CUT DOWN TO SIZE: Withmore than 1,900 exhibitors and 1.1mil- lion feet of exhibition space, PACK EXPO International 2010 gave attendees a lot of ground to cover. For its upcoming showin Las Vegas, PMMI ismaking it easier for partici- pants to connectwith like-minded attendees and exhibitors by breaking the show down into vertical markets, and creating online communities of interest.

which department or function theymostwanted to upgrade within their organization, 40 percent chose attendancemar- keting.Not that attendee acquisition is only a concern for top executives. “We must all think like strategic business peo- ple, not planners, if our events are to exceed and grow,” said Donella Evoniuk, senior director of conference services for the International Society for Technology in Education. “It is uswho need to take charge of the long-termcompetitive value of our meetings to our constituencies and ensure that our products stay relevant.”

SocialMedia and AttendanceMarketing Increasingly, taking charge of your meetings means taking advantage of socialmedia to bring people to them. In a sur- vey of event producers about attendance marketing, con- ducted by themarketing research company Jacobs Jenner& Kent, a majority of respondents listed social-media market- ing as among the leading challenges they face. Social media is now a given, not an option, according to

Christine Maple, marketing manager for the Packaging MachineryManufacturers Institute (PMMI). “Yes, you should set up a LinkedIn Group; yes, a Facebook page is necessary; and yes,Twitter is something you should actually do, not just complain about,”Maple recentlywrote on the blog forWash- ington, D.C.–based FixationMarketing, which creates inte- grated attendance campaigns for trade shows and events. “These social-media channels open up the lines of commu- nication with the very people you want to attend or exhibit at your show.” However, socialmedia isn’t just anotherway to broadcast

the same marketing messages to potential attendees. It also can serve as a tool for building online communities where

www.pcma.org pcma convene September 2011 53

attendees’ interests intersect, creating ways to deliver highly targetedmessages about the things theymost value.Through research and conversations with customers, for example, PMMI discovered that participants in its 25,000- to 45,000- attendee PACKEXPO—the largest packaging and process- ing show in North America—don’t think of themselves as being “in packaging” somuch as they identify themselveswith more specific markets in which they operate, such as bever- ages or pharmaceuticals. So this year,Maple said, PMMI is breaking PACKEXPO

down into three verticalmarkets—pharmaceutical, baking and snack, and candy—and tailoring education and mar- keting to those subgroups. The segmentation will be repre- sented physically,with segmented programming on the show floor, as well as virtually, with an online “Connected Com- munity” for each verticalmarket that offers specialized con- tent and private space where exhibitors and attendees can exchange information.

SOWHO ELSE IS COMING?: SamLippman, president of Integrated Show

Management andMarketing inWashingon, D.C., creates eventswhere the list of

registered attendees is just as important as the list

of speakers—and some- timesmore so.