Stephanie Selesnick meets ELX chairman Mark Brewster to discuss the importance of communities in our industry.
Business event organisers are finding it easier to get sponsorship dollars/currency as small, medium, and large companies want more intimate opportunities at face-to-face events to create and deepen relationships with senior buyers and executives. These unicorns of B2B events have large budgets, treasure their gatekeepers and the job they do, and don’t want to be bothered by sales pitches. The more senior the member, the more averse they are these days to a sales environment. They have become choosier about live events they’ll attend. Decisions are based on cost, time out of the office/home, travel, carbon consumption, and more.
This has resulted in media and B2B event organisers being challenged to attract senior level executives to events, conferences, and exhibitions. “The value proposition for both buyers and sellers within the B2B event space has changed,” says Mark Brewster, chairman and co-founder of ELX, the Event Leaders Exchange. He adds: “Senior level executives want to engage with peers to discuss – online and in person – their unique challenges, find solutions, and participate in a community.” This new value proposition helped launch ELX in late 2021. ELX is an invitation-only community for global heads of events from the world’s largest corporations.
Hosted buyers vs. community events
I sat down with Brewster ahead of their Las Vegas event in July this year to discuss Communities – something I see as a trend for B2B organisers to deepen relationships and provide a value-add to their industries’ biggest buyers. It’s invaluable to be where industry insights, solutions, and future trends are discussed.
We discussed the difference between hosted buyers vs. community events. Hosted buyers may have specific programming and networking opportunities attached to a business event, but in the end, they are transactional relationships in that the buyer’s primary role attending the event is to purchase equipment, supplies, or services. While there may be commerce and 1-to-1 meetings at a community event, it’s not a primary reason.
Brewster explains: “A community is a union of individuals with similar interests and pain points. Members want to engage with like members. They want to accelerate problem solving and risk – as well as not be isolated. The community provides the safe space to share and collaborate on solutions.”
Setting up a community is not for the faint of heart. It involves a lot of attention to detail, clear communication with members, prospects, and sponsors, as well as listening to your market. Brewster says: “The entire value proposition for the community has to be member-first or it won’t work. Members should clearly understand that by agreeing to be part of the community, they must be active, open, sometimes vulnerable, and share insights with competitors without a conflict of interest. It’s about commonalities, not competition. Call it ‘Copetition’.”
Pay-to-play and vendor funded
There are two kinds of communities: pay-to-play and vendor funded. Pay-to-play is a paid membership model. Vendor funded is just that: paid for by sponsors. ELX is vendor funded, so membership is free, but there are strict criteria and they include a rigorous application process to join.
Brewster says: “For our members, seniority is one of the largest criteria, along with company’s revenue, total head counts, size, and shape of the prospective member’s organisation. Unfortunately, many who apply do not qualify even though they want to be in the room. Those are hard decisions, but necessary.
“Above all, protecting the relevance of members for our members keeps the community engaged, growing and trusting in each other.”
For ELX they concentrated for the first 18 months post launch on member recruitment and engagement before looking for partners to support the community. Brewster says: “We work hard with our partners [sponsors] to ensure they bring content, experience, and strategic value at our face-to-face events. In turn, they can build and deepen relationships, get visibility their competitors don’t, and contribute thought leadership.
“Partners gain huge insights into what their customers need by being at the table. Naturally, partners expect commercial opportunities as part of their sponsorship, but are requested to be judicial in how they do so. Members don’t want to be ‘sold to’.”
Community organisers should embrace having an Advisory Committee and listen to their guidance. As the ‘eyes and ears’ of their industry, their views, knowledge, and pain points are current, unlike last year’s member or event surveys.
Brewster’s advice for those starting the community building process within their own industries is:
- When you are dealing with senior level people, be clear in all your communications.
- Clearly communicate your community’s value proposition. (Sensing a trend?)
- Explain the organisational structure of the community to your community.
- State whether the community is non-profit, not-for-profit, or for profit.
- Communicate community members’ participation expectations.
- Repetition in sharing important things (value proposition) cannot be stressed enough.
- Your members will communicate with each other directly, so sometimes misunderstandings or rumours may spread like wildfires. By staying deeply involved with your community, they can be quickly diffused.
- Provide a membership platform for members to easily communicate with each other. If it’s not proprietary, then use Slack, WhatsApp, or private LinkedIn groups.
Communities, when they work, can be invaluable sources of trends, information, contacts, and more within the industries exhibitions serve.
This article is taken from EW Issue 4, to get the digital magazine bi-monthly to your inbox, subscribe here: https://www.exhibitionworld.co.uk/subscribe
