MGS:  Reed Exhibitions is the world's leading event organiser, with a growing portfolio of more than 500 events in 41 countries, and a staff of 3000 exhibition specialists.  What strategy(-ies) do you implement to achieve that kind of success?

Nancy:  Everything we do at Reed Exhibitions must fit into one of our four strategies; Customer First, Talent, Data & Digital, resulting in Growth.    Everyone has strategies like these, but executing them is the key.

By Customer First, we mean creating value for our customers is always our number one priority.  When we create value for our customers, not only do we retain them, but it allows for pricing flexibility . The key is really knowing them – our salespeople like to talk in terms of their Top 20 accounts, but we want to really know the medium-sized companies as well.  These could be the next LG’s of the world and we keep asking ourselves, “How are we helping them to get there?”  Educating them on how to engage their customers at events is a big part of this strategy.

Talent means having the right people in place with the strategic and executional abilities necessary to give customers the value they demand.  We use recruiters for specialty and technology jobs, and online resources as well, but we have the most success with referrals from our employees.  Focus groups help us to know our employee base so that we can develop and train, and also give them what they value.  Millennials value time and quality of life.  Announcing that they could wear jeans on Fridays and leave at 1:00 pm (if they weren’t with a customer) got a reaction like we were giving them a million dollars. 

Data & Digital Tools.  Even though data is  making our jobs more time consuming and requiring a different skill, it must become part of every organization.  There are so many digital tools available.  We evaluate and choose the ones we believe will bring value to our customers (rather than annoy them).  Our customers want leads -- leads that translate into orders.  Measuring ROI is often a struggle.  We’ve learned that requiring our customers to have a Lead Retrieval System enables them to figure out how many leads they are getting, what products are being looked at, when traffic is the highest, etc. 

They see the ROI Growing.  We are always looking at different strategies for growth, including: clones, adjacencies, organic growth, activations, launch and acquistions to name a few. An example of adjacencies;  “What else is like this business event?”  “How about a connected security event along side our physical security event?”  Cloning can also lead to growth.  “The small, successful conference in New York City – Can it be duplicated in San Francisco?”  New digital tools, international opportunities, spin-offs…  again, knowing the customer is key to making new ideas work.  

MGS:  What do you see in the future for events and event organisers?

Nancy:  Events will be designed to be easier to attend.  Print-your-own badges, pre-existing appointments.  Participants won’t be walking down rows, visiting booth after booth.  New tools will make the experience more efficient and engaging.  Exhibitors are pulling visitors into their booths with entertaining activities while still getting their messages across.  At a recent event, one exhibitor had their booth closed off and participants entered by appointment only.  The booth had ping pong tables, video games, card tables, popcorn and kegs of beer.  They had a fantastic show. 

A new conference model emphasizes smaller groups with more interaction as opposed to using PowerPoint presentations that leave people in the audience looking at their phones.  One organiser I know doesn’t allow PowerPoint presentations.  Instead, he provides snippet promos of speakers before the event and registrants can choose six speakers they would like to see.  He guarantees that they will get into at least three of their choices and he sets up smaller audience groups that are based on points of interest and are highly interactive. 

Our customers are saying, “Show me new! – new visitors, new products, new info I can take back to the office and talk about”.  This is value we provide.

The world and our industry are evolving.  I have no crystal ball, but I listen and I watch – especially Gen Xers and Millennials.  

MGS:  Thanks, Nancy!