Live vs.Virtual Trade Shows: pros and cons?

Virtual events are growing in popularity for a number of reasons:

1. Increased Reach - Organizers are able to draw in a lot more attendees, who would not consider flying in for a physical event, because of cost, convenience and other reasons.

2. Always-on engagement - Companies can use today's platforms to provide a fun and engaging place for customers, prospects, partners and employees to learn, connect and communicate anytime they want, without being subject to sales pitches.

3. Marketing Intelligence - As mentioned above, virtual environments provide huge advantages over the card-in-the-goldfishbowl type of leads from physical trade shows because they can closely track demographics, activities and interests of every individual attendee. Virtual sales leads include information on who they are, what they saw, whom the connected with, what questions thay asked and much much more. This is a benefit for both attendee and sales rep, because they allow you to clearly qualify a lead instead of "cold calling" the same person after an event.

We just held a (virtual) event, focused on corporate training, where customers reported enormous cost savings, not just from travel, but also from other logistics that are just much more scalable in a virtual platform (adding a hall, a room or a booth takes just a few mouse clicks). Add to this the fact that once you have your virtual engagement platform set up, you can quickly produce new events - and it makes a very compelling case for going virtual.

As an attendee:

Travel - the convenience of not having to travel is great for the participant. What's even better is being able to invite a colleague who may be interested despite not having any intentions to visit the event. It's the "hey, Jerry would really want to see this" moment realized.

Experience - this is highly dependent on the effort put forth by the booth owner. A lot of booths fall flat in a virtual world, but the same is true in the real world. If an exhibitor understands how to use the features within the booth well, it will make for a good experience. The use of self-directed video is a great example here. The more an attendee browses through video, the more fulfilling the experience. Chat is functional and generally gets the basics across, but will not be comparable to an in-person experience until two-way video is an option.

Privacy - browsing privately is much less intimidating online than in-person. The biggest opportunity an exhibitor has with a visitor is in the attract loop. In a virtual booth, the visitor can be presented with a finite "pitch" regarding what the booth is about. They remain captive for 30-60 seconds as the watch the video, which is effectively qualifying them as a lead (if they bolt, they weren't interested anyway). It's hard to stand in a physical trade show booth for a minute and not be bombarded by sales people.

As an exhibitor:

Cost - oh where to begin. A smart exhibitor will shift funds away from travel, employee time and expensive scenery to content production. More content that is suited specifically for a virtual booth is what the best exhibitors will focus on.

Reporting - this has already been mentioned, but near-real-time data about who is in your booth, who has visited and what they did is readily available. Similar results can be achieved in the real world with RFID systems, but the cost is near prohibitive for all but the largest companies. The data that emerges from a virtual booth can keep your sales team busy for weeks worth of follow up.

Commitment - I haven't seen that many exhibitors really commit the time to understanding what they are doing in side of a virtual booth. They need to see it as a mini-website. An extension of their online presence, targeted for the specific audience that is attending the event in question. The reality is that 95% of the time commitment is spend in content development since the actual tools to "build" the booth are so darned easy to use. In my opinion, the limiting factor is always the content, not the technology.

Re-purpose existing content from other marketing initiatives. As Dennis mentioned, you're online... so use the assets you already have available and treat the booth as a traffic driver, feeding highly-qualified traffic into your other marketing nets.

I think most has been said here already to explain the clear advantages of a virtual trade show.

I would just add that social networking can sometimes be even more effective in the virtual than in the physical event, since you will be able to gather a lot of information of the needs and expectations of your potential leads using matching interactive tools.

Face to face meetings will never disappear but you may take more informed decisions on who you want to meet thanks to a virtual trade show.

On the other hand, and speaking as Devil´s advocate, not much has been said about disadvantages. :). The trust building atmosphere that you can create in a F2F meeting cannot be recreated virtually (still!) and you need to rely on a technnical virtual events platform that will greatly determine the success of your event.

We have seen big failures in the past while trying to implement complex virtual events and technologies, with poorly prepared teams. Nowadays there are already established providers in the space, with enough experience to make a virtual event a smooth interaction and collaborative space for everyone.

My suggestion?, try some of the many open virtual events worldwide and experience the live interaction and possibilities yourself. I am sure you will not be disappointed!

Alex, I have been part of couple of virtual trade shows (as exhibitor). Frankly speaking, the experience is really good. Initially I was apprehensive thinking that the connection with the visitors will be missed. But the sheer convenience for both the exhibitors as well as the attendees, make it a really good experience. Live conferences have some advantage as you can establish faster connection with the booth visitors.

But at a virtual show, I think the visitors to your (virtual) booth feel more comfortable looking at your product/ services because they are not being 'watched'. Also, you can expect good 'traffic' to your booth because people all over the world can attend virtual conferences so the reach is wider than live conference.

Of course the convenience and savings gained add to the value.