November/December 2006
Viral marketing
Nearly 50 percent of Pulvermedia’s VON attendance comes from co-op marketing campaigns

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

Listen to an audio clip promoting the Spring 2007 VON (Voice on the Net, www.von.com), and you’ll hear the irreverence of people who are passionate about disruptive technology — Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Using podcasts as testimonials is just one way Pulvermedia Chief Marketing Officer Glenn Gaudet capitalizes on VoIP industry enthusiasm.

“I look at every exhibitor, media sponsor, speaker, analyst and attendee as a marketing partner,” Gaudet says. “The more you can engage with and support the goals of stakeholders, the more they want to take your event to another level within their sphere of influence. My goal has been to create not just a marketing organization within Pulvermedia, but with all of the stakeholders in the event, so we have a multiplier effect on message that creates something huge.”

The idea for podcasts came about as a value-add for exhibitors to promote themselves. They’re produced for free in Pulvermedia’s New York production studio, or recorded live on the show floor. About 18 percent of Fall 2006 VON exhibitors took advantage of the program.

 “If even a small percent of companies start e-mailing people and putting it on their Web site with a link, we’re amplifying our ability to reach more of the audience without spending more money,” Gaudet says. “The goal is to incorporate more activities where you can get that kind of viral effect, where others are marketing your event, if not explicitly, then as part of a larger message.”

More mundane tactics like direct mail are admittedly more successful, mainly because exhibitors can attach a dollar value to it. For example, if an exhibitor pays $6,000 for a 10-by-10 booth and provides a mailing list with 20,000 names, Pulvermedia mails a brochure and invitation on exhibitor letterhead at a cost of about 75 cents per piece. “It’s a $15,000 direct mail campaign for their investment of $6,000,” he says.

The program generates hundreds of thousands of mailings to exhibitor lists each year. The payback: Nearly 50 percent of VON attendees come from these co-op marketing campaigns. Since it’s inception as an industry get-together in 1996, VON has grown from 224 to 9,760 participants — including 1,000 conference delegates, 300 exhibiting companies and members of the press and blogosphere. 

 “We’re not looking to significantly grow the Fall VON larger than what it is, in terms of the number of exhibits and attendees. We’re trying to maintain the quality of the people who are joining us for the event and maintain it as an industry gathering point,” Gaudet says. “You can lose your soul by trying to grow too quickly. You make decisions that change the makeup of the audience. When you do that, you impact the exhibitors.”

To maintain quality, Pulvermedia uses an invite-a-friend strategy that extends invitations to conference delegates to bring their colleagues at a discount (A VON package runs up to $2,695), and to exhibitors to give their customers and prospects free exhibit-only passes (valued at $120).

It also helps that VON rides the tide of Founder Jeff Pulver’s thought leadership (pulverblog.pulver.com). He’s the chief VoIP evangelist with eight VON events worldwide, and he’s has added Internet radio (pulvermdia podcasting network) and Internet TV (pulvertv) to his media mix. Fall 2006 VON co-located with his newest venture, Video on the Net, an event exploring the impact of broadband Internet on the movie, TV and broadcast industries.

Now that video is in vogue, Gaudet allows that viral videos may be a marketing strategy for VON 2007. “Marketing can be word of mouth or an e-mail to 20 friends,” he says. “It’s all about creating buzz.”