Margaret Core
Managing Director of Sales and Marketing for Conventions and Conferences, Biotechnology Industry Organization

Our 2010 BIO International Convention, held May 3-6 in Chicago, grew from our 2009 event. The “behind-the-scenes” tactic that paid off was prioritizing our database. We organized prospective attendee records by how active they were in our membership and attendance at any and all of our association events. This prioritization provided us with guidance on who should receive direct mail, telemarketing calls, e-mails and/or colleague-to-colleague outreach.

We increased our grassroots outreach by not only working with a local and regional community relations committee, but also licensing Event Social. The Event Social tool allows you to ask board members, exhibitors, consultants, and others to run Event Social against their Outlook, LinkedIn, and Facebook and/or upload a data file. [It] identifies nonregistrants in their contact list so they can send personal messages to encourage registering for the event.

Mary O'Connor, CMP
Conference Manager, Anthony J. Jannetti Inc.

For one meeting for one of our clients, the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, the hotel agreed to reduce the rate to be competitive with other properties and encourage attendees to stay on property. The hotel worked with us to develop incentives for attendees. They provided a free cocktail coupon, dining deals coupons, and other incentives exclusive to the property. ASPEN's attendance at its 2010 conference in Las Vegas (February 8-12) was up by 30 percent over last year in New Orleans.

Attendance at nursing conferences is up across the board. We believe this is the result of pent-up demand from nurses sitting tight last year due to the economy.

Amy Ledoux, CMP, CAE, Vice President, Meetings and Expositions, ASAE

We've been working really hard to market our events and show their value to our members. The 2010 Great Ideas Conference saw the most dramatic increase in this time frame, with 15 percent more attendees this year, compared to 2009. More folks were able to afford to travel and pay the attendance fees, but we also focused on the value of the meeting, and how it would generate future-focused benefits for the organizations that send their staff to attend the event.

Chris Brown
Executive Vice President, Conventions and Business Operations, National Association of Broadcasters

Chris Brown

We are still dusting off our registration files to tally a final number for our show, but our number will definitely be up — likely 7 percent to 9 percent. In terms of what we did on the marketing side to contribute to the increase, it is obviously difficult to pin it down to just a few elements.

We continue to rely heavily on interactive marketing, including broadcast e-mail.

Social media has been another area where we have stepped up our efforts.

Finally, we did well in reaching out to form partnerships with several companies to bring special events or programs to our show. For example, we partnered for the first time with the Telly Awards to bring their Hall of Fame Awards event to our show.