How to create unique buying and selling value propositions

Engagement through “personalised value” is key to creating unique buying and selling propositions which will draw back show participants, according to an ETT Club session.

Eventprofs were asked for ideas about how to get rebookings and grow an audience during the presentation at the UFI European Conference in Poland.

Tanya Pinchuk, CEO of ExpoPlatform, highlighted three areas that organisers need to focus on to build successful value propositions for buying and selling:

• Value – Look at the process from a customer’s perspective.  What are their goals? How can you analyse and measure if targets have been met? The customer will measure the opportunity cost of getting the same quality of leads elsewhere.
• Personalisation – Segment exhibitors and visitors into clear and manageable groups, with the organiser as the expert and central catalyst of the industry they serve.
• Engagement – People support what they help to create. The organiser might want to introduce new formats of interaction before and during the event, making sure people are emotionally invested and have a sense of ownership of the process.

She said: “Speaking about value, we as organisers as an industry should look at the process from the perspective of our end customer. The problem here can be in how we measure the success so we can find out how can we deliver visual proof of achievement.

“We as organisers have to find out what are the alternatives. What are the opportunities they have to reach out to leads? How can we compare the value we deliver and the cost of the lead in different ways?

“It’s important to accept ourselves as part of the industry. Organisers shouldn’t just be an expert in events management, we have to become experts in the industries we serve.

Tanya added: “Personalisation is segmentation into measurable groups. So we have to know how to deliver values to these niche groups.

“We should not consider exhibitors as a group of people – we know that there are many other groups inside.

“Speaking about engagement, we should remember that people support what they help to create. ETT Club is an example of how the organiser UFI helped us with this new formatting so we could  to be engaged in the topic we are interested in – we are experts in and we are interested in coming up with new ideas.”

Tanya was joined by Aida Cuko, of the Italian Exhibition Group, and Emerald’s Joseph Kowalsky for the workshop.

Aida drew attention to two key points when considering a value proposition: buyers and travel changes.

Organisers were told to focus more on those who are making purchases rather than exhibitors, which could include offering more hosted buying opportunities.

She said: “Our shows are less crowded after the pandemic, but surprisingly the feedback from the exhibitors was great – sometimes even greater than it was before the pandemic.

“That’s because they didn’t need many people in their booths, they just needed the right people at the booth. That reminded us again that the most important client for us is the buyer, not the exhibitor.”

Aida added: “People will travel less than what they used to do before. Maybe buyers are not going to the sellers anymore, so it should be the sellers going to the buyers.

“Geocloning is something that adds value to your show. So if you have a leading show – well-known, well-positioned in the world – why not invest and bring that show to different markets?”

Innovation and communication were highlighted by Joseph as two other areas which should be prioritised by organisers.

However, he claimed there has to be a real reason in developing your offerings for your client – otherwise there’s no point.

Joseph said: “Innovation for innovation’s sake is really not going to be good for anybody – because who is it helping?”

Organisers were told to use influencers and dynamic video content to demonstrate the value that your business is providing them.

He added: “It’s really just an adjustment to our current style and giving some more life to this industry that is so vibrant already.”

We hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful. At ExpoPlatform, we want to help you build better events and communities. Please get in touch and ask for a demo here. Thank you.