Ask any veteran in the exhibitions and events industry where they go to get sharper, and the answer is nearly universal: Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition. Expo! Expo! is the ONE EPIC EVENT where the entire business events industry compares notes at once and tests ideas against experts who’ve actually run the numbers. This 16-18 November in Milwaukee, you won’t just hear about where event marketing is headed. You’ll learn directly from the people leading the charge, with the data and the solutions to prove it.
Why Marketing and Engagement Deserves Your Attention This Year
Attendee acquisition has quietly become one of the biggest challenges in the industry. The channels that reliably filled seats just a few years ago are not producing the same returns, audiences are more selective about where they spend their attention and “more content” isn’t the answer it used to be. The Marketing & Engagement: Converting Interest to Action learning track is built around the leaders solving this challenge with real campaigns, real data and real numbers to back up what worked. Brought to you by Louisville Tourism, this is the track for marketers who are done guessing and ready to build campaigns on evidence.
Sessions to Add to Your Schedule
Click, Stick, Act: The Psychology of Event Marketing Language
Dive into the behavioral science, psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology behind why certain words get noticed, trusted and acted on versus why so much event marketing gets ignored. You’ll learn to recognize the language patterns that build perceived value and influence decisions. If your team writes copy by instinct rather than evidence, this session will change how you think about every headline and subject line you write.
Beyond Guesswork and Generic Outreach
This session hands you a practical, four-part personal branding framework built specifically for event organizers, suppliers and sales professionals who want more visibility without faking a personality or chasing algorithms. You’ll walk away with two or three high-impact stories structured to build trust, plus a 30-day visibility action plan tailored to your goals.
Finding the Gaps in Your Attendee Marketing Plan & Five Ways to Close Them
Does your marketing plan look solid on paper only to have registration numbers tell a different story? In this fast-paced workshop, you’ll evaluate whether your current messaging, channels and segmentation actually match today’s attendee behavior, then walk through five proven strategies for closing the gap. Expect tactical, immediately usable takeaways.
Doubling Down in a Downturn: A Case Study in Disrupting Disruption
Examine how the Intermodal Association of North America chose to invest in attendee experience during an industry-wide disruption rather than retreat from it. Because its event wraps up just two months before Expo! Expo!, you’ll get a genuinely hot-off-the-press analysis of the show’s outcomes that will include engagement, acquisition and sentiment data. Witness a bold strategic bet evaluated in real time.
Turning Creators Into Conversion Engines
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) will present a case study of its International Builders’ Show® to answer the question every organizer is quietly asking about influencer marketing: Does it actually work? Learn where creators genuinely support the attendee journey, which metrics actually indicate impact and which ones mislead. This session replaces influencer-marketing hype with real-world strategy.
One Portfolio, One View: How AEM is Building Their Shared Data Foundation
How do you build a unified view of your audience across a portfolio of shows that have never shared data before? The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) did exactly that for one of the largest events in the world by coordinating teams and technology partners around a shared direction and rolling its plan out step-by-step rather than all at once. Learn how AEM built a single, unified view of trending and pacing, audience personas and onsite engagement across shows – then apply it to your own portfolio!
Start Small & Go Big: A Simple Personal Branding Framework That Connects With Your Ideal Client
Talented professionals stay invisible online not because they lack expertise, but because they’re waiting for permission to show up. This session ends that wait by offering a practical, repeatable four-part personal branding framework built for event organizers, suppliers and sales professionals. Learn to turn two or three of your own career moments into trust-building stories, then leave with a personalized 30-day visibility action plan tailored to your goals.
Make This the Track That Sets You Apart
Marketing leadership increasingly belongs to the people who can prove their strategy works. Expo! Expo!’s Marketing & Engagement learning track gives you the language, frameworks and case studies to build campaigns grounded in evidence so you can confidently upgrade forward-looking decisions for your upcoming events.
Register for Expo! Expo! 2026 today and take advantage of the BE SMART registration rate before it ends on 30 September, so you’re in the room where these strategies are shared first.
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