Web Sites: Seamless and Successful

One way tradeshow companies could make an investment in technology to get ahead of the pack now, instead of waiting for the economy to take a turn for the better, would be to take a good, hard look at their shows’ Web sites and ask themselves, “Do they all seamlessly, successfully serve attendees and exhibitors, as well as the company itself?”

At least one company, Hanley Wood Exhibitions, already asked that question and, when officials there realized they could do better, took the steps to create a completely different online experience for exhibitors and attendees who sign up for the company’s shows.

Nicole Buraglio, Hanley Wood Exhibitions associate director of marketing, said when the company first started looking at what it wanted to do to integrate all of its Web sites and back-end systems – in what the company called a complete Web redesign and redevelopment project – the ultimate goal was to create a one-stop shop for exhibitors and attendees.

The Web sites the company had in place all worked independently, so, if people wanted to exhibit in or attend more than one of Hanley Wood’s shows, they would have to create different passwords to, for instance, book hotel rooms or select booth space for each show.

“Sometimes they would have to know (up to) eight passwords,” said Shawn Pierce, vice president of divisional operations for Hanley Wood Exhibitions. “That was just ridiculous.”

The goal was to integrate all of the housing, registration and other third-party systems so exhibitors or attendees would only need one password to book anything they needed online for any show.

Pierce said another company goal was to give exhibitors who logged onto a show’s Web site the ability take care of everything they needed to get their booth set up and to have any information from past shows they exhibited in automatically uploaded at once.

“It used to be, if you were an exhibitor for 20 years (with us) and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on (shows), then at the end of one you would just be given a blank contract,” Pierce said. In other words, he added, that wasn’t acceptable.

Buraglio said Hanley Wood’s first task was to find a company able to take all of its ideas and turn them into an online reality.

Pierce said the process began early last year with one company, but, after some initial work, Hanley Wood realized it was the wrong vendor. Consultant Stephen Nold, president of Advon Technologies, found another company, Quotient.

“We kissed a lot of frogs before we found a great company in Quotient,” Pierce added.

Quotient signed onto the project last May, and the first revamped site was launched six months later.

Buraglio added, “Quotient built the architecture of the new Web sites and then integrated them with all of the systems, such as a2z and Experient.”

The end result was ConnectionPoint, a one-stop, online resource to manage past, present and future experiences at Hanley Wood events. Buraglio said the first response they generally get back from attendees and exhibitors has been, “'Whoa, this is really cool.” She added, “I think it’s ahead of the curve for our industry.”

One trick to get things rolling, though, was teaching people what the new sites were all about and how to use them. “We’ve put together a lot of information for exhibitors and attendees so they don’t get frustrated,” Buraglio said. “We’ve also spent a lot of time on the phone.”

Online users weren’t the only groups that needed to be trained. Now that the Web sites were more manageable, the company no longer needed a webmaster to upload content onto the sites; that responsibility switched to marketing personnel.

“Now, we spend a lot more time hands-on with the Web sites,” Buraglio said. If there’s something that needs to be fixed, a marketing manager who oversees that particular show’s site is able to take care of it immediately, she added.

Claire Lester, associate show manager for Hanley Wood’s Remodeling Show and Deck Expo, gave ConnectionPoint high marks. “I definitely think that it makes our job more timely,” Lester said. “The Web site is our No. 1 tool of reaching our audience. Before, we used external resources to work on (the sites), and now we do that ourselves.”

Pierce said other tradeshow companies have taken notice of what Hanley Wood Exhibitions has been up to. “It’s a very, very good idea and a good tool,” he added.