Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), a research agency, released a new report, “Organization Size: What Really Matters,” focusing on how an organization’s size influences attendee preferences at exhibitions.
This report helps exhibition organizers and marketers understand the shared and unique preferences of professionals by the size of their organization. It addresses motivations for attending exhibitions, resources relied upon when searching for exhibitions and factors considered when evaluating whether to attend an exhibition for the first time.
“Whether an exhibition organizer or exhibitor is striving to ramp up success of marketing to attendees working for small organizations or the largest, this report is an invaluable resource. It provides insights on how to attract and retain attendees from small-, medium- and large-sized organizations,” said Nancy Drapeau, PRC, research director, CEIR.
Key findings:
- Attendees from mid-sized and large-sized organizations are more likely to want to achieve a greater number of shopping objectives when visiting an exhibition than attendees from small-sized organizations. In addition to shared, top-ranked important shopping objectives, such as interest in seeing and interacting with new products and technology, attendees also place higher importance on the ability to compare brands, find solutions to existing problems and meet with other product users.
- Attendees from medium- and large-sized organizations assign higher importance to multiple shopping reasons when it comes to factors that influence the decision to attend an exhibition.
- Word-of-mouth resources and emails from colleagues are the primary information resources of choice, regardless of an attendee’s organization size; however, there are differences examined in the report.
“We can’t assume that all attendees go with the same needs, wants and desires. Once again, we see how contextual factors, such as organizational size, influence how attendees select and derive value from their exhibition experience,” said Dr. Jeff Tanner, marketing professor, Baylor University.
IAEE members can access the CEIR library and reports at no cost – a benefit of IAEE membership. To obtain the full report, visit http://www.ceir.org/store_products.view.php?id=2559.
