Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
What do you think the virtual trade show industry look like in 5 years?
What are some of your predictions for how the virtual trade show industry will look in the next five or so years? Will virtual events take over in popularity? What do you think?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
6 Answers
Heres three quick predictions:
1. HYBRIDS EVERYWHERE: Virtual gets easier and every major tradeshow will have a virtual 'companion' to extend the content, community and conversation
2. ASSOCIATION MARKETPLACES: Associations will finally wake up to the fact that vendor directories are of little value and instead create 365 Marketplaces where people can more easily find the goods and services they seek AND the advice of their peers on what to buy.
3. VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES will finally deliver on the promise of social marketing for business by providing meaningful destinations, not just pages and links where people will go to meet, learn and do business.
Happy Virtual 2011
Here are my three quick prediction:
1) CONSOLIDATED MARKET WITH 1-2 CLEAR MARKET LEADERS: In every industry, we'll see a rash of entrants into the marketplace. Eventually, I believe the industry will get to the point where mergers and acquisitions are likely to bring together complimentary strengths and some players will disappear from the industry all together.
2) BETTER VIRTUAL ECOSYSTMS: At this time, many of the vendors are moving toward a plug-and-play systems on their platforms, but this is not consistent and easy to do at this point. While each provider states it has an “open API” the question is at what point will the providers a) begin developing apps to harvest the potential of the data and platforms. This includes connecting to Salesforce or truly automating the marketing aspect of virtual. And b) promote a developer community to build third-party apps for its customers. In five years, this will no longer be an issue and commonplace like Facebook and Salesforce apps.
3) SIMPLIFIED WEB EXPERIENCES: This may seem contradictory to point 2, but I think we’re going to see a move away from the current way we experience virtual events – a login to enter a space with different rooms, like an auditorium, lounge, etc. Rather, I think we will see a return to a “website-like” experience. Everything is on a single page with a window for live streaming video and different widgets for engagement, games and other applications can be added or deleted as needed. And with an OpenID model, I can move freely to and from these “virtual events” without re-entering my login/password. I think someone like Facebook is ideally positioned to move into this 2011 and will be the norm in 5 years.
So what odds do you want to give me on the above =)
I see three trends for virtual trade shows in the future:
1) Hybrid events become mainstream
2) Events evolve into persistent online communities. Events will feature “live” scheduled events but the events will be perceived as “always on” environments that are consistently refreshed with new/updated content and activities giving audiences a reason to repeatedly visit.
3) Events become more fluid and dynamic environments. Virtual trade shows will be less of a replication of physical events from design, navigation and functionality perspectives and will transition to more natural user interfaces to mimic how users interact with other web content.
Craig
The potential for the virtual trade show market is HUGE. The good old fashioned physical trade show is basically doomed. Virtual trade shows will overtake physical trade shows at a dramatic pace. The quality of virtual events continues to improve (the only real drawback) from a technology perspective. They will become a key component of the integrated marketing communications plan much like physical shows in the past. The cost advantages, positive, practical learning and sharing experience are too good to miss. Look at what Cisco has done with video conference technology in response to early poor video transmission that resulted in a poor user experience. So, goodbye plane ride, hotel and living expenses. A CFO's dream.
Happy New Year
As some of you have already mentioned, hybrid events will definitely increase in popularity. Traditional trade shows will never go away because you can't replace the face-to-face meetings and relationship-building you get from these events. Virtual events will allow exhibitors to reach a larger audience. Using both virtual and physical trade shows will give you just that much more power (and sales).
1)NO COPIES OF (BAD) F2F EXPERIENCES I think particularly that virtual events will stop trying to be just like a F2F experience on a computer and be it's own experience(cece's point 3 above).
2) MAINSTREAM MARKETING CHANNEL I think virtual will fade into normality(ie we won't need events on just virtual events anymore) and be another media option that must be integrated to any integrated marketing and product development plans.
3) MORE COLLABORATIVE the virtual experiences of the future will become multi- directional, not just one way broadcasts of content.
Happy New Year to all....
Answer This Question