Live Events Still King in B2B—But Reasons Not So Obvious

Keep your antennae up in the elevator and on the shuttle bus. Make time to engage an introvert

A new study from ABM (The Association of Business Information & Media Companies)  reinforces what many of you suspected, but may have been reluctant to express to your peers. B2B marketers still place a higher value on live events than on any other media channel for lead generation and for promoting new products. Researchers found that 89 percent of B2B marketers considered face-to-face events a “successful” channel for them. Rounding out the top five were: Sponsored white papers (75%), sponsored video (69%), webinars (64%) and e-newsletter advertising (64%). TV, radio, outdoor and mobile brought up the rear, with less than one-in-three marketers advocating their use.

As I head off to one of the biggest annual events in the association world this weekend, it’s hard to argue with the power of face-to-face interaction in this digitally dominated world. But where I’ve personally gotten the most value is not from the trade show floor, planned networking events, “meet-up” destinations or social events—it’s from the chance encounters on hotel and convention center elevators, in the fitness center and especially on the shuttle busses to and from the convention center.

More on that in a minute.

At the end of the day, everyone at an industry or professional conference shares common interests with each other—or else they wouldn’t be going there to network, learn and associate with their peers. They’ve taken time out of their busy schedules (and dollars out of their budgets) to make the commitment to attending. And you never know if that chance encounter will end up being more valuable to your business or career than any of the planned meetings you had on your schedule.

Macro View

Despite a lackluster jobs report, home prices jumped 12.2 percent over this time a year ago, marking the largest annual gain since March of 2006, according to the Standard & Poor’s Case Shiller 20-city home index. Researchers said home values are rising as more buyers are bidding on a relatively tight supply of housing with the prospect of rising mortgage rates on the horizon.

Meanwhile, and index we created of business and entrepreneurship magazines (Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, Wired and Fast Company) was down 1.5 percent over this time a year ago according to min/min online data suggested a mixed bag on the B2B advertising front. On the midsize front, Inc. was up 39 percent, while big company Fortune was down over 17 percent. On the entrepreneurial side, Wired was up 9 percent, but Fast Company was down 17 percent year-over year.

Conclusion

You never know who you’re going to run into. But if you don’t get your face out of your screen and your fingers off the keyboard once in a while, you’ll never find out. As Susan Cain, best-selling author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop talking,” quipped in her keynote address today at the ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo in Atlanta, “some of the best ideas come from serendipitous interactions.” Long live the serendipity of live events!

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Tags: Live events, serendipity, power of live events, B2B marketing, ABM, Association of Business Information & Media Companies, Case Schiller, Susan Cain, power of introverts, ASAE annual conference