Making Event Promotions Less Stressful By Monica Wedlock, Marketing Specialist, Conferon Promotions Choosing a promotional item for your event can many times lead to endless research and hours of spinning your wheels. There tend to be many constraints that limit the process and success of finding the appropriate item. For instance, what is one of the biggest problems in choosing the right attendee bag for a tradeshow or conference? You guessed it—finding a bag that both men and women would use. Often times, the selection is limited to items that look too feminine, lack functionality, creativity or color selection, or are just too expensive. So what can you do? Well, have you ever considered creating a custom item? Your initial concerns probably deal with cost and production time. And yes, production time is a big factor in determining whether this is the right route to go for your event, but the money you may save far outweighs the effort it takes to plan ahead. Many planners begin work on events up to a year in advance, but may wait as close to two months prior to the event to begin thinking about promotional items and begin making final decisions. By the time the event arrives, some planners have made numerous changes to artwork, acquired additional fees, missed opportunities to take advantage of special pricing, and are stressed out about choosing the right items. In addition, they end up wondering whether the items will even arrive on time. As with all things, planning ahead can make a world of difference. That’s where Conferon Promotions comes in. Conferon now specializes in corporate giveaways, incentive programs, client gifts, employee recognition, product promotion and catalog programs, and offers over 300,000 promotional items. Conferon Promotions will do the research and present multiple ideas for your selection, while taking into consideration what factors are most important to you—like product features, color selection, style, etc—and will work according to your time frame and budget. For more information on how Conferon can help you turn the mundane into a valued attendee benefit, call Monica Wedlock at 404-841-9491 or email promotions@conferon.com. ExpoExchange Introduces New Products to Lead Retrieval/Promotion Process By Mark Kennedy, Vice President of Exhibitor Services, ExpoExchange ExpoExchange’s reputation for quality lead retrieval and management has generated further requests from show organizers to solve various related challenges, so this year ExpoExchange is introducing two new solutions to meet their needs. For those who perform their own registration services but would like to use ExpoExchange’s exhibitor services, ExpoExchange Lead Scan was created. Introduced at Ascetial World 2003 in Miami, Florida this year, Lead Scan is a 2D barcode lead retrieval system that combines barcode lead technology with ExpoExchange customer service. Show organizers simply print identifying barcodes on the attendees’ badges that can be scanned and read by Lead Scan units. At the end of the show, exhibitors can take their leads home on a disk for fast and accurate follow-up. Also new this year is ExpoExchange Lead Express—an online database application with built-in email capabilities. Lead Express is designed specifically to contact tradeshow leads and is an easy, economical process that will help exhibitors follow up with their booth leads via full-color HMTL emails. Lead Express extends the exhibit’s sales cycle by providing exhibitors with a way to maintain year-round contact. For more information on the new Lead Scan or Lead Express system, call Mark Kennedy at 301-662-9401, extension 2368. Conferon Clients Embrace New Travel Services By Bill Martin, Vice President, ITS As you may know, for more than thirty years Conferon has specialized in securing the best destinations and room rates on behalf of its clients. With the recent acquisition of ITS, a full-service provider of housing, registration and travel for associations and corporations, Conferon customers can now benefit from this addition. IBM/Lotus Software, Cambridge, Massachusetts—a Conferon client that produces the Lotusphere conference—was the first to take advantage of ITS’ expanded housing services, according to Janet Weiner, CMP, Senior Account Executive for Conferon. “We presented the opportunity to use our ITS services to IBM/ Lotus software in late August and they were on board shortly thereafter,” Weiner said. Sandra Marcus, Program Director of Corporate Events and Conferences with IBM/Lotus software said, “We have been long-time clients of Conferon. This year we decided to engage ITS for our housing services, knowing if they were affiliated with Conferon, they were right for us.” In addition to coordination of all air, hotel and related arrangements and the availability of making reservations by toll-free phone, fax, email and on-line, ITS offers an experienced reservation and support staff that offers everything from air travel consulting to fare analysis and international fare expertise. “Our company has always been based on providing outstanding customer service,” says Ed Harris, President of ITS. “We use technology as a tool to enhance our service level.” ITS recently received scores exceeding 97% total satisfaction from their clients by TOPAZ, a leading provider of airfare audits. Connie Olker, Director of Travel for ITS, says, “The impressive TOPAZ scores confirm our dedication to quality and low fares.” Currently, a number of Conferon clients are taking advantage of this new service. For more information on ITS services, please contact your CGS representative.