How are online events for MICE sales successful?

Dear Reader,

Welcome to issue 18 of #SupplierPost(s) 📯 - the biweekly newsletter with information and thoughts for MICE marketing and sales in a changed market. Yours Peter

What is an online event?

Wikipedia explains it like this: An online event is an event that does not take place in a face-to-face format but online ... it is a public or private event that is accessible via online platforms on the internet. The focus is on the communication exchange of an organiser with its target group with the help of the digitised lecture.

The online event is often on the internet as a live stream or as a pre-produced video, allowing viewers to participate in real time or watch the event video on demand ... The virtual event consists primarily of internet-based interactions between the participants. Online events aim at a maximum of communication between the participants and the organizers. This takes place in the form of comments, chats, reactions, polls, breakout rooms or the addition of lecturers.

When face-to-face meetings - including events in any form - were banned for health reasons with the start of the first Covid lockdown in 2020, MICE Sales also faced a challenge. Sales calls were suddenly no longer possible. 

But what is a sales call?

A sales call is a pre-arranged face-to-face meeting between a sales representative and a potential client with the aim of closing a sale. This is the definition that is generally valid in the MICE industry. Strictly speaking, a sales call is - as the word implies - a telephone call made by a company's sales representative to a person's office in order to sell goods, services, etc..

The sales call is one of the most important pillars in MICE sales. In fact, MICE sales is still one of the sectors that sells at the front door, or office door. Just like in the old days when the hoover salesman used to ring grandma's doorbell. The MICE sales staff of convention bureaus and hotels are therefore very often on the road to visit event planners in their offices to introduce themselves personally. That was abruptly over with the pandemic lockdown 2020. So what to do?

Due to the Lockdown 2020, new solutions had to be found in the MICE industry. Event planners had their backs against the wall. What to do when face-to-face meetings were banned and thus the basis for the work of an entire industry was withdrawn? People remembered Skype, Facetime and Co. Especially Zoom - a Skype alternative - which had been languishing on the market unnoticed for years, suddenly got unexpected awareness. Nothing new, but suddenly the "new hot shit". Event agencies mutated overnight from event agencies for live events to specialist agencies for online events. Thousands of LinkedIn profiles were rewritten overnight. Who yesterday was a classic event manager for events and incentives, or a PCO - a Professional Conference Organiser - was now a professional project manager for online events. 

An online event does not sell hotel rooms or schnitzel

"Online events have come to stay." That was the magic phrase that was repeated so long and so penetratingly until somehow (almost) everyone was convinced it was true. Even the hotels panicked and converted their ping-pong rooms into online event studios. The answer to the question of how they are going to sell rooms and schnitzel online to the participants of events if they no longer come to the hotel remains unanswered until today.  

But why did the online sales calls of MICE Sales fail so grandly? To put it simply; because MICE sales simply applied its sales call methods 1 to 1 to the online sales call and that doesn't work like that because the internet doesn't work like that. Let's take a closer look.

Whether it is a real event or an online event, or for an appointment, a meeting, etc. for both, the participants have to make time and block an appointment. It doesn't matter whether I'm attending a real event or an online event - I have to keep the day and time free for it. However, it is much easier to cancel an online appointment than a real one. Especially if you are in your home office and not in the companys office. For MICE Sales, the effort to get an appointment for an online sales call with an event planner who is probably also in the home office and not in the office is much higher and the probability that this appointment will be cancelled again is also much higher. When MICE Sales organized an online presentation with several participants, it constantly happened that always participants did not turn on their computer and did not participate. Notwithstanding this, the event planners who did participate were mostly those who already had a relationship with MICE Sales. Participation was based on pure politeness, because after all, they knew each other.

However, this is not successful for the acquisition of MICE sales. Therefore, the online sales calls were discontinued very quickly. Here and there, one or the other takes place, but basically they are as dead as most online event studios in the hotels.

This is actually a great pity, because the online presentation of MICE supplier brands, services, products and offers is the first and most important step into the sales funnel. If you do it right. 

I'll be happy to explain how to do it right...

First of all, you have to be clear about what the individual steps of a client (event planner) in the MICE Sales process are? In order for a customer (event planner) to even be considered as a MICE supplier, he must know about the supplier. The whole process stands and falls with the awareness of a MICE supplier, its brands, products, services and offers, and not with just any awareness, but with online awareness.

Event planners (especially the generations under 45) research and deal exclusively online with which suppliers come into question for them. They have already completed 75% - 90% of the "customer journey through the sales funnel" before they want to meet a MICE sales in person! They like to postpone such a personal contact until they themselves have become (partial) experts for the products and offers of the supplier in order to be prepared to talk about important details and particulars in a personal conversation.

So if a MICE sales call is to take place online, it must achieve maximum awareness among the target group. The content of such a sales call - i.e. the presentations, photos and film clips and explanations - must be accessible to everyone online and especially to search engines such as Google. 

Online events for which participants have to log-in are completely nonsensical for MICE sales

An online event for which participants have to block a date and time for their participation, for which they first have to register, then receive a log-in and a password. With which they then have to log in to participate in the event and get to know the content is per se completely nonsensical for MICE sales! What takes place in closed virtual rooms cannot be found by Google and therefore no awareness can be generated. 

It makes much more sense to go where the target group is online, to social media. LinkedIn, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram! These are the networks where the target group of event planners hang out and this networks are the better platforms for online events.

Better because they reach the target groups that are relevant for MICE sales, better because they are (have become) excellent platforms for online events where participants - without having to log in or remember passwords - can easily take part in the LIVE event on the platform of their choice or watch the recordings directly afterwards! Supplier content that spreads by itself because it is shared and gets likes, that is found by Google and other search engines and that guarantees suppliers an important online awarness.

We have designed MICEboard Stream TV to match this. With it, we present MICE suppliers with online events that take place in social media and not in closed online event software. 

MICEboard Stream TV takes place online in the MICEboard communities and these are the places where the target group (event planners from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, who regularly organise events abroad) stays and informs about international suppliers.

Essentially, we rely on the streaming principle and by choosing the social media through which we broadcast the online event, we ensure that it can be seen everywhere. On the smartphone, the computer, the smart TV or the monitor of a fitness machine in a gym as long as it is connected to the internet and can therefore also access YouTube or other social networks. 

Moving MICEboard Stream TV online events out of closed software (such as MS Teams, Zoom, etc.) and onto social media platforms also offers almost endless possibilities for content creation. 

Through the direct access and integration of MICEboard Stream TV into the MICEboard communities in the social media and the community website, the relevant target group for international MICE suppliers is reached with very little wastage. The MICEboard Community is the largest German-speaking community in Europe with and for event planners who regularly organise events of all kinds abroad. If you want to reach German-speaking event planners as a supplier, MICEboard is the best option among the MICE media.  

What MICEboard Stream TV is, we explain in this video.

MICEboard Stream TV productions are not commercial productions, but aim to be as authentic as possible and to present a destination or location as it would be perceived by an event planner during a site inspection and as it would be captured by event planners with photos and videos on their smartphones during a site inspection.

We have been constantly building, improving and establishing MICEboard Stream TV since 2020. You can find numerous productions that we have made for suppliers on the MICEboard YouTube channel. These include productions that have already generated almost more as 5,000 views on YouTube alone and many times more on social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch. 

See for yourself and watch the recordings on our YouTube channel and compare the views with those on your own video channel with MICE B2B content. 

#SupplierPost(s) 📯

This newsletter is aimed at suppliers from the MICE industry. It aims to stimulate, criticize and confront. It does not want to embarrass anyone, but to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. To have the courage to critically question the existing and to question methods of MICE marketing and sales.

It is not about right or wrong. It's about securing the future of an industry. If you are a MICE supplier, we would be very happy to hear your opinion on the topics.

The newsletter is published every 14 days and aims to stimulate thought with an article. Thank you for your time, we wish you a successful week!