Interview with Joerg Rathenberg, Senior Director of Marketing of Unisfair

"The worldwide virtual conference market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56% between the period of 2010 and 2015 and to generate $18.6 Billion revenues over the period 2010 - 2015."

As the cost of physical trades shows continue to rise more and more companies are turning to Virtual Trade Shows to either compliment or replace their current Trade Show activities.

Interview with Joerg Rathenberg, Senior Director of Marketing of Unisfair, provider of virtual events and business environments, in which he talks about recession’s role in adoption of virtual events, Unisfair’s virtual engagement solutions, growth rate, and some of the biggest customers.

How has the recession impacted the adoption of virtual events?

Clearly, the need to cut costs has driven more people to us as they look for more cost effect ways to generate demand and nurture prospects or train customers, partners and employees. We reduce production cost as well as increase attendance by making it accessible to more people without the need for travel. Today however, marketing leaders understand that working with Unisfair is not just about bringing people together in a more cost effective manner, it is about virtual engagement - building lasting, more profitable relationships with their customers. As a result, virtual events have evolved from the early adopter status to becoming widely used. In particular, marketers are seeing virtual engagement as a successful and proven component of the digital marketing mix.

How has Unisfair's technology changed and evolved?
We have evolved along with the market, and are focusing not just on events, but on virtual engagement solutions that enable our customers to embrace virtual environments for everything from thought leadership to lead generation and community building to training and recruiting.

Earlier this year, we announced V9, a game-changing new release that helps move the industry from episodic virtual events to always-on virtual engagement. Customers, prospects, partners and employees can learn, explore and connect with vendors, peers and industry experts from the comfort of their desktop, whenever they want.

In addition, our Webcasting Studio enables our customers to produce and broadcast their own webcasts by plugging high-end professional video and audio gear directly into their computers and broadcast right from their offices - they can even use the built-in laptop cameras. This has a huge effect on bringing down the costs of virtual events, rather than using external production service.

What's more, with the new Venue Builder, customers can create their own virtual environment with just point and click, which is essentially as easy as customizing their Yahoo environment. Unisfair offers the only three-tier organizational model, where customers can use their Virtual Engagement Center to set up any number of Venues, in which they can host any number of events. Their attendees keep their identity across all of these, so that just like in Disneyworld, with one pass they can visit all the venues and events the organizer will allow. Click here to read the full interview