Thankfully, most of us will never have to think about applying to college ever again.  The days of writing personal statements, studying for the SATs or GMATs or LSATs or any another officially acronymed higher-education test, are over.  But for prospective undergrads and grads around the world, this is crunch time.  These individuals have to research programs, visit schools, interview with admissions, apply for financial aid, and then describe their life story in 200 words or less. 

I just opened up the paper this weekend and read that more than 72 million videos of the Olympics were streamed live online. Are we finally at the point where people want to experience even the Olympics games virtually on their PC?!

Check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/sports/olympics/25online.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Imagine attending the Olympics with a web browser and watching the events as they unfold. Where you can attend only the events you want to see and hang out with other fans online. No Bob Costas anywhere to be seen…

To their credit, event and meeting planners are trying their best to green the industry. Exhibitors are passing out biodegradable pens and recycled chotchkies. Planners are insisting on biodegradable paper cups to replace evil Styrofoam. Attendees are occasionally rushing the floor to collect free stress balls in re-usable cloth bags.

Question is, are these changes enough for the second-highest polluting industry in the country? And if not, what can the industry do?

When Unisfair hosts a virtual trade show, meeting or job fair online, there is a significant reduction in pollution. Sure, we may not be replacing traditional trade shows, but we are trying to show our clients what it feels like to throw an event that is, by all accounts, nearly waste free. Think about the last conference you attended or staffed. Would you really miss printing, distributing and tossing brochures? Do you actually wear those branded light-up lapel pins more than once? And really, are the overhead lights all that flattering?

So we’d miss the snacks, free happy hour wine, and morning donuts. And we’d definitely miss the promotional after-parties! But you’ve got to admit, there’s something pretty sweet about attending a conference while saving the world… all in your slippers.

Ask my VP of Marketing and he will tell you that it doesn’t take a slowing economy for marketing to be asked to do more with less—it’s the nature of the business. But our enterprise clients are feeling the pressure and are turning to virtual events to do more with less.

One of our clients was given an edict by its board, “Cut event-spending by 20% in 2008 and by 50% in 2009.” Pretty clear directive.

Luckily for this client, and all of our clients, a virtual event is 50 – 80% less expensive than its physical counterpart, and more effective in generating demand. You would expect me to say this, but it’s not me; our clients are saying this.

I invite you to see some case studies in our Virtual Events Showcase where our clients will tell you that virtual events are a more cost-effective way of generating demand.

Click on the link below, enter the Unisfair Virtual Events Showcase, go to the conference hall and you will see presentations by a couple of our enterprise clients that share their successes with virtual events.

Unisfair Virtual Events Showcase
(quick, painless registration required)

Check back periodically, we will be sharing more case studies and best practices on virtual events in this blog. Who knows, you could be our next case study…

Unisfair does a mix of physical events and virtual events. While it is good to see old friends and wine and dine a lucrative prospect at a physical event, the truth is we generate more demand at a better cost per lead with the virtual events we sponsor than any of the physical events we attend.

We have several case studies in the Unisfair Virtual Events Showcase that share the details on increased reach, lower cost per lead etc., but what I noticed from two recent events we just attended—one virtual and one physical—is the drain the physical event put on my marketing and sales teams.

A Comparison

AdTech San Francisco April 08 – This was an outstanding event. AdTech did a great job and I haven’t seen a show floor packed like that since the dotcom days. We generated about 20 “in the pocket leads” (warm to hot) and another 150 fish bowl leads (got a card but didn’t talk to anyone). I can see a definite deal or two coming from this event and possibly another two.

As marketers we all know the costs of physical events, but it was the downtime of my sales and marketing team that really caught my attention. All the preshow logistics my team had to deal with, printing collateral, ordering give-aways, shipping, 10 hours of employee time setting up the booth (carpet and crates weren’t there on time), about 50 hours of staff working the booth, 6 hours tearing down the booth and another 36 hours of staff travel time (and this was a local show, imagine if we had to fly to the opposite coast!).

It took a lot of resources to pull off this show, which means we weren’t doing other marketing or sales efforts. But it was a great physical event, and you will see us there again.

Marketing Profs B2B Virtual Event March 08 – Marketing Profs pulled off another outstanding virtual event. My marketing manager spent a total of about 2 hours customizing our virtual booth with designs and extensive collateral.

The day of the virtual event we staffed the virtual booth live with one marketing person who was simultaneously working a physical show in New York, sales people from Boston, New York, San Diego and San Francisco—who were able to also handle their daily sales calls—and another marketing person who was home in bed with the flu. A total of about 24 hours booth time. Absolutely no travel involved.

We had over 800 people come into the booth (the equivalent of the fish bowl leads at the physical event), we had almost 150 direct interaction with booth visitors (the “in the pocket leads”) and a dozen of these are already in our pipeline.

The cost of sponsorship was comparable to the physical event, but eliminating all of the physical logistics (shipping, printing, travel, etc.) makes the virtual event exactly 50% cheaper.

But for me it is the literally hundreds of staff hours that we saved-putting these resources towards other marketing initiatives and sales people closing deals—that was the most valuable savings.

See you at AdTech and at Marketing Profs next year!