by event organizers, especially those of endurance events, about how participants respond to the “race bag” going digital. First, the facts:

  • 65% (or more) of an event’s participants will visit the event’s Virtual Event Bag
  • They return 2x – 3x on average over the period before and after the event
  • Nearly 60% engage with one or more sponsor messages or promotions

Can a physical bag do this? Um … no.

A digital race bag provides an event the opportunity to deliver what every sponsor is seeking. An efficient, effective, direct method of reaching the event’s audience.

Sponsors provide the support necessary to allow event organizers to deliver a high-quality event experience to participants. So the promotions from these sponsors are part of the value exchange between organizers, sponsors and participants.

Without sponsors, partic­ipants should be prepared for even higher r­egistration fees, because the costs of producing an event continue to rise

Click to tweet

The Participant Experience

As revealed in the stats above, participants are actively engaged with digital bags. There will always be an an outspoken minority who long for a ‘goody bag’ that has physical items, but as we now know, those bags are becoming a relic of the past.

One valid point we hear from participants is that they often forget about the special offers provided by sponsors in digital bags. This will soon change as tools like Apple Wallet and Android Pay make it easy to save digital coupons or offers in one place that is with you always … your smartphone.

Special thanks to our friend Dave McGillivary, Race Director of the Boston Marathon, who inspired this post with his recent article on Runner’s World.

If you are an event organizer and would like to learn why more than 1,000 events across the globe are using Virtual Event Bags as part of their sponsorship program, please visit our website or contact us to learn more.

 

Gary SchwakePublished:

The Race Director Experience

Last Thursday, we sat down with Michelle Juehring from Quad Cities Times Bix 7 and Stephanie O’Brien with The Banff Marathon, to hear about their experience working with a Virtual Event Bag. The Banff Marathon was a first-year customer utilizing our professional plan while Quad Cities is a second year returning customer with our standard plan. If you missed the webinar, you can watch the video, or check out the breakdown of what we talked about below.

Highlights of this post

  • Video: Hear it for yourself
  • The Panel Summary
  • Attendee Q & A
  • Takeaway

The Panel Summary

1. Tell us about your events. 0:01

Michelle: Quad Cities Times Bix is a 7 is one of the largest non-marathon races in the Midwest. We just completed our 41st year and had around 15,000 – 20,000 runners.

Stephanie: The Banff Marathon is the world’s greenest marathon. We are on our second year, which sold out and had 1,500 runners participate.

2. Why did you choose a Virtual Event Bag? 1:53 – 3:17

Stephanie: Our goal is to achieve the greenest marathon in the world, while increasing sponsor and participant interaction .

Michelle: We came back to the product again because we love it, how easy it is to use, and the support we had from the VEB team. As the expo director, it also allowed me to invite and include vendors or sponsors that couldn’t be on-site due to staffing or time constraints.

3. How did you position the bag with your sponsors/vendors? 3:40 – 6:41

Michelle: Our vendors had never heard of this opportunity before, but we wanted to do something different for our 40th-anniversary event. We knew this was something that bigger races were doing, and that it made sense to do it. We priced the bag, so it was very affordable for vendors, they didn’t have to think twice about doing it, and we had great first-year participation.

Stephanie: With it being our inaugural year with the bag, we included it for more sponsors than we normally would’ve done. We added a sustainability feature as well as a national park stewardship feature by adding a transit bus pass in the bag along with a pass to the park museum. We also offered the regular smattering of discount coupons from our sponsors, but tried to make it appealing and different for everyone.

4. How did the platform make executing the bag easy? 7:15 – 9:49

Stephanie: The fact that the platform was automated was fantastic. I was able to schedule all of my notices and invites way in advance, and I was able just to keep an eye on it if I needed to tweak it. I didn’t have to think about it, and I knew they would go out without me having to do anything.

Michelle: What I like is that you don’t need any extra software to create content. As a small business owner, I could go online upload a jpeg, type in my information, and I was good to go. If an edit were needed, they could easily reach out to me directly, do it themselves, or have access to the VEB support team. The automation was another big factor for us; we could do it as far in advance as we wanted, and it was even easy to include late registrants in our second participant invitation.

5. What changes will you make for next year? 9:53 – 11:50

Stephanie: My number one change for next year will be in communication. It won’t be new anymore, and we want to make sure that they fully understand the value they are getting out of it. People are so busy these days, and it needs to be as simple and as clear as possible for them. The second will be the promotion of using the tool, and the third will be to have someone on my team be a point person for the content going in the bag and the sponsors.

Michelle: I would like to have more attention-grabbing examples to show the small businesses that we work with the potential of what they can do with their bag content.

6. Words of Wisdom? 11:53

Stephanie: For people thinking about using it for the first year, it really is a time saver. You’re not spending the nights prior to the event stuffing 1,000 + bags; you don’t have to store the bags anywhere, or run around collecting coupons . Second, I would also suggest that if you don’t already have a logo warehouse or a place where you are storing logos for your sponsors to do that. They aren’t always the best about knowing where that information is. The third piece of advice I would give is to have someone sponsor the bag. There is a lot of value in that title placement, and you can brand the background image however you want. Getting a sponsor to cover the cost of the bag is of real value to everyone else as well.

Michelle: Pricing it so that it’s a no-brainer was crucial and helpful for us and is something I would pass on. To our current exhibitors we priced it at $25, our sponsors were automatically included. If they were an exhibitor wanting to come into the expo, we priced it much higher so they could fully grasp the value.

Attendee Q & A

1.What were the price points you had for local vendors/sponsors in the bag? 16:00

Michelle: Current exhibitors were $25, if they were not it was $300. This year, we had two companies come in at that level, and it showed us the value of the bag.

Stephanie: If the sponsor or exhibitor was donating anything to offset our budget by $200 then we included the bag for them. However, I think we will be tweaking that strategy as we continue. We were trying to include as many of our key sponsors as we could.

2.What kinds of concerns have the sponsors expressed when you presented the virtual bag vs. a physical bag? 19:57

Stephanie: We forced the hand with this, we follow a purchase and procurement guide pretty steadily and with that it guides a lot of our decisions. We worked with our exhibitors in our expo to help educate them to make smart choices. We did not allow any paper print outs, handouts, or coupons, and we policed that as heavily as we could. They were hesitant with the bag at first, but once they saw it in action, they liked not having to spend money on printing those things out.

Michelle: Overall we found the bag well received by those who didn’t have the opportunity to be part of the expo in the prior years. They were still a little hesitant as Stephanie mentioned, but once they did it, the bag proved itself to them with the success.

3.What were some other ways you promoted the bag to your participants? 24:00

Michelle: We didn’t want to do too much too soon, and we used only the tools that the platform gave us and it worked just fine!

Stephanie: We promoted it heavily via social and digital media. (Banff Marathon had a participation rate of almost 85% of their audience in the bag!)

Takeaway

It never ceases to amaze us at VEB all the ingenious ways race directors use their bags. In our conversation with Stephanie and Michelle, one can see that no matter the size of your event, or the plan you choose, a virtual event bag can benefit you in a variety of ways. It can create a greener event, add extra value for your vendors and sponsors, allow you to have more time to focus on other important race day items, and provide you with an additional revenue opportunity. We are lucky to work with events like these on a day to day basis and we hope to share their successful ideas with you. So don’t be shy, reach out to us and learn about including a Virtual Event Bag into your next event!

katie@virtualeventbags.com
sales@virtualeventbags.com
704-413-6917

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

Is Your Event Healthy? 6 Vital Signs to Watch

It doesn’t matter if you organize a trade show, conference, consumer expo or endurance event, you need to measure the vital signs of your event to monitor its health.

Highlights of this post

  • The six vital signs that every event needs to measure
  • Tips on how to track these vital signs
  • Bonus: 6 additional stats to watch

This post is inspired by a recent article by Sue Pelletier of MeetingsNet summarizing the key take aways of a session at a recent conference.

S.Pelletier tweet 6 stats of health

The points made were focused primarily on B2B conferences and trade shows, but they apply to all types of events, B2B and B2C alike.

The Six Vital Signs

If you are not measuring these vital signs, it is time to start, because just like people, when things start to go wrong, they do so quickly and it is hard to recover. Consider Ben Franklin’s famous phrase, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

1. Event Audience Loyalty of at Least 50%
This leads to an even bigger question … do you have the tools necessary to track individual attendance year over year? I know many events, especially consumer, do not. If attendance this year was bigger than last year, then all is well, right?

Not so fast, my friend!

Lee Corso not so fast

The key to success for any business is keeping existing customers and gaining new ones. If your marketing time and money is spent replacing the customers (attendees) you are losing, then this is the start of a slippery slope.

 

2. Exhibitor (Sponsor) renewals of at least 65%
Your sponsors and exhibitors invest in your event because of the audience you deliver *and* the opportunity to make a direct connection with them (side note – this need to connect is the problem Virtual Event Bags solves for event organizers). If your sponsors and exhibitors aren’t returning then they:

  • no longer see a relevant, quality audience at your event
  • have not been able to effectively connect with the audience
  • have other options (events) that deliver on their needs

 

3. Minimum 30% of event revenue from sources other than registration
“I don’t need sponsors. My event sells out every year.”

Even the most well-attended event would do well to diversify their revenue sources. The events industry continues to grow, but so do attendee expectations. Revenue from non-registration sources (e.g. sponsors and/or exhibitors) provides the fuel necessary to reinvest in the attendee experience and stay ahead of the competition. Don’t forget that you also need to invest in the sponsor experience as well.

 

4. At least 35% of attendees (participants) are younger than 50
This metric is designed for Associations with annual conferences that tend to have an aging demographic. If you organize an endurance event, your primary age demographic is likely 25 – 44 (according to the Running USA’s State of the Sport report). The point, however, is not the actual age metric (30, 40 , 50, etc.), but that your event is looking to the future by attracting the next generation of your audience. When planning your event, do you have resources dedicated to market, program, and retain a younger audience? This leads us to the next metric, the audience experience.

 

5. At least 55% of direct expenses are targeted to experience
“Experience” is one of those hard-to-define, but critically important, elements for any event. Because the quality of an event experience is in the eye of the of the beholder, how does an organizer know how to deliver a great experience? We suggest you consider two important points:

Find your Tribes
Segment your audience into thirds. Not by age, region or job title, but by their “tribes.” Seth Godin, entrepreneur and marketing guru, defines tribes as:

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea … A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.

An example of a tribe could be people who are tech-savvy, early adopters. Another example is the loyal traditionalist. Both are important to the health of an event, but each group will have its own view of a great “experience.” Segmenting your audience into tribes will help you develop marketing messages, programming and other elements relevant to each group.

Remove the Friction
The “Happiest Place on Earth” (aka Disney World), recently spent over $1 Billion on the Magic Band and related infrastructure. The purpose? Remove friction in the Disney experience.Wired.com Disney Magic Band

Photo credit: Wired.com, Bob Croslin

You don’t have to be Disney (or spend $1 billion) to remove friction points from your event. The first place to look is the “grey areas.” Those transition points between systems (e.g. registration to check-in) or people (marketing to ops) that are often the primary contributors to friction in the attendee experience.

 

6. The top companies in your market are maintaining their investment
Look around your market. This could be your city or your industry, depending upon your event. Now look at other events in your market. Are the top companies in your market (as you define it), working with you? If not, you should be working towards a continually growing and improving sponsorship base (see point #3), with a focus on the “best” partners. This brings credibility to your event, which brings more sponsors and the opportunity to grow and/or enhance your audience.

To read the full article and see six more tips, click here to visit Meetings.net.

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this post. If you would like to learn more about Virtual Event Bags, please contact us for a personal tour or, if you prefer, watch a self-guided video tour.

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

Overwhelmingly Positive: The University of Oklahoma’s Experience

Highlights of This Post

  • The three reasons why OU chose to use Virtual Event Bags.
  • How they used it to bring life to the University community.

People recognize the University of Oklahoma for being the home of the Sooners and a proud educational institution of the Midwest! For a freshman, the new year starts with new student orientation and move-in day, and this year the housing department wanted to try something new.

The Problem
Every year Staci and the housing team would put together thousands of informational packets to include in the rooms for freshman once they had moved in. These packets take time, manpower, money, and there is no way of knowing if students look at it! Staci’s a-ha moment came to her when she received a Virtual Event Bag for participating in the Oklahoma City Marathon. Bingo! She knew she had found a solution to her packet stuffing problems. Not only would this save her time, but she would be able to track all of the engagement that would occur within the bag.

Saying Yes
After reviewing the platform via an online demo, there were three features that made a yes an easy decision for the housing department.

  1. Saving Time and Manpower
    With every Bag, there is a handy tool called “The Content Builder.” The concept we developed is “You invite, they build.” Staci sent out invitations to the content builder, and within a three-week period, OU Housing had over 50 placements!
  2. Traceability
    Data and traceability are some of the best features the bag offers. Every department or business that creates a placement receives a detailed report of who engaged with them. This reporting is a big upgrade from paper packets that give no idea whatsoever!
  3. Including The Community
    Not only would they include On-Campus departments but this would give them a chance to connect students to the local businesses within the university community. Staci took a unique approach and presented the opportunity of the bag to all members of the local chamber of commerce. As quoted above, the response was overwhelming, and chamber placements made up almost 40% of the placements submitted.

“We started inviting people to participate in the bag, and the response has been overwhelming positive.” – Staci Johnson, Marketing and Communications OU Housing and Food

 

Oklahoma is off to a great start because they set specific goals that they executed quickly and efficiently. What goals do you have for move-in as a University, is creating an overwhelming positive community one of them? Help connect students, whether it be off campus or on campus, with those who will make the next four years of their life unforgettable.

Gary SchwakePublished:

How Do You Manage Your Conference High?

Conferences are an essential component of improving professional and business development. The goal is education, and when done well, it offers a unique professional experience for attendees. The creative juices flow, empowering ideas get shared, and great conversations happen.

Highlights of This Post

  • What happens when innovation gets stuck in the trap of procrastination?
  • Four strategies you can use to avoid this trap and move forward.

At the end of a conference, attendees are invigorated and excited about the challenge of acting on all they learned. The mindset leaving is that what they are about to accomplish post conference, is just short of world domination. I like to define this feeling as “Conference High” and as an exhibitor in many events, I have found it to be a pleasant and deceitful emotion.

This “High” can often be a powerful catalyst for business development. However, if it sits for too long, motivation slips away, and the “High” will die. The best thing to do is to learn how to manage your it so that post-conference, you can hit the ground running. Below are some tips for managing your “High,” but first it’s important to understand why not managing it harms everyone involved with a conference.

Who Suffers

For Attendees
Lack of Innovation = Slow decline. If you are not taking new ideas, acting on them and improving, you simply can’t expect to have genuine growth. Take it from a legend in the consumer show industry.

“If your show (or business) looks pretty much the same as it did 5 or 10 years ago, you’re missing opportunities and leaving money on the table” – Marc McIntosh CEO at Showcase Events Inc.

You Won’t be an Asset
If you are growing or trying to improve, chances are you are learning through that process. The quality of knowledge you have as an attendee is a conferences biggest asset because quality attendees are crucial to fostering an active learning environment. As consumers, we all put a lot of the responsibility on the people we buy from to deliver. If you spend money attending a conference, you should expect great things. However, you need to share the burden and become an active participant and add value to the event in the years to come.

Exhibitors & Conference
Retention drives growth. Like any business, conferences have to retain and add to their customer base (sponsors/exhibitors) every year. Sponsors/Exhibitors invest in conferences for three reasons:

  1. The possibility to sell to the attendees
  2. To learn about industry trends
  3. To get input from their customers

If they can not sell or learn is it likely that they will return year after year? Probably not. Being an active consumer improves the experience for everyone. If you are a show producer, how can you understand what your show attendees go through unless you put yourself in their shoes? It’s time to start leading by example.

Managing Your High

Develop an action plan
The sooner, the better, while all the information is fresh in your mind! Need tips on creating one? Click here.

Understand How It Will All Integrate
Realistically, how do the pieces fit together to accomplish your companies/events overall objectives?

Who Else Needs To Be Involved
Delegate, don’t be a hero. If you are considering a new product, look to the vendor to help you! They have likely done it 1,000 times and have a better perspective on how to make you successful.

Take A Chance
Implementing a new process or product might be scary and expensive, but it might be the best business decision you’ve ever made! How will you know unless you TRY?

einstein quote 639x323

If you had meaningful conversations or met leaders who inspired you, pick one or two ideas on which to focus and “git ‘er done!”

#gotothebag

Want to learn more about Virtual Event Bags? We help event organizers more effectively connect sponsors and/or exhibitors to attendees; you can schedule a personal tour or view a self-guided video tour.

Gary SchwakePublished:

What Yale and Oklahoma Can Teach You About Connecting Students

There are two events that are rights of passage for every college student, Orientation and Welcome Week. Entire departments and local businesses spend hours preparing information to give to students so they can start off college empowered and informed. With all the hours being put into this prep, how do you even know if students are getting the message? Yale and Oklahoma University recognized this as a problem and set out to find a way to capture the data.

What They Found

The solution, a Virtual Event Bag! What’s a Virtual Event Bag? I’m glad you asked. Let me explain why these schools chose it and why you should be a pioneer with them!

It is the ideal way to connect students to information, before, during and after your event, whether it be Fall orientation or Welcome Week. Why is that so great? When students gain access, every interaction is tracked for your benefit and the benefit of any business or department involved.

It’s Simple

Why is it simple? It’s a turn-key solution to measuring and understanding what information students are viewing. Information such as a discount for the local coffee shop or where to buy/return books for the school year. With a virtual bag, you will know what they consider relevant, and what they don’t want to waste their time on.

And Easy

We realize that as an institution there are a lot of moving parts to put something like this together and at first all the variables might seem daunting, I assure you it’s not.

Creating the Bag (The Before)

You invite, they build. Departments, local businesses, or student organizations create their placements in four easy steps, reducing your responsibility rate by about 70%, phew.

Content Build

Getting Students to it (The During)

Email, social media, and website. Every New student has to activate their .edu account at some point, have a nice little invitation waiting in their inbox. You can also post a link to the bag via social media and post it to your website, could we make it any more accessible for millennials?

invite

Knowledge is Power (The After)

It’s all about the data. Anyone who built a placement in your bag will not only get a report on overall bag performance, but they will know what students specifically interacted with them!

report

Already using an App?

So you were smart, got with the times and have already been using an app for student orientation. We salute you! Did you know that you can include a virtual event bag in your app? It’s incredibly easy.

In an App

 

Move Forward

So consider what you are doing now for orientation. Do you make it easy for departments to have access to new students with insightful reporting? Is it a turn-key solution? Chances are you never realized that missing out on tracking information was truly a problem, but it is, and we can help. Whether you are using an app or handing out stacks of paper like the good ole days, move your students forward this year and use a Virtual Event Bag.

To schedule a time to learn more click here.

Want to learn more about Yale’s experience? Click here.

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

You Look Marvelous: American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Highlights of This Post

  • The American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) recently held their annual conference, which had 12,000 attendees and 175 sponsors / exhibitors.
  • ASAPS was seeking an effective way to deliver sponsor and exhibitor messages to attendees prior to the event.
  • The ASAPS team discovered Virtual Event Bags at PCMA Convening Leaders conference, saw a quick demo and loved it. Why?
  • Close to 90 exhibitors participated in the program and nearly 50% of uploaded attendees visited the event’s Virtual Event Bag more than 2x.

The American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery is the leading professional organization of plastic surgeons certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery who specialize in cosmetic plastic surgery. It has over 2,600 members in the U.S., Canada, and many other countries.

Their annual conference, The Aesthetic Meeting, was recently held in Montreal. The conference team has been in search of a solution to help its vendor partners (exhibitors) more effectively reach attendees prior to the conference.

The ASAPS team discovered Virtual Event Bags in the “Tech Central” area of the PCMA Convening Leaders conference. We did a short demo with them and they found the tool to be the solution to help their supplier partners efficiently deliver pre-show messaging to attendees.

pcma 2015 veb booth

Simplicity Is Key

There were a few key points that attracted ASAPS to the Virtual Event Bags Platform

1. The Virtual Event Bag is micro-website, branded for the event.

2. Attendees are invited to the site (bag) prior to the show, but also during and after.

3. Sponsors and Exhibitors can easily create their own content with the tool.

4. Each sponsor receives a detailed report on attendee engagement.

Positioning With Sponsors & Exhibitors

ASAPS decided to add the Virtual Event Bag just a few months before the event, so they chose to include the tool as part of the existing exhibitor package as a way to provide additional value. Despite being included late in the process, they had nearly 90 exhibitors participate.

In addition, over close to 50% of attendees visited the Virtual Event Bag more than 2x, providing great results for sponsors and exhibitors.
ASAPS 2015 report

ASAPS had a great overall result with the Virtual Event Bag for both sponsors and attendees. This provides the Society the opportunity to now look at monetizing the program and incorporating it into their sponsorship packages.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this behind-the-scenes customer success story. If you would like to learn more about Virtual Event Bags, please contact us for a personal tour or, if you prefer, watch a self-guided video tour.

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

Lightweight but Powerful: O’Reilly Media’s Experience

Highlights of This Post

  • O’Reilly Media was looking for a solution to help their conference sponsors
  • They found Virtual Event Bags to be the solution, why?
  • O’Reilly was able to get great adoption by sponsors, how did they do it?
  • Did it work and what did they learn?

O’Reilly Media is a diversified company that “spreads the knowledge of innovators” through books, online services, magazines, research and conferences.

Basically, they deliver information about sophisticated technology for sophisticated people. But yet, until this year, they were still using the highly unsophisticated registration bag at their conferences to deliver sponsor messages to attendees.

This is the story of their journey to Virtual Event Bags.

Time for Change

Every year O’Reilly produces 12-15 technology conferences around the world. Beginning in 2015, O’Reilly made the decision to eliminate physical “registration bags” at its events. This decision was made for a variety of reasons, but it was apparent that the bags were generating a ton of work and waste but delivering no measurement of success to sponsors.

O’Reilly still needed, however, a viable alternative to deliver sponsor promotional messaging to attendees. Simply using email was not a viable option, as O’Reilly wanted to preserve the integrity of their email messaging for critical information regarding the conference versus flooding attendees with sponsor messaging.

The Virtual Event Bags Experience

While searching for digital solutions for sponsors, the team at O’Reilly discovered Virtual Event Bags. After a quick demonstration, they found the tool to be the perfect solution for their needs.

They were primarily drawn to three key features of the tool:

  1. Sponsor messaging in one place – The Virtual Event Bag brings together all of the sponsor’s promotional messaging into one place, making it easier to share with attendees before, during and after the event.
  2. Detailed engagement reports for each sponsor – Every sponsor received a detailed report of engagement, including information about the attendees that engage with their message within the bag. This was a big enhancement for the event sponsors.
  3. Sponsor create their own content – Sponsors create their own content with an easy-to-use Content Builder tool in a matter of minutes. This removed a lot of work from the team and provided more flexibility for the sponsor.

Positioning With Sponsors

O’Reilly decided to start with the Strata + Hadoop Conference in London. This event was only a few months away, so they chose to approach 15 of their 40 sponsors with the opportunity. They quickly had 10 sponsors excited to participate.

“I love the ability to eliminate redundant paper brochures and flyers, but still see results.”

One sponsor said, “I love the ability to eliminate redundant paper brochures and flyers, but still see results.” Every Sponsor receives access to a detailed performance report, which is available to them in real time.

Quick tangent … just what is “Hadoop?” We’re glad you asked. Now you can impress your friends with this valuable piece of trivia:

Hadoop defined

 

Delivering Results

For its inaugural use of the Virtual Event Bag, O’Reilly took a measured approach to distributing the bag to attendees, using only one pre-event email invitation from the platform. Despite this conservative path, they had over 60% of attendees visit the bag over the course of the conference.

strata+hadoop london 2015 report

For future events, O’Reilly’s team plans to expand distribution of the bag to include their mobile app, event-related emails, event website and other messaging channels in order to drive engagement even higher for sponsors.

Lightweight But Powerful

Every event team is lean, so adopting new technology tools can be a challenge. Virtual Event Bags is designed from the ground-up to be easy-to-use by both event organizer and their sponsors.

“The Virtual Event Bag program was extremely lightweight to manage, but delivered a powerful impact for our sponsors.” – Nate Coon, O’Reilly Media.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this behind-the-scenes customer success story. If you would like to learn more about Virtual Event Bags, please contact us for a personal tour or, if you prefer, watch a self-guided video tour.

#gotothebag

Gary SchwakePublished:

3 (+1) Strategies To Steal From Bridal Shows

Can an organizer of a home, auto or other consumer show really learn anything from a bridal show? You bet!

Bridal shows are unique because they have to recreate their audience every year. If you’re not a bridal show, ideally, you have found a way to capitalize on past attendees while adding new ones each year. If you are not doing this, seek expert advice immediately (we’ll be exhibiting at NACS) and consider incorporating the marketing strategies below.

 

1. Go Local with Pandora

When users sign up, they are asked to provide age, gender and zip, so now reaching a particular demographic is easier than ever, whether it’s moms in South Dakota or teens in NYC.  Pandora is a bullseye targeting platform that is precise, so every impression is a smart impression, and your dollars are not wasted.

SEE MORE PANDORA STATISTICS HERE

NACS_Blog_Post_-_Google_Docs

2. Piggyback off of Your Sponsors

Some events call their sponsors and exhibitors “partners,” but are you partnering with them or is your relationship simply transactional? One of the best things about sponsorships is they lend your event credibility. So if you’ve snagged that credible sponsor, chances are they also invest in advertising of their own via radio, tv, and social media. Suggest teaming up to split the cost of a billboard, a radio ad, or even an honorable mention off one of their TV commercials!

 

3. Know Where Your Audience Is

Millennial soon-to-be brides spend most of their time on social media, specifically Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or PinStaBook! If you are trying to reach a particular type of consumer, scope out where they are spending their time and start engaging with that community and position yourself as the go to for their show needs.

 

As you can see, taking your marketing strategy game to the next level doesn’t require spending a lot of money, it means being smarter about it. Now what if there was a tool that could combine the strengths we mentioned on the strategies above? This last tip is our one to grow on, and yes even bridal shows are doing it.

 

4. Use a Virtual Event Bag

We help you truly partner with your sponsors and exhibitors because it is a direct effort for events to get attendees to their messaging. A placement in your bag lets them advertise locally, to a specific demographic and gives them the ability to make smart impressions.  While all of this is great, what about the ROI? When an attendee or participant visits the bag, every interaction is tracked for you and your “partners” benefit. These qualities make a Virtual Event Bag your one stop shop for giving exhibitors and attendees perks they didn’t even know they needed.

 

 
So consider giving one or even all of these strategies a try. It’s crucial that shows learn to evolve in every way, and just like that great saying “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So don’t miss out, consider what steps you’ll take to grow the way you do business.

 

 

Gary SchwakePublished: