The MICEboard method - freakishly successful

Dear Reader,

Welcome to issue 19 of #SupplierPost(s) 📯 - the biweekly newsletter with information and thoughts for MICE marketing and sales in a changed market. Yours Peter

We receive numerous emails from suppliers asking us about our MICEboard events. The questions are always the same: 1.) Where do the events take place? 2.) How much does an exhibitor table cost? 3) How much does it cost to share a table with another supplier? 4) What is the structure (associations, companies, agencies) of the participating buyers? and 5) Can I see the list of participants from last year to check if their events are suitable for us?

Such mails show that MICEboard is perceived as an organiser of sales events according to the usual industry pattern. This shows us also that the senders have not understood the MICEboard method. Otherwise they would have asked: how much online media coverage do I get in the German-speaking target markets and which online content measures are included in detail in the participation fee of your events? MICEboard trade events are first and foremost an occasion for content communication for and about the participating suppliers. That is the MICEboard method.

The MICEboard method and what it means for MICE suppliers 

In information-driven MICE marketing and sales, the internet plays a central role as a digital distributor. Suppliers need to be present in the digital competition not only on their own website, but on the "entire web". MICEboard offers a combination of multimedia information on its own and outsourced channels. For this purpose, MICEboard trade events are first and foremost an information offer to the target group. The participating suppliers are communicated online in multimedia form in order to influence the decision-making processes within the customer journey of the buyers in the target groups. Participation in a MICEboard trade event is a service function along the customer journey for potential buyers. A buyer covers 75% to 90% of the Customer Journey (the customer's decision-making path) before he wants to talk personally to MICE Sales about the products and offers he is considering. 

As long as the buyers are still in the decision-making process, they have no need for a face-to-face appointment, but instead deal with potential suppliers for their event planning online. This is where „the game“ is defacto decided. This means a complete upheaval of previous MICE sales and marketing methods.  

And this is exactly where the MICEboard method comes in.

What is MICEboard?

MICEboard is the largest German-speaking community for (and with!) event planners who regularly organise events outside Germany. These are mostly event planners from German-speaking countries, especially Germany (85%), Switzerland and Austria (12%) and 3% from the Benelux countries. 

The homepage of the community is MICEboard.com and this website generates between 6,000 and 9,000 visitors per month. Of these, about 45% are from agencies, about 30% from associations and about 25% from companies. The website is visited by German-speaking event planners who want to find out about event opportunities abroad or are looking for inspiration. 

In addition, MICEboard has 22 communities, pages and groups in all important social networks. These outsourced channels are linked to the community page and support multimedia communication about international suppliers. The focus of communication is not the supplier product and the sale, but the user experience for the buyer through the offers of the suppliers. MICEboard publications inspire, inform and encourage event planners for future event planning and generate strong awareness for suppliers in the German-speaking buyer target markets. The necessary prerequisite for business.

The MICEboard newsletter StillePost(s) 📯 is sent weekly to about 2,500 subscribers via email and about 1.000 subscribers open it regularly. However, almost as many users prefer to read the newsletter online.

All publications (more than 2,600 articles to date) on the community page MICEboard.com are exclusively about international suppliers and their brands, products and services, and of course in German language. The content of the publications is modified to the wishes and needs of the target groups in the German-speaking target markets: these are Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

What does MICEboard offer?

A community with German-speaking event planners who also organise events abroad - i.e. outside Germany. This makes the user MICEboard community exactly the target group that is relevant for every international supplier - unless they are not interested in doing business with companies, associations and agencies from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

Clear target group profiling

MICEboard does not communicate content from suppliers in Germany, because this keeps the community relevant ONLY for event planners who organise events abroad. A simple logic and clever target group profiling. Such a community as an addressee for information is many times more relevant than just a mailing list with e-mail addresses of potential target customers. The community is visited because the buyer is interested in information in pull mode. A mailing is push marketing and is perceived as annoying by the majority of recipients, as they usually have no concrete need for the information. This can be seen in the opening rates of a mailing. 

What are the services offered by MICEboard?

The main product and key competence is online content marketing measures for international suppliers at the German-speaking target markets. 

MICEboard generates the necessary awareness in its community and beyond for international suppliers to be seriously considered as potential business partners by event planners from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. For this purpose, MICEboard uses 3 basic methods.

MICEboard Advertorials 

Content marketing with multimedia content to support the distribution of the supplier's brand, products, services and offers - away from the supplier's own website and communication channels. 

The goal: to have suppliers with relevant content for the German-speaking buyer target groups take place in the MICEboard community, in the outsourced MICEboard online channels and media and in the "entire web". Significantly increase awareness in the most important European MICE buyer target markets and generate more traffic on supplier websites. 

MICEboard advertorials are an efficient way of online advertising for international suppliers and addressed to the German-speaking target groups.

Stream TV

MICEboard Stream TV combines a webinar with a social media broadcast. In recent years, online sales calls by suppliers have essentially failed because participants had to register. That was not the real problem, but the associated fact that the content was only accessible to people who registered. But actually, the content should be available to every interested buyer so that it brings maximum benefit. For this to be the case, it must not take place in a closed and password-protected platform, but where search engines can easily find the content - and this is most easily and most sensibly done via social media. There is no better broadcasting space for supplier content in the form of supplier presentations, reports, films, interviews and talks. More efficient than first hosting a webinar in a closed software and then additionally publishing the recording on YouTube. 

MICEboard Stream TV uses LIVE as the broadcasting room LinkedIn LIVE, Facebook LIVE, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube at the same time. In all these networks, users can interact in parallel via the chat function, e.g. to ask questions, and at the same time suppliers can use the comment function of these networks to publish supplementary content such as documents, photos, films, information as text and links. This enriches the recording, which is available to users in the networks immediately after the end of a MICEboard Stream TV live broadcast and which can be further commented on and shared. This makes Stream TV a powerful content weapon that generates very high awareness for MICE suppliers.

Trade events 

In 2012, the first MICEboard Community event took place with "MICE by melody" for one reason only: so that the participation of suppliers could be communicated through their participation in the MICEboard community. The decision to hold an event came out of the necessity that 10 years ago the majority of MICE suppliers were very unimaginative about what content was praiseworthy for the German-speaking target markets in particular, in order to communicate this online. In 2012, MICE suppliers focused on their product and selling the product. And they had a website. The opportunities offered by outsourced online channels were not recognized. Social media marketing was not understood, and even in 2012, buyers were not primarily concerned with the product, but with the experience in connection with the product. The individual hotel was and is not important, but the experience that they and their participants can experience at an event if they book exactly that hotel and no other. The Hilton Hotel in Vienna and the Hilton Hotel in Budapest are not booked because of the product "Hilton" - even if the Hilton MICE Sales in Vienna and Budapest would like it to be so - but because of the experience that the participants have at the moment they use the hotel. Thus, the value of the product (hotel) is defined by the customer himself and not by the product (hotel). 

MICEboard portrays experiences, inspires and animates event planners. MICEboard trade events combines an experience-based online communication about the participating suppliers in the run-up to the events in order to generate participants through this - and only through this. And at the same time use this online communication to reach potential customers who cannot attend the date of the event for various reasons. The buyers who ultimately decide to participate in a MICEboard event have a concrete interest in one or more of the participating suppliers. And that makes them a qualified lead at the event and for the corresponding suppliers. The only way to become a qualified lead at a MICE Sales Event is through a comprehensive advance presentation of the participating suppliers, which can be used to lure interested buyers.

If the supplier does not want this, then a MICEboard event is the wrong place to participate. MICEboard does not generate "blank leads" for the suppliers of a MICEboard trade event. Qualified leads can only be generated if the supplier "drops his trousers" in advance and achieves awareness among buyers with his product and the associated user experience. This is only possible online. Suppliers who are able and willing to deliver the corresponding multimedia content can't go wrong with participating in a MICEboard event. 

Suppliers who want to know what an exhibitor table costs at a MICEboard event expect that the organizer place the leads at their tables. But there is only one way they can do this: they have to forego communicating with their participating suppliers in advance and instead motivate event planners to participate in other ways. In 99% of all current sales events in the MICE industry, this is done by encouraging buyers to participate with a free weekend in great (usually sunny) destinations, spectacular hotels and free food and beverage. Accordingly, the organizer's advertising for such events does not show real content (the participating suppliers), but the destination where the sales event takes place. The promotional videos in the social networks are reminiscent of films that encourage people to take a short holiday trip, but they do not show any supplier who is participating in the event. This is not the MICEboard method. But of course it is also a legitimate method to extrinsically motivate both buyers and suppliers to participate in a sales event. This is the basis of most incentives, especially those of structural sales. From the perspective of MICE sales and marketing, it is questionable what true results this leads will bring in future. 

In summary: What is the MICEboard method?

MICEboard creates audiovisual multimedia storytelling for international MICE suppliers. The starting point for this is information provided by suppliers and the participation of a supplier in one of the MICEboard trade events. 

The content generated in this way is published via the MICEboard media channels, the communities and social networks, and accompanied by online and social media marketing measures. The aim is to generate maximum online awareness for the supplier, its brand, products, services and offers - as a starting point for gaining leads. Significant awareness that generates the interest of event planners and ultimately new business with qualified leads. 

Buyers are recruited with the content of the suppliers who participate in a MICEboard sales event. Buyers who register on the basis of the participating content - i.e. the exhibitors/suppliers - are qualified leads, because their registration signals their interest in the supplier's brand, products, services and offers. This makes participation very efficient for the supplier. It makes a difference whether 10 conversations or 20 conversations have to be conducted for 2 enquiries.

#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!