Last week I moderated #expochat on Twitter and engaged with industry leaders on the topic of event marketing in 2020. When I started in event marketing with an association about two decades ago, we printed and mailed 35,000+ (yes!) multi-page brochures about “Annual Conference” to the membership. I think that approach would now be called “blanketing”. We put it out there to all to see what would stick. And I promise we weren’t crazy. If you’ve been in the industry a decade or less, I swear that was the industry norm.

Thankfully, things have changed steadily in the 20 years since this century began. Event marketing today is less about “butts in seats” or “exhibit hall aisles filled with bodies that may or may not be interested in the exhibits”. Rather than just getting people in the door and calling it a day, marketers today are reaching and then connecting with the right audience and demonstrating an event’s value to them and leaving an impression.

So, during this chat, I asked about a dozen veterans of the industry to evaluate where we stand…

What’s working well? What can we change? What technology should we use to help us connect with our audiences? And, what should we absolutely stop doing? While you can read all of the responses – and I really think you should – in the chat archive here, I’ve made an infographic of five points that I found powerful during the robust discussion (it was hard to pick just five).

Here’s the graphic:

Join us at #expochat on Wednesdays at 1pm ET by simply following the hashtag on Twitter. The topics and moderators rotate weekly.