^{February 2004}
No-cost marketing

Sound too good to be true?
It’s not.
More and more CVBs are offering an array of free promotions to help shows build attendance.

By Edie Grossfield
 

Every half hour at the PAACE Automechanika Mexico show, held in July 2003 in Mexico City, auto industry buyers crowded around the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) booth for the chance to win $100 gift certificates to the city’s upscale Grand Canal Shops or Fashion Show mall. The bureau was exhibiting at the show to promote the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week (AAIW), coming to Las Vegas in November 2003.

Buyers — prospective attendees for AAIW, co-sponsored by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) and the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo (AAPEX) — registered and qualified to be entered into 34 drawings over the course of the three-day show.

The $3,400 in shopping certificates handed out during the Mexico City show was courtesy of the LVCVA, which also had a Spanish-speaking delegate answering questions and handing out collateral about Las Vegas.

The bureau’s efforts proved effective, as SEMA and AAPEX identified 68 new buyers for the show, says Bill Glasgow Sr., AAPEX Show Manager. As he and his SEMA counterpart Peter MacGillivray point out, those 68 buyers likely represent hundreds of automotive retail and service shops in Central and South America.

This face-to-face giveaway promotion is just one example of how CVBs are supplementing show marketing efforts to help build attendance. In recent years, and, in some part, as a response to slipping attendance numbers after 9/11, many CVBs have expanded their co-promotional offerings. Today, bureaus serve up tailored Web sites and customized e-mail blasts, advertising templates, and even sophisticated databases that construct local prospect lists for show managers to use.

Why bureaus are trying harder
If asked two years ago why they expanded their attendance-building services, CVB marketing directors may have pointed to 9/11 and the economy’s nosedive. Today, there’s a more optimistic response. The general consensus appears to be that the U.S. economy and the trade show industry are getting stronger, and CVBs want to help fuel the flame.

The bureaus pick up the tab for most of the promotional services they provide to show managers, although sometimes they share costs. They say the significant amounts of money and time spent are worthwhile because their efforts may help shows become more successful and, hopefully, return to their cities. Of course, more attendees in a city mean more hotel room nights and a boost to the local economy.

The promotion at the PAACE Automechanika show cost the LVCVA about $10,000, says Chris Meyer, LVCVA Director of Convention Center Sales. That included the shopping certificates, booth, transportation of the booth and for staff and clients, and room and board for everyone involved. The results were good for the AAIW producers, but was it worth the $10,000 for the LVCVA?

“It was a great investment,” Meyer says. “We got our return because No. 1, you had 68 new buyers who were coming to Las Vegas that hadn’t been here before.” Multiply 68 by $1,362, which is the average amount a trade show attendee or exhibit staffer spends during a stay in any U.S. city, according to the International Association of Convention & Visitor Bureaus (IACVB), and you get $92,616.

“That’s economic impact to Las Vegas, and that’s a 900 percent increase off my initial investment,” Meyer says.

Michael Gehrisch, President and CEO of the IACVB says he’s noticed a greater emphasis on co-promotion in recent years. “In general, a lot of these services existed before. It’s just that show managers may not have been aware of them.”

Dan Fenton, President and CEO of the San Jose CVB, agrees. “We’ve talked to show managers, and they’ve said, ‘yes, we would like the help,’ but it wasn’t intuitive to them. They sort of step back when they hear it, but then they realize it makes sense,” Fenton says.

Cost and ROI
The promotional services CVBs offer today can be costly. For example, the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau (CCTB) spends about $1 million a year on promoting shows, says CCTB President Deborah Sexton. Therefore, bureaus usually decide on a case-by-case basis how much to invest in co-promotions. Annette Gregg, San Diego Director of Convention Services, says her CVB usually looks at show size and potential for future contracts. Meyer of the LVCVA says that although there are exceptions, it usually depends on show attendance — which must be 20,000 or more.

In some cases, CVBs charge shows for services and, again, determine that on a case-by-case basis. Some CVBs, like Boston, will provide a certain amount of free promotional services to shows and, beyond that, charge a fee, says Beth Stehley, Boston Vice President of Convention Services and Sales. In other instances, the CVB may share the cost, as the CCTB sometimes does with its telemarketing service.
“If the client chooses to go beyond the normal reach of the service, we might work with them. Oftentimes, it’s a match. We’ll provide for a certain number of hours, then they’ll pay for a certain number of hours,” Sexton says.

Face-to-face co-promotions
Promoting an upcoming show and its destination, as the LVCVA did in Mexico, is a tactic many CVBs use. In November, the Greater Boston CVB attended the InterGlassmetal/Fenestration World 2003 show in Columbus, OH, to promote the 2004 show in Boston.

Press conferences are another face-to-face medium used in hopes of reaching attendees through their favorite industry publications. The LVCVA did this for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last fall. The bureau attended the IFA Show in Berlin, and the LVCVA and CES held a press conference to announce the keynote speakers for the upcoming CES show in Las Vegas. They promised food and beverage, as well as drawings for $100 shopping certificates. The event attracted 107 members of the press, Meyer says.

Web sites and e-mail
Becoming more common on CVB service menus are online show promotions, which include e-mail blasts to prospective attendees and Web sites providing information about shows and their destinations.

One example is San Jose’s “Meeting Delegate” page, which informs attendees about the city’s attractions and has links to upcoming shows. Also, attendees can fill out a concierge request form to have outings planned for them. The CCTB offers a special “microsite” to which shows can hyperlink. It includes information about the city and its attractions.

Web sites also can be used for giveaways to secure attendees. The LVCVA provided 16 sets of Las Vegas show tickets to the 2003 Ace Hardware show. Attendees who preregistered on the Ace show site got the chance to win the tickets. Meyer says the show’s preregistration numbers increased by 18 percent from the year before.

Another online approach is the customized e-mail blast or newsletter sent to prospective attendees, reminding them of the show and registration, and providing information about city attractions. The San Diego CVB created such an e-mail newsletter for the Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, which took place in December. The e-mail included links to a welcome newsletter, signed by an MLA delegate, and a customized page on the San Diego CVB’s Web site.

While many CVBs create these e-mail blasts for their clients, the Chicago bureau provides templates for show managers to adapt and send out themselves. The templates are one offering in the CCTB’s “Digital Marketing Kit,” which includes an information booklet and CD-ROM containing the electronic files for black-and-white and color ads, the same ads translated into five foreign languages, postcards,
e-mails and booth graphics.

Sian Moynihan, CCTB Vice President of Bureau Services, says the bureau developed the Digital Marketing Kit in response to client requests. Because of tight budgets in recent years, she says clients often don’t have dollars to put toward marketing their shows’ destinations, so the kit is meant to fill that gap.

The San Diego CVB has a similar “Attendance Promotional Toolkit,” available on its Web site. Show managers can download a number of items off the site, such as city photos, promotional copy, logos and banners. They also can request video footage.

Databases and telemarketing
The Chicago bureau also offers telemarketing and a lead-generating database called DataChicago II to help build attendance. The database program uses Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, location, number of employees and sales revenue to produce attendee and exhibitor prospect lists. The CCTB used DataChicago II for the last National Restaurant Association conference and identified five new exhibitors for the show, Moynihan says.

After generating a list, shows may elect to take advantage of the CCTB’s telemarketing service. In a recent job for the National Safety Council, the CCTB called 1,100 prospective attendees and later found that 11.4 percent of them actually came to the show, Moynihan says.

Direct mail and discounts
Still one of the most popular trade show promotional methods, direct mail continues to be an attendance-building tactic CVBs offer to show managers. Direct mail pieces often take the form of postcards or letters providing information about the show, promoting the destination and urging people to register.

The Boston bureau offers a discount card that it provides free to show managers to include with their direct mail promotions. This “BostonUSA” card features discounts for attractions, shopping and restaurants. Sometimes attendees will also find discounts to attractions on CVB Web sites, including coupons to print out.

Toward the end of last year, the LVCVA mailed 12,400 postcards three different times in the months prior to the International Association for Exhibition Management (IAEM) show. “Each mailing was a different postcard with the same message each time — register for IAEM, here are the dates, here’s the Web site, here’s the phone number,” Meyer says. The mailing cost the LVCVA about $20,000. However, when you consider that’s $1,362 per person in economic impact for about 2,500 attendees, Meyer is confident that attendance marketing efforts like this one are well worth the expense.

Edie Grossfield is a freelance writer living in southeastern Minnesota. She can be reached at grossfield@charter.net.