As the dust settles down, I look at the show accreditation, a keepsake from my debut participation at ISE 2023 at Barcelona. I cannot stop being totally awe struck with the scale of what is arguably the largest tradeshow on the planet for Audio-Visual technology.

The excitement was clearly palpable among both visitors and exhibitors with many firsts at the show – the largest ever ISE show floor, record number of visitors on the opening day, immersive, cutting-edge AV technologies, serpentine queues at the entrance and the presence of famous visitors (before you wonder, I did not get lucky with sightings of Spanish royalty on the show floor!)

For a marketer in AV, being at the show itself was in a sense - sort of a homecoming, i.e., the return to tradeshows, and how! 

The AV Marketers Meet up at AVIXA Xchange Live booth was indeed a great opportunity to meet, greet and network with fellow marketers from across geographies. We shared insights, discussed, and deliberated on the various marketing tools and techniques that we would Keep, Swap and Avoid this year.

The session was hosted and moderated by Dan Goldstein, CMO - AVIXA Inc. and Sanj Surati, Founder - Tigerheart, who kept the audience engaged with lively banter and interactions. The audience was an eclectic mix of marketers from a wide spectrum of companies in the AV space.

Sharing a few highlights of what AV marketers thought was worth keeping, swapping and avoiding in 2023:

• In-person events can never replace the human touch and interactions. There is an overload of superfluous information on all channels. Hence, being present at in-person events cannot be replaced with an all-virtual strategy.
• Thanks to the pandemic, there is a general sense that companies need to amplify their products and solutions in an engaging manner across platforms. Case studies will continue to be the most popular medium to tell the story about the design, tech, challenges, and customer impact.
• Overall companies are keen on investing in marketing as there is a paradigm shift post-COVID. Digital marketing cannot be ignored and needs to seamlessly blend in with traditional marketing. The pandemic also has provided us a chance to pause and re-consider our goals and strategies.
• Influencer marketing will continue to be popular albeit with rationalization in spends over influencers who have millions of followers and cost a fortune to engage with,
• While marketers would like to swap an ‘influencer’ with subject matter experts who have a significant sphere of influence and can connect with the target audience.
• In terms of measuring performance, vanity metrics such as ‘follow’ would likely be replaced with metrics on engagement and other value driven metrics. Marketers agreed that all their campaigns need to be able to demonstrate value.
• Hyper targeting is also essentially required for better results over mass targeted campaigns that leave a larger impact on marketing budgets.
• Data strategy is going to be essential for marketers in AV to understand customers and select the right medium, and tools reach them (marketing automation, social media strategy, use of Tik Tok etc).
• In the AV industry, partnerships tend to yield good results. Collaboration among partners with synergies can greatly aid the brand building efforts through events and other initiatives to reach the common set of audiences.
• A few marketers felt that organizations often confused marketing with marketing communications. Where it is important to clearly define the role of marketing in the organization and raise the awareness internally.
• Targeted messages and avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach would be among the key priorities for marketers in the coming year. 

In summary:

A lot has happened in the last few years since the pandemic. For marketers, these are challenging, yet exciting times. While tradeshows will continue to exist and grow, there is an overarching need to embrace digital to be able to reach wider audiences, keep conversations going throughout the year between show cycles.

Marketers do face pressures from both internal and external quarters about new trends, performance of campaigns. However, it is important to grow the understanding and credibility of marketing and its impact on the company’s business goals and longer-term growth strategy.

Some marketers opined that along with the traditional 4 Ps of marketing, it is important to define another ‘P’, which is ‘Purpose’. The DNA and reason ‘why’ of the company’s existence to be able to define the value.

Finally, marketers at the meet-up agreed that to design, deliver and measure successful marketing campaigns, listening to customers, sales, trends help in staying aligned to organizational goals.

Please join the conversation! What would you like to keep, swap and avoid in 2023?