I know their hearts are in the right place, but the way the planes’ come at each other in this airline holiday greeting spiked my anxiety level a bit. But maybe that’s just me.

Coincidentally, I read these posts on the Fast Company blog about holiday cards, electronic and otherwise. Seems there are some serious love-hate things going on. I know this is a perpetual topic this time of year on the MIMlist listserv, but how do you feel about giving/receiving holiday cards to/from your business associates? Me, I kinda like them, even if I have no clue who they are. Except the ones that aren’t even signed. Those go directly into the round file.

Only Rich Westerfield could see a meeting marketing opportunity in this silly-but-addictive game on boston.com, where you score points by driving a snowplow around Boston’s famously tricky streets. It’s harder than it looks! And if you manage live meetings, you can mentally replace the snowplow with an AV cart, and the buildings with meeting rooms…oh what fun.

But I digress. Rich thinks that games like this could be used as a sort of viral marketing for meetings and events. What a great idea to use an online game, or some other form of off-the-beaten-track tool that is so cool that it would spread from attendee to attendee without you having to send a single mailer. Rich suggests that CVBs and convention centers could retool the game from “Boston” to “your city” and “snowplow” to “Segway.”

For show managers, change “Boston” to “your exhibit floor” and “snowplow” to “crazed overweight free sample and literature collector in motorized chair”…you get the idea.

But it wouldn’t even have to be a game. It could be anything you could attach to your meeting that would get some buzz going. Say, for an accounting conference, how about licensing Perspicuity’s Crosby, Stills, Ernst & Young, or this one for librarians? For neuro docs, would they not e-mail links to The Trepanator and, coincidentally, info about your meeting? The possibilities are endless.

But is anyone doing it? (P.S., can you tell I love Perspicuity’s designs?)

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From Direct magazine:

“Read almost any book on direct mail and it will tell you that every letter you send out should have a P.S. Why do the experts love the P.S.? Is what they say true? What should you say in your P.S.?

“First, the last word is second – in terms of units of a letter that are most frequently read. The headline or Johnson box is first, of course. Why is the P.S. second? Because after reading the head, recipients let their eyes fly down to the signature. And the P.S. is right under the signature. (Unfortunately, too many mailers don’t think a signature –not just a name and title – is necessary, so they can’t really benefit from the P.S.)”

OK, I guess I’ve learned my new thing for the day! This might come in handy for your next promotional mailing–but don’t use a P.S. on everything. According to the article, “Steer clear of the P.S. in very short letters to anyone. After all, the P.S. is supposed to be an afterthought, and in composing a short letter you don’t have too much to think about.”

You can use those postscripts to repeat your main point and/or to give potential attendees yet another reason why your meeting is a must-attend.

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If you’re trying to promote your meeting to a certain demographic, be sure you do it right, according to this article in Promo. For example, don’t go overboard trying to be hip in your brochure if you want to attract 20-somethings: “if you ask today’s youth what marketers are doing wrong, it’s that they are trying to hit what is currently hip and new. If it’s already on MTV, it’s already been played out,” [Ola Mobolade, director, Greenfield Consulting Group] said. “I call it the Tom Brokaw rule—once he says something on the nightly news, it’s not edgy anymore.”

And if you’re marketing to seniors, avoid glossy paper:

“The worst thing you can do is target seniors with a flier that is on a glossy piece of paper,” said Kurt Medina, president, Medina Associates, Rose Valley, PA. “Seniors have a higher sensitivity to glare.”

Medina added that the yellowing of the human lens also makes it harder for seniors to see blue, green and purple, and that less light gets to the eye as well.

“And never put copy over an illustration,” she said. “That message is not going to be seen.”

Well, I’ve learned my new thing for today.

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Joan Stewart, a speaker/trainer/consultant also known as The Publicity Hound, is full of great ideas for getting free publicity. Her tip for today is for those who find themselves in this situation:

Did you ever host a big-name speaker, attract media coverage, then end up disappointed when the media covered the speech but never mentioned the name of your organization?

Of course, she has the answer. (Hint: think strategically when it comes to your logo.)

And I love the way I heard about this item: Someone who reads both her e-newsletter (which I just signed up for) and this blog suggested she get in touch with me to share the wealth. And in true publicity hound fashion, she did. Thanks, dual reader, whoever you are!

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I just finished listening to a teleconference put on by Philippa Gamse, a Web expert and fantastic speaker on all things techie. Anyway, this one was directed toward making a Web site more emotionally connected to its users. Whether it’s a corporate meeting site or an association’s home page, I think these tips will help improve all of our Web-related relationships–and all that follows from them. I know I’ll be using this info next time we redesign our Web site.

She said there are five “emotional points” your Web site should hit in order to make a connection with the user.

This post on Business Blog Consulting is an example of why some associations are losing members and the meeting attendees they so desperately need to bolster their bottom lines.

The Public Relations Society of America is asleep at the wheel. The largest PR organization in the world has it’s International Conference coming up Oct. 23 – 26 in New York City.

Look through all 56 pages of the conference program PDF and you won’t find a single session devoted to blogging. This is a fossilzed approach for an organization that considers itself to be ” the architects of change, helping the organizations we work for listen to and respond to the world around us as it evolves and shifts.”…unless you’ve been under a rock, you’d know that blogging has certainly become a viable part of the marketing mix and one PR people can no longer afford to ignore. The industry’s trade organization has an obligation to keep up with developments in the field, not just to cover tired PR tactics.

The same could be said for many meetings industry shows, where the same speakers are trotted out to talk about the same topics in the same way as the year before (and the year before that, the the year before that…). If associations want to remain relevant to their members, they have to stay on top of new developments in their industry. Yet so few really do.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

This post on Business Blog Consulting is an example of why some associations are losing members and the meeting attendees they so desperately need to bolster their bottom lines.

The Public Relations Society of America is asleep at the wheel. The largest PR organization in the world has it’s International Conference coming up Oct. 23 – 26 in New York City.

Look through all 56 pages of the conference program PDF and you won’t find a single session devoted to blogging. This is a fossilzed approach for an organization that considers itself to be ” the architects of change, helping the organizations we work for listen to and respond to the world around us as it evolves and shifts.”…unless you’ve been under a rock, you’d know that blogging has certainly become a viable part of the marketing mix and one PR people can no longer afford to ignore. The industry’s trade organization has an obligation to keep up with developments in the field, not just to cover tired PR tactics.

The same could be said for many meetings industry shows, where the same speakers are trotted out to talk about the same topics in the same way as the year before (and the year before that, the the year before that…). If associations want to remain relevant to their members, they have to stay on top of new developments in their industry. Yet so few really do.

To comment on this post, click on “comments” below. To receive a weekly blog update, e-mail Sue.

Another interesting article about trust and customers from Direct magazine. While it’s written for the direct marketer and the retail end of things, I think the results of the Yankelovich study are important for anyone who markets anything–including meetings.

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According to Catalog Age, there’s a lot you can learn from the eBay model, regardless of what “product” you’re selling–including, I would argue, meetings, booth space, sponsorships, and hotel rooms.

For example, begin with an acknowledgement that people, including the customer (attendee, exhibitor, etc.), “are basically good,” says Debra Ellis of Barnardsville, NC-based Wilson & Ellis Consulting. “If you want customers and prospects to trust you, you need to trust them.” This sounds a lot like what I mentioned yesterday in response to Katherine Stone’s Fast Company blog about creating a community mentality by showing your clients you care about them by giving them space to connect both with your organization and with each other. Ellis says eBay excels at this with its forums, meetings, and chat rooms. “All participants are members, part of the ‘in’ group, instead of customers.”

The article continues, “Encourage feedback and–assuming you offer stellar service–post it for all to see. ‘The eBay community is training folks to look for feedback,’ says Ellis, but ‘it must be realistic to have credibility.’” I’m guessing this means going beyond the usual testimonials by creating a place where people could go online and give feedback on the various parts of your programs or facility–individual breakouts, general sessions, expos, guest rooms, meeting space, etc.–for all to see. Yeah, it’s a scary thought (there’s always those folks who hate everything), but think of the trust you’d create if you were willing to be totally transparent in your evaluation process, just like eBay or Amazon, or this blog, where you can comment for everyone to see if you think I’m totally full of it.

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An interesting question from marketing guru Katherine Stone on the recent Fast Company Now Blogjam: “Plenty of people talk about customer evangelism from the standpoint of consumers raving about companies, brands and products, but why is it that we rarely hear about customer evangelism from the standpoint of companies raving about their customers?”

We all know the benefit of having those great attendees who come to every meeting, and tell all their friends, colleagues, and just about everyone but their pet groomers about how fabulous it was. But how often do you go out of your way to tout your attendees? If you’re with an association, what do you do to help them connect with each other in their area of expertise, beyond stuff you get money for like expos and sponsorships?

In the comments section, some people said they were using discussion forums and customer profiles to highlight their best customers; and establishing a directory where clients can tell other clients about what they do. “It is my hope that this will lead to some interesting cross-polination of customers as they develop their own relationships and remember that I was the person who brought them together,” commented one guy.

What are you doing, both at your meetings and on an organizational level, to spread the love in both directions? What can we do, as industry magazines, to show you how much we appreciate your readership (and, if you’re on the supplier side, advertising with us)?

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