The scenario could have been anything as I was growing up . Here are few examples :

• ‘ He wasn ’ t my man ’ ( to mark ) as a goal goes in from the opposition

• ‘ I didn ’ t open the window ’ as we find the car seat soaked

• ‘ I sold the advert , it ’ s not my job to chase the check the copy ’ as the client moans about their advert .

You get the picture .

‘ Not my job ’ being an unacceptable remark or attitude is a good lesson to learn but always a bit harsh for those who already work tirelessly and pick up a lot of other slack , namely event marketers for one example .

The marketing department works hard all year to create amazing content and to engage with the marketplace , both audience and potential clients . Hopefully this turns into motivated , relevant visitors coming to learn , exchange ideas and meet a selection of suppliers .

Yet , visitor engagement is one of those areas that falls in between many stools and so remains a problem for many events .

Julian Agostini

Whose job and responsibility is visitor engagement ?

The commercial team has sold sponsors and exhibitors into attending as they are confident that visitors will arrive in droves … and they often do . Ops make it easy for the marketplace to move around and meet each other and the Event Director has created a wonderful experience that is perfectly conducive for business and so everything should work perfectly .

Exhibitors and visitors are both given various tools to set objectives and make the event completely fulfilling , but these are not foolproof .

No matter how much our industry leads horses to water , some just won ’ t or don ’ t know how to drink and it has been a frustration for as long as I ’ ve been around events , which is 40 years

“ No matter how much our industry leads horses to water , some just won ’ t or don ’ t know how to drink ”

now ( dio mio !).

Too many visitors will still come to our events and wander around for less than 40 minutes before leaving disgruntled . Exhibitors and sponsors will sit around and do nothing for two or three days and then complain that the event was terrible , yet everyone has done their job properly .

At the forthcoming and inaugural EN Marketing Awards here in London , we had included Visitor Engagement as a category for an award but it was the only one not to have an entry , which I still find confusing .

If we improve visitor engagement , then we don ’ t need to get such a heavy footfall . For a very basic example , if we encouraged each visitor to see one more stand , go to more session , you could probably knock hundreds off the visitor number needed ( maybe thousands depending on the size of your event ) and get the same result / ROI for your exhibitors and sponsors .

Shouldn ’ t the measurement of our events actually be the number of engagements we create ? We can ’ t control what happens after that of course .

So , in simple terms , better engaged visitors , make our events more effective and easier to resell . That statement won ’ t stop traffic but let ’ s all find more solutions for this fundamental problem .