Author Description

Trade shows are not only a great place to gain exposure in a traditional sense (why organizations have a booth in the first place) but also a great vehicle for developing the insights needed to win in the marketplace. The use of the event intelligence toolkit (which will be outlined in this book) has had a major impact on organizations’ trade show ROIs. Why is the intelligence opportunity so big? Why do conferences, trade shows, and other events represent such great opportunities for developing market insights? Here are the top three reasons:1.Everyone is in one place: suppliers, customers, competitors, government ‒ essentially your entire value chain.2.Most want to talk. It is called trade “show”, not trade “protect”. Even virtual trade shows have built-in networking opportunities.3.Early warning is all over the place. In fact, most of the shows I go to have innovation sessions and panels that look at where the industry is going.Yet to develop the kind of market insights that I have mentioned in this introduction ‒ whether they relate to customers’ needs, competitors’ intentions, innovation, technology, partners, government directives, and so forth ‒ you need to be properly organized. This book, Gaining Market Insights from Events, provides you with the information you need to become properly organized and to develop a trade show intelligence toolkit. The book is divided into five sections, with each section offering tips and tricks to help you maximize trade show intelligence opportunities: •Section 1: Examples of Intelligence/Cases/Examples•Section 2: Skills and Techniques for Event Intelligence•Section 3: How Things Have Changed in Event Intelligence•Section 4: Special Topics •Section 5: Getting Ready for Your Event Intelligence Future.