Meetings Business Primer
Your company is interested in the corporate meetings business and the related areas of association meetings and trade shows for good reason: They could represent a significant market for your travel service or product. However, success depends upon the right mix of product, service, and marketing savvy. This article provides background on the business of meetings as well as insight into how to succeed.
Types of Meetings
Corporate meetings. This term refers to any meeting, large or small, where a company's key people gather to receive and exchange information. These meetings include everything from mundane meetings at a local hotel to motivational gatherings held in exciting locations or elaborate affairs held to introduce a new product. Basic hotel meetings require little more than a room, tables, chairs, flip charts, and other audiovisual aids. The location is determined mainly by convenience, value, and image, though the cost of flying people to the meeting is becoming an increasingly important factor.
Corporate events. Product introductions and motivational sales meetings often involve huge events with entertainment, elaborate audiovisual effects, celebrity appearances, high-tech interactive media, golf or other recreational tournaments, and opportunities for guests to enjoy the destination. Factors affecting the location selection usually include convenience, appeal, image, and value.
Association meetings. Meetings held by industry organizations can range from the basic meeting in a local hotel to major education programs requiring dozens of meeting rooms and all of the communications capabilities of a convention center.
Trade shows. Associations and major corporations in almost every industry hold trade shows. These exhibitions, held at hotels as well as convention centers, not only require extensive space for exhibitors and seminars but sufficient hotel accommodations, restaurants, and entertainment. Location is dictated primarily by appeal, since the desirability can affect attendance. However, location can also be affected by market characteristics, image, industry location, facilities capacity (some events are so big only a few convention cities can handle them), access by air or other forms of transportation, and hotel availability.
Training. Customarily held by both corporations and associations, training meetings emphasize education. Thus they require more in the way of audiovisual and high-tech interactive equipment and less in the way of a luxurious location and fancy accommodations.
Incentive travel. This category of travel, which often does not include meetings, has special characteristics that are covered in another brochure in this series called "How to Profit from the Incentive Travel Business."
Statistics
Meetings are big business, a $75.6-billion industry, according to Meeting Professionals International (MPI), which represents planners of meetings, conferences, and trade shows. Meetings & Conventions magazine reports that there were 797,100 corporate meetings, 175,600 association meetings, and 10,900 conventions in the U.S. in 1996. Most corporate meetings are attended by 10 to 50 people and are usually planned no more than three months in advance, according to an American Express survey. Meetings Market Report 1996, a biennial research report published by Meetings & Conventions magazine, indicates that 33 percent of expenditures for meetings goes for hotels; 26 percent for food; 19 percent for air transportation; 8 percent for speakers, entertainment and audiovisual equipment; 6 percent for ground transportation, and 8 percent for miscellaneous items. Surveys by Successful Meetings magazine show that the average cost per attendee for travel is $446, hotel $369, food and beverage $224, and entertainment $154.
Return on investment (the value generated by the meeting in relation to its cost) is the new rallying cry of meeting professionals. Although no hard-and-fast benchmarks yet exist, a video/workbook self-study program, titled "Maximizing Your ROI," has been developed by the MPI Foundation under the sponsorship of Marriott. Purpose: to demonstrate the value of meetings to top management and help planners learn measurement methods to quantify and qualify the success of their meetings. The program costs $99 for MPI members and $150 for nonmembers. Call 972-702-3043.
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Critical Issues
Well-orchestrated meetings can help a company become more productive and profitable and help it achieve specific business objectives. Major applications include:
- Educating the sales force;
- Training sales or marketing employees in the use of new technology;
- Brainstorming ideas for new products;
- Introducing new products;
- Building cross-functional teams that incorporate personnel from, say, sales, marketing, finance, engineering, and manufacturing;
- Firing up the sales force;
- Rewarding sales representatives or other employees for outstanding performance;
- Introducing a new executive or department head to the ranks;
- Presenting market research;
- Presenting a company's new strategic mission.
In serving the meetings market, it's essential to know the factors that meeting planners must bear in mind when doing their job. Here are the critical issues involved in running a successful meeting:
- Have clearly defined objectives for the meeting as well as a means of measuring the results. Take a careful look at the mix of employees, customers, and others at the meeting.
- Develop a budget based on the relative importance of meeting the objectives.
- Develop a meeting strategy that uses the right tools for achieving the objectives (meetings for education, for example, have far different requirements from those held primarily for motivation). In planning the meeting, involve in the design process not only management but representatives from the various groups that will be present at the meeting.
- Determine what types of outside suppliers to use, based on the organization's internal ability to manage the meeting and the size of the group.
- No matter how serious the meeting, build in some sort of fun or diversion. Consider giving small gifts, using contests related to the topic, or handing out information related to the meeting's location. Employ humor and an element of surprise when appropriate, but err on the side of caution.
- Don't skimp on quality. No medium reflects the company's image more powerfully than meetings.
- Provide useful, brief, postmeeting follow-up information to reinforce the message.
- Build a feedback mechanism into the meeting by surveying the attendees.
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Today's Buyer
Today's corporate or association buyer usually has several responsibilities in addition to buying meetings. Typically, the corporate buyer is not a full-time meeting planner but a manager in sales, marketing, meetings, administration, training, or human resources who has the responsibility for planning meetings. To add to the confusion, the market is filled with various types of middlemen with different levels of involvement. These include such organizations as meetings/incentive companies, meetings services companies, and corporate travel agencies. Some of these middlemen have only sporadic involvement with the corporate meetings market. The meetings business has service requirements that many suppliers can't, or don't want to, offer: availability of air and other means of transportation; proximity to a major convention center; availability of meeting rooms and banquet facilities; interesting off-site activities or recreational facilities, and proximity to a major commercial center.
What It Takes to Succeed
Not just any company can make it in the meetings business. Success starts with having a product or service that companies and associations want. Despite the market's potential, success is not as easy as it looks. Fortunately, the number of decision makers and influencers involved with large corporate and association meetings is less than 20,000, a number that can be sold and marketed to relatively inexpensively using the right approach (see Sales and Marketing). Here are the issues that your company has to address before expanding its effort in the corporate market:
Product positioning. Where does your organization fit into the meetings process: accommodations, attractions, meeting facilities, recreation? All of the above? Is there a sufficient meetings market in your area to justify an investment? What types of meetings has your company been involved with? What is the geographical source of your destination's corporate business: regional, national, international? Is it a trade-show center? Which types of meetings is it best suited for in terms of appeal and facilities?
Adaptability to the marketplace. Can your company handle the special requirements of the corporate meetings market? Examples: having to offer multitiered pricing to middlemen and end users; using multiple distribution channels; meeting erratic and difficult-to-project volume and timing demands; having to live with big swings in group sizes. If a major corporate user is counting on having a large group at your property, he or she doesn't want to learn at the last minute about a new construction project that could negatively affect the experience. Management will also have to live with the fact that a program sold this year may not result in actual meetings until as much as a year later. Tip: Determine the average group size your company is prepared to handle. The corporate market offers some high-volume prizes but also lots of small orders flowing through numerous sources.
Expertise. Handling corporate and association business requires a thorough understanding of customer demands, which may include precise management of check-in procedures, menus, accommodations, meeting space, banquet facilities, room assignments, and audiovisual and interactive technology. Fortunately, there are plenty of training and educational resources available.
How will you go to market? Major companies with adequate resources can sell both to end users and to resellers, such as meetings services companies and corporate travel agencies. For local suppliers of meetings services, the source of business often can be hotels, convention centers, destination management companies, or event planners. Others sell primarily through resellers. However you go to market, remember that success lies in identifying the key people most likely to buy and resell your product or service and selling them on the benefits of doing business with you.
Develop the overall strategy. This step should precede the process of selecting specific tactics. The tactics you use will depend on your overall plan, market positioning, and distribution channels. The strategy should spell out such things as reasonable goals, market opportunity, unique selling proposition, current and future market positions, projections, and methods of going to market. Most of all, it must define your market positioning as specifically as possible.
Devote the necessary resources. Many companies send a lone manager out into the incentive business with little in the way of staff or marketing support. Fortunately, this market's size makes it relatively affordable to penetrate, but that doesn't stop some companies from wasting significant resources in programs that bear little fruit. Remember, too, that the ability to satisfy and retain customers lies not only in your facilities or services, but in the capability and expertise of your staff.
Develop an account-based strategy. Since relatively few companies will make up a huge percentage of your organization's revenues in this marketplace, every sales and marketing effort should be entered in a continually updated database of your best prospects. Through the use of sales automation, this information can be applied to all of your organization's sales and marketing efforts. Companies using account-based management get far more mileage from advertising, trade shows, and direct mail, because they are able to translate the marketing into measurable sales.
Don't market unless someone follows up. Most companies in the corporate marketplace spend considerable sums on advertising, direct mail, and trade shows and almost nothing on making sure the leads are followed up, tracked, and acted upon. Lead follow-up is so tedious and seemingly unproductive that most salespeople would rather not do it at all, so you will have to consider outsourcing the process or hiring part-time salespeople to do the job. Lead follow-up not only helps you find golden opportunities amid the considerable number of poor-quality leads generated by any marketing effort but enables you to determine your cost-per-customer, the best index for determining how to apply your marketing dollars.
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Sales and Marketing
Compared to most consumer markets, the meetings business is relatively inexpensive to penetrate in terms of sales and marketing dollars. And new technology, such as sales automation and the Internet, are reducing costs even more. The basic sales and marketing procedures differ little from those that prove successful in any business-to-business situation. They include the following:
Advertising. While not necessarily required, advertising offers a rapid way to get known in the meetings business, and it's relatively inexpensive. Much can be accomplished with an annual budget as low as $50,000. Advertisers that have a system for conscientiously following up leads (see below) will invariably see their advertising break even if they make the right media choices; they may even come out several dollars ahead.
Direct mail. Because most corporate customers buy on an occasional basis, any type of response-oriented advertising yields relatively little return. There are few offers that will get a company to hold a meeting when they don't want to do it. Direct mail in this business works best when targeted at a specifically defined prospect list and fortified with useful information and added-value offers. It becomes even more productive when used to build databases of qualified buyers for long-term follow-up.
Trade shows. Because most of the industry's key middlemen and buyers go to The Motivation Show at McCormick Center in Chicago (see Trade Shows), suppliers who know how to exhibit can more than pay for their investment at that show. They also get invaluable names of future prospects and get the face-to-face contact that has become increasingly difficult to get through sales calls. Critical steps for success include a pre-show marketing plan to make sure buyers know you're there; some sort of at-show visibility to direct them to your booth, and a postshow program to reach buyers looking for destinations and meetings services throughout the year. Most important of all, however, is a lead follow-up program.
Lead follow-up. Most companies fail to follow up effectively on leads generated from advertising, direct mail, and trade shows. Why? Nobody wants to do it. Most leads generated from marketing efforts are not serious prospects, and many involve tedious phone-tag and calls that go nowhere. However, the benefits of effective lead follow-up warrant finding a solution: If only two leads in ten represent viable prospects (the average return of the best marketing program), you can more than pay for your marketing investment and build a long-term, continually updated database of serious prospects.
Database management. If your company doesn't use a contact- management program, you are missing out on the lowest-cost way to identify and focus on the people most likely to buy. (The software can be as basic as ACT, Maximizer, or Gold Mine.) By having your salespeople using their contact-management programs and uploading their databases regularly into a central location, you can significantly reduce your costs by identifying the organizations most likely to buy your products and services, then communicating systematically with them.
Relationship-building. Many companies that manage to come up with a good database of serious prospects do little more than send out brochures or trade show invitations. Savvy marketers go a step further and send out informative newsletters or other forms of communication on a regular basis. By providing potential customers with useful information in a concise, benefits-laden format, you stand a better chance of being chosen when people are in a buying mode.
Long-term sales follow-up. Most suppliers leave it to salespeople to keep up with prospects; often, there's no consistent plan for long-term follow-up. Developing a means of consistently following up with prospects can pay off handsomely, since these are the people most likely to buy. This sort of follow-up often can be provided by the same organization charged with doing initial lead follow-up.
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Industry Players
Depending on your product or service, you may sell through more than one channel and will encounter numerous other suppliers. Here's an overview.
Meetings services companies range from agencies offering complete meetings services (bookings, training, communications, reporting, pillow gifts) to small shops offering specialized services. There are probably several thousand meetings services companies, but most are relatively small. Most major meetings companies also handle incentive travel and business travel and usually don't get involved with small groups unless other business is involved.
Corporate travel agencies often have group divisions that handle one or all aspects of meetings. These companies are lumped with incentive companies in most industry directories. Most corporate travel agencies that handle meetings belong to MPI, which lists them in its directory (see Directories of Suppliers).
Destination management companies are an often-overlooked but critical resource for companies with meetings too small for meetings services companies to handle. These companies, based in popular travel destinations, can arrange everything from rooms and ground transportation to elaborate events, special meals, and unusual experiences most travelers can't obtain on their own. They are not large companies, so expect to deal directly with the owner or other senior management. Membership in MPI often is a sign that a destination management company has targeted meetings as a market segment. These companies are listed in industry directories, generally under the location where they operate.
Hotels active in the business travel arena often have a meetings/incentive travel department that can assist with the special requirements of meeting planners: room comparability for winners, group check-in, volume pricing, and theme parties. The most comprehensive directories for this category are available through SupplierFinder.com (see Online Services) and in directories published by Successful Meetings and Meetings & Conventions magazines.
Cruise lines active in meetings also have special departments to handle the needs of meeting planners: cabin comparability, special events, entertainment, promotional material, and meetings with the captain. If a cruise line doesn't have a meetings or incentive department, it's probably not in the business.
Airlines often have meetings/incentive departments that can provide group pricing, promotional material, and special in-flight amenities, although the last have become hard to obtain.
Tourist boards are one of the most valuable, but often-overlooked, resources in the meetings business. Most overseas destinations have someone familiar with meetings who can provide organizations with promotional material, off-the-record recommendations of hotels and destination management companies, and other information about the destination.
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Associations
Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the world's largest association of meeting planners, has more than 13,200 members in 44 countries. Members include independent, corporate, and association planners as well as suppliers to the meetings industry. MPI has five special-interest groups, including one dedicated to sales and marketing. It publishes a monthly magazine, The Meeting Manager, which members receive free. Nonmembers may subscribe for $50. Other publications include an annual membership directory and "MPI Express," a fax newsletter that capsulizes industry news. Call 972-702-3000.
American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) is an organization of more than 23,500 association executives and suppliers. ASAE members manage trade associations, individual membership societies, and voluntary organizations. ASAE has 13 professional-interest sections, including a Meetings and Expositions Section. Most events are open to nonmembers. ASAE offers a number of publications including a Peer Resource and Networking Directory, research studies on meetings, and guides on the future of trade shows. Call 202-626-ASAE.
Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA). This 3,900-member organization includes convention coordinators, managers, and heads of nonprofit organizations, as well as hoteliers, convention and visitors bureaus, and audiovisual suppliers. Its annual meeting is held each January. All events are open to nonmembers. PCMA publishes Convene magazine and maintains the North American Meetings Databank, which holds up-to-date information on association meetings and conventions planned by U.S. and Canadian meeting planners. Subscription $4,700 PCMA members, $6,700 nonmembers. Call 205-823-7262.
Society of Corporate Meeting Professionals (SCMP) consists of meeting executives from large corporations as well as independent meeting planners and convention-services specialists from hotels, convention bureaus, and convention centers. Call 404-355-9932.
Society of Government Meeting Planners (SGMP). This 2,500-member organization includes individuals involved in planning government meetings, as well as suppliers of services to government meetings. Members receive a membership directory (not available to nonmembers) and a newsletter. Call 717-795-SGMP.
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Trade Shows and Seminars
For a list of Industry Events, go to #9510, Calendar of Industry Events .
Directories of Suppliers
Meeting planners turn to a variety of sources when considering venues and services. Here is a comprehensive list:
SupplierFinder.com is a free online service that finds sales and marketing suppliers, including meetings-related services.
Successful Meetings SourceBook, a 368-page annual directory of meeting sites worldwide, features data on more than 3,500 hotel and resort properties. $40. Call 212-592-6263. There is no charge to be listed in the SourceBook. Call 212-592-6438.
Gavel, published every April by Meetings & Conventions magazine, is a 630-page international guide to facilities and services. It is an invaluable tool for meeting planners, who can reference capsulized descriptions of more than 6,700 hotels, 500 tourist boards, and more than 500 convention centers. $35. Call 800-446-6551.
Official Meeting Facilities Guide (OMFG), published twice a year by Meetings & Conventions magazine, offers in-depth profiles of more than 1,200 hotels, convention centers, and convention and visitors bureaus. (Facilities pay to be listed in OMFG.) Its format allows meeting planners to compare rates, room dimensions, and other factors quickly. $47.50. Call 800-446-6551.
MPI's Annual Directory, published every November, lists both planners and suppliers and categorizes them by affiliation and geographical location. Free to members, $155 nonmembers. Call 972-702-3040.
Who's Who in Association Management is published by ASAE. This directory and buyer's guide lists more than 22,000 ASAE members and 10,000 associations alphabetically and by city. $160 nonmembers. Call 202-626-2748.
Meeting News annually produces regional meeting guides for the East, West, Midwest, South, and West/Southwest. Free to subscribers, $9 each to nonsubscribers. Call 800-447-0138. Basic listings are provided free on a space-available basis. Call the advertising department at 201-509-7878.
Off-Site Meetings, a supplement to Training magazine's July issue, includes a directory of meeting facilities that specialize in training. Free to subscribers, $6 nonsubscribers. Call 800-707-7749.
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Key Research
Meetings Market Report is Meetings & Conventions magazine's biennial report on the industry. Regarded as one of the most authoritative studies of the industry, it measures such factors as meeting expenditures, attendance, and the number of meetings held in a year. The complete 133-page report, last published August 1996, is available to subscribers and nonsubscribers for $249. An overview of the report is included in the August 1996 issue of the magazine. $3. Call 201-902-1943.
Meetings Outlook Survey. This report is based on extensive interviews with 100 meeting professionals and is published annually by MPI and ASAE. It identifies industry trends in such areas as technology, international meetings, avoiding or boycotting destinations, and return on investment. The five-page report is free. Call the public relations department at either MPI (972-702-3047) or ASAE (202-626-2733).
Association Meeting Trends, published every two years by ASAE, is a comprehensive study of conventions, expositions, seminars, and leadership meetings. The 1998 edition is 133 pages. $95.00 members, $115.00 nonmembers. Call 202-371-0940.
Books
All of the following books can be ordered by calling MPI at 972-702-3044.
The Essentials of Meeting Management, by Richard A. Hildreth, provides a comprehensive overview of the meetings industry and describes the responsibilities of the meeting planner. Includes checklists, graphs, and documents. $49.
Big Meetings, Big Results, by Tom McMahon, provides a blueprint for planning everything from a meeting for 20 managers to a gathering of 2,000 shareholders. The book describes how to set goals, meet deadlines, and avoid problems with suppliers. 159 pp. $21.
Professional Meeting Management, 3rd Edition, edited by Barbara Nichols. This book addresses such tasks as working with convention and visitors bureaus, confirmation letters, financial management, and on-site communications. 391 pp. $49.95 MPI members, $54.95 nonmembers.
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Publications
Most of the following publications are free to qualified subscribers (managers who plan meetings) and provide a similar editorial format: how-to articles, destination articles, guest columns, and news items.
Association Meetings 6X p/year, is devoted exclusively to the unique
concerns and issues that impact association meeting planners. Free for
qualified subscribers. AM is part of Primedia's Meetings Group of targeted publications. For more information, visit http://www.meetingsnet.com/.
Insurance Conference Planner 6X p/year is the only publication that covers the financial services industry's meetings and incentives needs, and the issues impacting insurance meetings planners. Free for qualified
subscribers. ICP is part of Primedia's Meetings Group of targeted
publications. For more information, visit http://www.meetingsnet.com/.
Successful Meetings. 12 issues, including directory. $55/year. Web site has current articles and some ability to search for facilities and past articles. Call 212-592-6263; go to http://www.successmtgs.com/.
Meeting News. 18 issues. A news-oriented tabloid. $65/year. Call 800-447-0138.
Meetings Today. A monthly supplement to Business Travel News. BTN subscription, $95/year. Call 212-714-1300.
Meetings & Conventions. 13 issues. $79.90/year. Call 800-446-6551.
Corporate Meetings & Incentives. 12X p/year, explores trends in management and motivation as they relate to companies successfully communicating with employees, dealers, distributors and customers. Free for qualified subscribers. CMI is part of Primedia's Meetings Group of targeted publications. For more information, visit http://www.meetingsnet.com/.
Corporate & Incentive Travel is a magazine with a circulation of 60,000. 12 issues. $60/year. Call 561-989-0600.
Convene, published by PCMA. 11 issues. Free to members, $50/year nonmembers. Call 205-823-7262.
Online Services
- Sales Marketing Network at info-now.com provides comprehensive how-to and reference information on all aspects of sales and marketing, including meetings.
- SupplierFinder.com is an online search service that enables Internet users to locate multiple suppliers of sales and marketing services and contact all with a single e-mail.
- MeetWeb at http://www.meetweb.com/ features a multilingual supplier data bank containing information on more than 10,000 service providers to the meetings industry worldwide.
- Virtual-PCMA provides news, education, data, and other information via photos, illustrations, and text, with digitized full-motion video capability. Meeting planners can hold online conversations with suppliers and get videos and photos of meeting places. Call 205-823-7262.
- MPINet is an online global communications system for the meetings industry. Available through CompuServe, it is an information and networking resource for meeting planners and suppliers. Also offers a job bank and message boards. For information, call 972-702-3042 or go to http://www.mpiweb.org/.
- ASAE Web Site. This home page features information about ASAE's publications, mission, members, education services, and access to ASAE-ASSIST, a database of more than 3,900 books, articles, conference papers, and surveys. Go to http://www.asaenet.org/.
In addition to the Web sites above, two meetings information malls offer limited abilities to search for facilities as well as some articles. Go to http://www.mmaweb.com/ or http://www.mim.com/. The latter, called the Meetings Industry Mall, "stands out as the most comprehensive, planner-pertinent Web site in existence," according to Meeting News magazine.
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