My presentation at Busan's Asia Exhibition Forum 2013
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The Future Of Exhibition
Is Data-Driven
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Search is
1. Registration Deck
2. Door to the convention floor
3. Aisles of the trade show
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http://trend.naver.com/
Search engines offer tools for research
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Compare multiple search terms using Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends/
Last 12 months
Since 2004
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Search for “Korea Electronics”
on Google.com since 2004
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Search for “Korea Electronics”
on Google.com last 12 months
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Search for “Korea Fashion”
on Google.com since 2004
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Search for “Korea Fashion”
on Google.com last 12 months
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How to do market prospecting with
local insight for international interest?
Korea fashion 한국 패션
Korea electronics 한국 전자
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http://translate.google.com/globalmarketfinder/
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Registration
Search
Typical path from engaging a visitor
to complete a registration
Potential
dropout
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Short online registration form tends
to gain better conversion rate
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Search is
The door to a convention floor
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93% of online experiences
begin with a search engine.
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Attribution model for purchase - USA
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Setup web analytics to track in-site
search of your event website
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Structure your web pages by
product categories for easy
tracking and analysis
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Then setup segments to analyze
lead pages traffic
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The Future Of Exhibition
Is Data-Driven
• Research online search intent for market
prospecting, convert online search traffic into
offline visitors traffic.
• Optimize your event website to improve pre-
show visitors engagement.
• Web traffic segmentation is important for
understanding buyers’ interest of the event.
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Thank You
Connect me at
Linkedin.com/in/eddiechoi
Notes de l'éditeur
This is an opening slide. I will play the video before my introduction
My name is Eddie Choi. I am a search engine marketer. I work for an exhibition service company. Instead of saying the future of exhibition is data-driven, we should narrow down the topic to the future of exhibition is “search-driven.” The buyers of your exhibition will normally search on Internet before they actually visit your event. As mentioned in the video, today’s search engine is the registration deck, door to the convention floor, and the aisles of a trade show.
Nowadays search engines offers many useful tool to understand online sales intent and product interest. Look at Naver, the preferred search engine in South Korea, it offers a useful tool for comparing trend of different search terms.
Google has the same tool called Google trends. If you are an organizer who organizes exhibition in Korea that target overseas exhibitors, you can use Google trends to analyze the market interests of the overseas exhibitors. You can also use Google trends to identify overseas buyers interest. In this example, I compare five search terms: (1) Korea exhibition (2) export to Korea (3) Korea electronics (4) import from Korea (5) Korea fashion. I collect and compare the market insights for THE last 12 months versus 2004 to the present.
For example, let’s use the term “Korea electronics” as an example, you can research for the regional interest and the growing interest of each relevant terms that people are searching on the Internet.
You can use the same information and to narrow down to the latest 12 months to identify the latest interest.
This is to the same analysis for the researching the term “Korea Fashion”
Like the previous example, we can do the same research for the latest 12 month for researching the term “Korea Fashion”
Now, let’s try to research for the terms in local language “한국 패션” and “한국 전자”
You might not know Google has a very useful tool for market prospecting. The tool is called Google Global Market Finder. If you type in the local terms such as “한국 패션” and “한국 전자”, Google will tell you how many people who have searched those terms locally in their market such as Japan, China, and France, etc. You can use this tool to identify more product interest.
Now let’s try to find the interest for Korea Electronics Show
Let’s adjust the term to “Korea Electronics.” As you can see in the slide, you will get a different insight.
Now let’s try the term “Samsung.” You will see that in my example when you try to adjust and narrow down your search with specific terms, you will get different and even more insight. Then you can pinpoint the interest more accurately.
Now let’s try another example. We search search for “KES Korea” on Google.com. Let’s assume I am a buyer in the US and I am planning for visiting an electronics show in Korea. I search on Google before I plan my trip.
Let’s count how many steps that we need to go through for completing an online registration for KES
This is a typical experience from finding the target visitors on Internet and to successfully get them for completing an online registration. The longer the path of the experience, the likely they will leave in the middle of the experience. So please make your online registration simple, visible, and easy for the website browsing and navigation.
For example, Messe Frankfurt, a German exhibition organizer, practiced a short form registration for its textile show “Interstoff” to improve the registration rate. So, according to the opening video, if search engine is the registration deck of a trade show, please simplify and make easy for the steps and process of the registration deck if you want to attract more people to register your show.
Let’s see what does it mean.
Along the path of making a decision, there are mix of touch points and steps. They all contribute the final result. Some are the last click and some are the first click.
The one who passes the ball is the first click to the shooter who is the last click and contribute the final result.
Let’s compare the experience among the US, Germany, and Japan. Focus on the arrow point, it is where the people start using search engine to search.
This is a typical web analytics screen. It is Google Analytics. This screen demonstrates a typical website traffic that is contributed by different sources of media. You will see in the pie chart, search engine should normally be one of the main sources.
Now let’s try to search “Plastics and rubber exhibition” on Google.com. In this result, K-fair is listed one number, and then CEPLAST and then followed by Chinaplas. If you are listed in number one, you will have 48% chance to receive a user click, number 2 with 12% and number 3 with 8%. The bottom will receive less user clicks.
Now let’s adjust the term and to narrow it down for Asia. We search “plastics and rubber exhibition in Asia.”
Now let’s be even more specific and narrow it down the terms to “Plastics and rubber exhibition in Korea.” We finally see Koplas in the number 3 position. Koplas website lost more opportunity to the website Eventseye, which is listed in number one.
Now if we search the exact exhibition name “Korea international plastics & rubber show”, Koplas is listed in number one. That means if people know how to search with the exact search term, the Koplas will receive more clicks.
However, a potential buyer of the show might search in different way. The buyers normally search for a specific product instead of a specific event. Searching for a product is more relevant to the buyers’ business need
What does is mean?
Today a lot of trade buyers use online for product sourcing. Alibaba is one of the most famous online sourcing websites.
Almost all the online sourcing websites today have search function. The user experience starts with a search. When you start typing something in the search box, the website will give you some search suggestions. Have you thought about how these search suggestions are composed and provided to the searchers?
All the information in the online sourcing websites are listed by product categories.
Another online sourcing portal in Asia called “Globalsources.com” Global Sources also organize trade show around the world.
Same search-driven experience is provided in Globalsources.com
Some trade show websites, such as Koplas, also provide search function in the event website.
When you search a term, you get the result.
Google provides a service called Google site search or Custom Search. It will improve your site search relevancy that assist the visitors of your website to find information more effectively.
When you provide search function in your website, it is very important to also setup web analytics to track the in-site search. These are the terms that tell you the product interest of your event buyers and what are they are looking for at the show.
You should also design your web pages according to the product categories.
And then to setup the web analytics which will properly track the product pages (or we should call these the lead pages) traffic performance.
To conclude my presentation, the future of exhibition is data-driven. You should learn how to effectively use the search engine data and also your web analytics data to assist your show development and to enhance the pre-show visitor experience.