Companies like IBM. Cisco and others are taking their trade shows and conferences virtual. Some like IBM have used the virtual world Second Life for such events but virtual trade shows act it a step further. Also the events are more professional and created for a business environment - there are no actual avatars. However you can upload a picture converse with booth representatives and attend sessions.
Businesses of all sizes are trying out the concept. According to mid-to-large-sized companies spend about $550,000 every year on trade shows.
Online marketers are fans of virtual events because it costs less and often results in more targeted leads. The virtual version of change shows don’t usually completely replace regular trade shows but are a way to cut costs or add value. Perhaps the biggest favor of a virtual trade show is that you can track what people at your event do. Since attendees are anonymous they are free to linger and engage with the vendor as much or as little as they choose. in behalf of found that virtual events like trade shows attract an add up of 1,587 attendees which deliver an average of 348 qualified leads per vendor.
Founded in 2002. Unisfair has developed a virtual world for tradeshows. It’s a 3-D collection of booths live and recorded presentations and most importantly for marketers it tracks what attendees are interested in.
I chatted with Don at Unisfair today. The company was founded in 2000 in Israel and was funded by Sequoia Capital. Based in Menlo Park they combine online collaboration tools with social networking and virtual environments. They’ve hosted everything from job fairs to user groups and sales training.
The numbers look pretty good. Most events are free to attendees and add up over 3,000 people registering and just over half (52%) actually attend. Most populate pay 2.5 hours at the event visit 16 locations and download five resources. Most virtual tradeshows run 1.5 days but are still accessible for three months following the event. .
To me is makes ameliorate sense to bring tradeshows online maybe even within virtual worlds such as Second Life. I say this because the costs of putting on a trade show are very high in real life but in virtual worlds you may get more participations for only a fraction of the price.
My company (ON24) has had experience with customers leveraging webcasting as a way to communicate with large audiences (50 to thousands). With the be of travel lodging and time away from.
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Related article:
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/11/trade-shows-go-virtual.html
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