Data Smarts in Events: Build or Buy?
Data is here to stay, and event organizers need to learn to use it or ignore it at their peril. The pandemic only accelerated a trend that existed before. Many of the major organisers have been exploring this area for 20 years, but they certainly are not the only ones.
But event organizers never really had, nor really needed, big data before the pandemic – we held shows once a year and the average numbers of exhibitors were in the hundreds or low thousands. In the quest for attendees, we started to build data collection and refining into the marketing function to attract new attendees. Progressive organizers had also been exploring data capture during a show – a number of niche businesses exist to serve exhibitors and attendees after a show, but overall, there weren’t that many data points created or to join up.
The move online over the past 12 months and the likely hybridization of events has exponentially increased the volume of data potentially available, as well as customers’ expectation that some of this data be used to give their customers (i.e. the attendees) the best experience possible. Examples include arrival alerts, custom content campaigns, omnichannel marketing etc. But there is much more to do! With great data comes great responsibility, to paraphrase Spiderman…. There are many considerations on how to make the most of data (how to gather it, store it, refine it, mine it (in a non-creepy way), use it, etc.), but a question that pops up more and more often is “What about the people?”. Where is the event talent that will set up and deliver all of this?
So, what about the people?
As strategy teams explore the benefits of building data led organisers, event directors must wonder how all this change can be made when the challenge of organizing a major physical event is a day-job and a half. These questions stem from the fact few players in the industry have significant experience of using data (and for sure not big data) to drive business results – grow revenues, reduce costs, manage risk or accelerate innovation. Basically, it’s the same underlying issue: we don’t have the people who know how to do this, where do we find them?
To make us feel better, let’s first acknowledge the events industry is one of many facing this problem. A 2020 McKinsey survey found that 60 percent of executives expect that up to half of their organization’s workforce will need retraining or replacing within five years. And more than one-third said their organizations are not prepared to address the skills gaps they anticipate.
Business books and common sense point to one of three strategies: build, buy or partner. Build means basically train your existing staff (we’ll nuance this later). Buy means hire new people. Partner is buying the service from a 3rd party provider. Assuming a company has already decided what to keep in-house vs. what to outsource, we’ll explore the first two strategies. Although not a focus of this article, there is a broader point on the need to upskill not only the ‘data experts’ but also middle and top management so they understand what data can do for events and can set the right vision and ask the right questions.
Building data expertise in house
Traditionally big organizers have competitive intelligence or research teams, and every show has a marketing team. There are a range of roles emerging, but much of this is nascent and different organisers are building different capabilities and creating different roles.
One way to look at this is to explore those B2B media companies which took a different path over the last 10 years. Events Intelligence built a “Digital Media Leaders” panel based on employee data to understand what roles current digital leaders have. This gives interesting perspective on where our industry might be in 5 years’ time. An example of a company within our “Digital Media Leaders” panel would be Ascential – formerly the B2B event division of EMAP, but a business which has reshaped, and taken a very different path over the last few years. Studying the roles and responsibilities of over 1,500 employee roles in our panel we created a word cloud which summarises the most common words which describe data/ digitally relevant employees.
But neither the title nor the years of service can predict who can be upskilled vs. not. On the bright side, we know the brain remain plastic into adulthood, so people can learn. It is probably cheaper to upskill, assuming you have the right clay. Not everyone will get it, but most event professionals should be able to understand what data can do for them and what they should ask of external providers.
It boils down to the question: how difficult is it to upskill? Not all our current marketers, research and data/ IT guys will have the required curiosity, motivation and willingness to start fresh. People in other parts of the business may also be a good source (e.g. digitally native salespeople). The other complication is that at this present moment in time the marketer is likely the busiest person in our industry. These groups had the most exposure to data pre-pandemic, so they would be natural candidates – but they are now working flat-out to delivering digital experiences. We could see retention, burnout and churn issues. How to solve it?
Successful upskilling programs are for sure not one-off training courses. What works is gradually building awareness, understanding, confidence – not least through lots of hands-on learning-by-doing and some coaching support. This also builds motivation and retention. It may take longer, but it’s very rewarding when successful.
Hiring in new blood
One way of acquiring skills is, well, through acquisitions – a term known in the tech world as ‘acquihiring’. It could be that digital marketing business or that market research company. But assuming the majority of acquisitions also have other strategic rationales, we’ll focus on hiring individuals.
One client recently asked: “If I bring in people who don’t have an events background, will they get it?”. We answered “Yes, most of them will – eventually”. There are industries that are much farther ahead, like tech and FMCG, and it makes sense to get new blood and new ideas in… But this also raises the question of attracting talent: how can event organizers make themselves attractive to a highly skilled (and often younger) workforce that may see high-tech firms as an employer of choice? And then how to retain them?
Looking at our panel of Digital Media Leaders also helps understand which industries current employees worked in previously. Their main sources of external talent are market research companies, tech, retail, FMCG:
Market research companies (e.g. Nielsen, Kantar, Euromonitor);
Data merchants (e.g. Dunnhumby, Experian);
Broadcasters (e.g. Sky, BBC);
Traditional tech companies (e.g. Sage, Paypal, Apple, Google LinkedIn, Microsoft et al);
Retailers (e.g. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, M&S); and
FMCG companies (e.g. GSK, P&G, Estee Lauder).
When we look for new talent, there are some sectors which are ahead of us, and we should use this insight when prospecting.
The right mix of build and buy
Back to the original question: Where is the data-smart event talent going to come from? The answer is it depends… It’s probably a mix of both. Large companies may afford to overinvest and add FTEs to build mixed teams, but for many small organizers it could be an either-or.
As marketing is so busy running digital and hybrid shows, another choice is to put the data-led focus at Director level, speeding up the trend of Event Directors migrating to Product Directors and/or Brand Directors – building solutions which monetise a community, rather running a show.
Events need fresh thinking and leaping ahead by applying lessons from other industries like tech, retail and FMCG. These new stimuli are powerful because we are, at heart, media businesses focused on the quality of our content, as opposed to technology businesses focused on data and the processes that create this data. The good news is that the events industry doesn’t need ‘bleeding edge’ data smarts today, because it still needs to explore and grow into its data-led future. We have a bit of time, so let’s make sure we use it well!
About the authors
Mark Parsons
Mark Parsons runs Events Intelligence, a big data business which uses machine learning to understand the similarity between companies and find new exhibitors at scale. For the last four years he has helped the strategy and deal teams at major organisers using data-led origination tactics. For the past 9 months he has also worked with organisers to help data led mindset through structured workshops and training. He is a Chartered Accountant, holds an Executive MBA from London Business School, and a Masters in Data Science and Business Analytics from NYU Stern.
Trevor Foley