Insights

Virtual Fairs: Isolated Soluons Vs. Long-term Strategy

Virtual fairs have been around for years as a digital alternave to real trade fairs – but so far they have not been able to establish themselves. It was not unl the shutdown of the Covid-19 pandemic that they became increasingly popular. From a strategic perspecve, however, the queson now arises as to whether this is a short-term phenomenon or a long-term development. This analysis is crucial to the queson of whether virtual fairs require an isolated soluon or long-term strategy in the markeng

Virtual fairs – short-term phenomenon or long-term development?

Looking at this issue under the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is not only scienfically incorrect, but also dangerous from a business perspecve. The moves for virtual trade fairs are too different and the feedback on the success of virtual trade fairs is just as varied.

If you want to make a well-founded decision, virtual fairs must be placed in the context of global and long-term markeng developments. Probably one of the most central changes in markeng is the trend towards inbound markeng or content markeng. This trend is analogous to the change in user behavior: users want to inform themselves about products and make a well-founded purchase decision themselves. The mes of acve selling are over. Markeng and sales are becoming the customer’s advisors along the customer journey. The contribuon that virtual fairs and real fairs can provide to the customer journey is therefore crucial to determining the strategy. This also directly implies that it is not an “eitheror” decision – rather, the strengths and weaknesses must be weighed against each other and the strategic use of the two supposed alternaves must be planned accordingly.

Customer Journey – Digital vs. Physical Touchpoints

A very good introducon to the queson is to look at the customer journey in terms of digital and physical touchpoints.

The customer-journey view has gained in importance in the context of online markeng. The reason for this is not that people in offline markeng have not thought about the customer journey, but rather because of the easier tracking of touchpoints in the digital world. The visualizaon of the touchpoints makes it clear that there are generally fewer physical than digital touch points. The ongoing trend towards digizaon is further accelerang this.

A look at city centers illustrates this development in the area of store touchpoints (retail trade). However, this growing imbalance can also be a possible explanaon for the posive development of the live communicaon sector (trade fairs & events) in recent years. If real trade fairs are “replaced” by virtual trade fairs, further physical touchpoints disappear. This means that virtual fairs are just another digital touchpoint and cannot replace the physical touchpoint “real fair”.

Virtual fair: Standalone vs. Hybride

The previous secon has shown that replacing real fairs with virtual fairs in both the isolated soluon and long term strategy cannot replace physical

touchpoints. So if “virtual fairs” are to be used sensibly, they must necessarily be a sensible supplement to “real fairs” and cannot be considered separately. The advantages and disadvantages of the respecve formats must always be considered in the context of the customer journey (see secon 1).

The following thoughts serve this purpose:

Ÿ Real trade fairs take place at a certain me, at a certain place and are limited to a certain period of me. Ÿ Naturally, the contacts of our target group are in different phases of the customer journey. Due to the restricons (fixed me & limited me frame) the real event can only reach a part of the target group in terms of the customer journey. Ÿ Virtual fairs (digital events) therefore have the potenal to compensate for the limitaons of the real trade fair (me and place)

The following applies to the use of virtual fairs:

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Ÿ The virtual fair must extend the duraon of the real trade fair and thus provide the content on a long-term basis. Access to the content must be made available to the target group in every phase of the customer journey.

The virtual trade fair must be a fixed and long-term component of the customer journey.

Instuonalizaon of virtual fairs in the Customer Journey

The last secon showed that the virtual trade fair as a supplement to the real

trade fair makes a useful contribuon to the customer journey, as it provides the content on a long-term basis (content markeng).

At the same me, however, the strategy for virtual trade fairs must also fulfill the following requirements: (AMICO model)

Ÿ Authority: The content of the virtual trade fairs must be under the company’s own sovereignty and control. Ÿ Measurable: The success of the virtual and real trade fairs must be measurable and transparent to the target group. Ÿ Integrated: The content of the virtual trade fair must be seamlessly integrated with the exisng content. Ÿ Connected: The system must be able to “talk” to communicaon tools via interfaces Ÿ Ongoing: The content of the virtual trade fair must be permanently available.

Soware architecture according to the AMICO model

To implement the requirements of the AMICO model, the following requirements must be fulfilled by a virtual event plaorm.

Authority: The plaorm must be under control of the own markeng or event department. Measurable: The plaorm must generically measure, analyze and report the performance of all events. Integrated: The plaorm must be

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Ÿ integrated into the exisng markeng soware infrastructure. Connected: The plaorm must be able to connect to all available communicaon services. Ongoing: The plaorm must be able to host the content prior, during and aer virtual or hybrid events

A corresponding architecture can therefore only be achieved by seamlessly integrang plug-ins into exisng content markeng architectures. In order to correctly implement the requirements of the AMICO model, virtual trade fairs should therefore not be used as an ad hoc isolated soluon, but rather integrated

into the exisng content markeng strategy on a long-term basis. The leading soluon for this strategy is the VirtualShow plugin from Expocloud. The plugin is compable with the common CMS systems such as Drupal, Typo3, Hubspot, Magento and many more. With the plugin, 2D as well as 3D rooms can be seamlessly integrated into exisng online presences and all elements of the rooms can be easily linked to exisng content of the content strategy.

This approach has the following key advantages:

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Ÿ CAD models of showrooms, exhibion stands or even just exhibits can be imported directly into VirtualShow and thus integrated into the exisng website. Exisng content does not need to be specially prepared or exported for virtual trade fair stands or virtual trade fairs, but can be directly linked. This extends the vising me of your own website and sends a posive signal to Google for “valuable content”.

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Ÿ Visitors are not directed to other plaorms, but spend “their me” directly on the page of the “exhibing company”. The virtual space thus complements the content strategy with addional, valuable content

Summary of virtual fairs

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Ÿ Virtual fairs will not replace real trade fairs in the long term. Rather, they represent a meaningful supplement to real events. Virtual fairs have the central advantage over real trade fairs: they are independent of me and place. They therefore have the potenal to be available as content to all interested pares at the enre customer journey. Virtual fairs should therefore be integrated strategically into the content strategy on a long-term basis. In doing so, the specificaons of the AMICO model should be observed: Authority (under own control), Measurable, Integrated, Connected, Ongoing Virtual fairs are therefore usefully implemented with a plug-in in the exisng content markeng soware. In this way, the exisng content can be easily and sensibly linked with spaal models.

Dr. Chrisan CoppeneurGülz CEO, expocloud GmbH

Aer studying business administraon in Vallendar , Rome and Los Angeles, Chrisan Coppeneur Gülz earned his doctorate in business informacs and informaon management at the WHU Oo Beisheim School of Management. With the goal of supporng the event and booth building industry, in November 2018 he founded the expocloud GmbH.