Welcome back to America. CAP Euro in Barcelona was a ‘Big Deal’
Posted by: Greg Comments: (0) Date: October 9, 2007If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
CAP Euro, the biggest gaming affiliate conference to date, was by all measures a success. How can I measure the success of a conference? I have struggled with this equation for the past 4 years that I have been going to these things. A few years back the travel expense was minimal (for me inside the US); so if you wanted to gauge some ROI then the ‘investment’ factor was small. Return in my opinion was a monetary figure based on how much increase you were able to haggle from your affiliate managers. Simply head out to Vegas, see what percentage I could get my MGR raised to and multiply that times the amount of players I was sending. Then I would subtract the travel expense and call it profitable or a loss. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my evaluations.
An industry conference is truly all about the networking and business synergy that is gained. You have about 3-4 days to meet as many people as possible, hand out a stack of business and more importantly receive a stack as well. I can’t tell you how important it is to send a follow up email with a little, “hope you are resting up and getting back to work after the great time we had at…” It goes a long way in making the relationship personal and much less replaceable. To be noted here: I wouldn’t get too carried away partying and forget to associate the experience with the person/company you are conversing with.
CAP EURO 2007 (was a good conference)
From the basic evaluation above you could say this was a good conference based on the amount of affiliate programs there and the sheer number of affiliate managers present meet and negotiate with. If you were coming here looking to boost an existing deal then chances are there was someone who could say yes or no. However, from an evaluation #2 standpoint (networking and building synergy), this show was a killer.
If you have been to a gaming affiliate conference before then take a minute to think of who was there and what all took place. If you haven’t been before then ask someone who has been what and who they saw and how it compared to CAP Euro. Has anyone ever gone to hear a professional poker player speak at a conference about the way online poker changed the game and how he invasions the future of the sport? I haven’t personally, but after spending an hour with poker legend Doyle Brunson and getting to see him truly interact with affiliates I have set my expectations pretty high for the next event. How about the presence of world renown entrepreneurs standing behind their company’s booth talking with affiliates? Here I am speaking of real ballers, Calvin Ayre status business men. Actually I am speaking about Ayre himself; browsing through CAP Euro and conversing with affiliate and industry reps alike. This is the sort of show I have been waiting for. This is the experience I needed to stay excited and motivated to work harder on expanding my own brand and gaining a presence in this illustrious industry. The boys and girls at CAP really get what this event is about – connecting affiliates with gaming companies on a personal level and providing them an environment that fills everyone with a sense of ambition and success. CAP London is at the end of January and I personally can’t wait.
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