Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Lori,

Once I'm commited to the show I start talking about it. Mailings might start 6months before, but I start surveying last years participants while it's fresh in their mind. Also, if it's in-country I might be more comfortable starting later.

Michael

It is in country - although we do have international members that attend. The show is advertised in a trade magazine ever since the previous show the year before. What I'm interested in (timeframe) is when is the best time to hit heavy with the postcards and large brochures.

Thanks

Lori

Who are you trying to attract? Attendees or exhibitors?

if exhibitors-- right now. Attendees, I'd work on PR releases to keep it in their mind all year round. Rest-- starting 6 months-- most shows have hotel offers to promote-- that limitability creates a sense of urgency.

I'm looking for attendee's.

Lori

Thank you

Lori

It might help to take a look at your last year's registration trends. Do attendees tend to register last-minute? Then maybe you need more aggressive early-bird pricing. A recent study from RegOnline suggested that giving people a 1 month opportunity to sign up for earlybird pricing is ideal. Longer, and they put it off. And you'd still want to hit them with heavy advertising around the time the most people registered.

Remember to avoid bad communication dates. I think there was an article on this website that shows when bad dates are. I avoid all holidays and surrounding dates, end of month (depending on your customers - if they get busy at that time), and go lighter in summer.

Also, can you time your advertising with other important news or events that are going on in your industry? If a trade mag has a big feature on a topic that relates to your tradeshow, you can advertise simultaneously and work off the mag's mindshare.

Lastly, try a split advertising schedule. Divide your advertising recipients into different groups (and if you can, a 'control' group who gets nothing, or gets the same advertising as last year). Try different advertising schedules on each group so that next year, you can have more quantitative data on what worked. Be sure to make each group similar in demographics so you're comparing apples to apples. Hope that helps!

you've given me some great new (to me) ideas.

Lori,

To a certain extent, it depends on your clientele. If a significant portion are from the nonprofit and public sector, I think it is essential to get information to them as soon as possible and load up the front end since many of them have to face a laborious process of applying for funding, getting approvals, playing shell games with funds, etc.

The idea of an early bird special is an excellent one because again, folks in the public and nonprofit sectors are often looking for any way to save money.

On the corporate side, I think multichannel is the key. Follow up with last years attendees ASAP with a personalized a letter/e-mail (this may not be practical depending on the size of the show) thanking them for coming and offering a nice discount for commiting now. The nice part about doing this (depending on how the dateso fyour events fall) is that some organizations end up with extra money att he end of a fiscal year and may choose to prepay some expenses from the next FY.

我的经验法则:伯爵一样y while the show is still fresh in their minds take a break, and then start ramping up 8 months out and really turn up the gas six months out.

I have always found that multichannel is the key: mail, e-mail and phone. The phone is labor intensive but does work.

Also, another great incentive is the 'refer a friend' get a discount option. Let other people do the contact work for you.

Good luck!

~Jason

Oh, and one other thing I've done before -- I offer a "no commitment" registration to last year's attendees. E.g., at the 2006 conference I give them a registration form for 2007. They get a special discount (better than the earlybird price), won't get billed until 2007, and they can cancel anytime before then without a fee. So it's a win-win situation.