Kerry Smith is president of the Event Marketing Institute, a think tank that follows trends in event marketing through research, analysis and education. BtoB asked Smith to talk about expected developments in the events industry.

BtoB: What do you see as the biggest trends this year?

Smith: There's going to be a focus on a couple of things: First, experience mapping—recognition that when you're doing an event [you] understand who you are trying to engage. Often times, it's multiple people. How are you creating an experience around your event that will allow those people to find the appropriate channels to engage with you? You're going to talk differently to a CTO than to a CFO.

Another area is portfolio analysis. At company after company, they are looking across their entire spectrum of events, and cleaning out the closet [and asking] `Which ones are working for us, which ones are not, which ones are we not sure of?' They're going to start adjusting the dials accordingly.

And then there's this whole area of measuring everything—improving performance. There are no standards for measuring events, [and there are] different objectives for every company. As one marketer told us... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Chief Marketing Officer Council Encourages Adding Customer Affinity Index To The Mix

Customer centric metrics are taking center stage this year as b-to-b marketers pursue new ways to measure customer engagement, satisfaction and, ultimately, loyalty to a brand.

Measuring customer satisfaction is not a new idea, but as technology puts more control in the hands of users, marketers are seeking out the optimal ways to measure how successful they are with their marketing messages, products and services.

Marketers are divided on how best to achieve this. Some are using an array of metrics and other processes to come up with a view of how they're doing with customers, while others are trying to simplify the process by using a single metric, such as the Net Promoter Score.

The NPS, developed by loyalty expert Fred Reichheld, is a score of customer loyalty based on a single question: "How likely are you to recommend our company to colleagues?"

Marketing organizations are also coming up with new metrics to gauge the customer experience.

Last month [December 2007], the Chief Marketing Officer Council released a study on customer measurement... Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Register to download the free Executive Summary or purchase the full report from the CMO Council's Customer Affinity Website.

[Note: CMP was an underwriter for this CMO Council study.]

Budget forecasters are predicting that spending on large events will be down this year. But that's not an umbrella forecast for all types of events. Instead, marketers intend to increase financing for smaller, more targeted meetings such as executive breakfasts and roundtables.

According to a recent study, "B2B Marketers' 2008 Budget Trends," by Forrester Research, which surveyed 369 marketing professionals online during September and October 2007, almost 50% of those surveyed said they would increase spending on executive seminars and events. That represents the largest projected increase among all marketing and advertising budget categories, including public relations, print advertising, direct mail and sponsorships.

Assessing intangibles

"These marketers understand that business decision-makers rely on peer testimonial, face-to-face gatherings and outside authorities to help them assess intangibles like legitimacy, credibility and trustworthiness—factors difficult to convey in both online and traditional activities," according to the report.

Although 27% said they would increase spending on trade shows while 22% said they would decrease trade show spending, survey respondents did admit to spending more on large, trade-sponsored events then any other budget category.

However, according to the study, "Client conversations and other anecdotal stories show that b-to-b marketers waste money when they scurry around last minute to staff the booth and expect show-related traffic, or a favorable booth placement, to produce leads. B-to-b marketers who fail to build interactive campaigns that preview show-specific offers, invite attendees to on-site executive briefings and continue booth conversations via e-mail should look to spend their money elsewhere."

Analyst Laura Ramos, a VP at Forrester and the principal author of the report, explained that marketers are moving away from large events, but added, "they told us that one-to-one contact is still very important in the negotiated sales process that [is going on] in b-to-b marketing and selling." Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The customer is very much on the minds of leading marketing executives these days. Across numerous research initiatives undertaken by the CMO Council, marketers collectively indicate they are spending more time and resources than ever before on understanding and engaging with their customers, including increased investments in customer communities, CRM systems and processes, and customer intelligence and analytics. The CMO Council has been a champion of these efforts, advocating a more disciplined, measurable and integrated approach to marketing, anchored by greater knowledge and more meaningful interaction with customers and customer markets. Now we believe it is time for a new measure of marketing performance – called customer affinity – that looks beyond old brand metrics to support marketing in its critical role of building customer-centric businesses. Register to download the free Executive Summary or purchase the full report from the CMO Council's Customer Affinity Website.

[Note: CMP was an underwriter for this CMO Council study.]

How do companies innovate successfully?

They can spend the most money, hire the best engineers, develop the best technology, and conduct the best market research. But unless their research and development efforts are driven by a thorough understanding of what their customers want, their performance may well fall short — at least compared to that of their more customer- driven competitors. John Schiech, president of the DeWalt division of Black & Decker (the division that makes power tools used by professional contractors), put it simply. When asked what made his com - pany so successful, he responded, “It’s engineers and marketing product managers spending hours and hours on job sites talking to the guys who are trying to make their living with these tools.”

This insight represents a further amplification of our ongoing research into the costs and value of corporate innovation. In 2006, as in the two previous years of our annual study of the Booz Allen Hamilton Global Innovation 1000 — the 1,000 publicly held companies around the world that spent the most on research and development — overall corporate revenues among these companies increased 10 percent. Once again, their overall spending on research and development also rose, to US$447 billion this year. And as in years past, we found no statistically significant connection between the amount of money a company spent on innovation and its financial performance. This document presents only a summary of the available research. Download this Booz Allan Hamilton report...

The IT vertical encompasses multiple subcategories—networking, security, storage, application development and wireless, to name a few—but companies successfully marketing to the professionals in this space have found there are some strategies and tactics that have universal appeal. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

Rapid transformation marks CIOs' careers and their impact on companies, according to InformationWeek's 2007 Defining the CIO research survey of 575 senior business and technology professionals. CIOs are in overdrive and are finally earning recognition as indispensable business visionaries. Their role in shaping business strategy marks a notable shift in responsibilities that's literally redefining what a CIO is and counters the critics who question the value of IT.

For complete details on this 6th annual research survey, email Scott Vaughan.

CMP shares the results of its 8th wave of its purchase process research — A decade into the digital economy, we are shifting away from the era of "e-Business," in which the internet first became part of fabric of our society, culture and business, to what we are calling the "me-Business" in which your customers are part of your network. This shift to the customer has significant implications for those who professionally buy technology for their organizations, and how you as a marketer will need to message and sell to them.

This document presents only a summary of the available research. Please contact Amy Doherty, Research Director for complete details. Download this document…

CMP executives share highlights of the 2007 Technology Marketing Study and the 2006 Purchase Process Study. Viewers will learn about: indelible trends in technology marketing, and the dynamics that shape them, integration -- how online, print, and events work together to accomplish marketing goals, the importance of managing, not just generating, qualified leads, and the influence of new media types including video, in the marketing mix of the future. Moderated by BtoB’s Senior Reporter, Kate Maddox, this webinar gives the viewer research-based insights on how to successfully market to B2B technology customers. View the webcast archive...

Using technology to create true business innovation is tricky. Not only do you need the right strategy, the right technology, and the right people, you also need a supportive IT culture and corporate culture. How does your company evaluate technology investments and adopt new technology? Are your IT professionals encouraged to experiment with new technology? This report, CIO Agenda: Culture, marks the first in a series of CIO Agenda projects focused on management-related issues. The purpose of this study is to supply insight into the impact that corporate and IT culture has on technology investment and adoption. $ Purchase and download this document...

Today millions of B2B technology buyers gather real-time, relevant data from multiple online sources as they seek to make more informed and complex purchasing decisions. A comprehensive survey now underscores the habits, wants, and needs of these IT researchers while accenting the considerable benefits and advantages of online content syndication and publication. Download this document…