Show Review: Direct Marketing to Business Conference "Not Too Bad" for Exhibitors

Should the DMA hold conferences in cities that are less fun than
San Francisco? Some vendors at last week's DMB show wondered
whether the lighter-than-usual floor traffic was due to the fact
that attendees might be out shopping and generally treating their
trip to SF as a company-paid vacation. However, attendance still
beat last month's DMA net.marketing event in Seattle hands down.

Conference advisory board member Bernice Grossman, President DMRS
Group Inc., told us she spoke to several vendors manning booths
and they all said, "We got some leads, we got some traffic. It
wasn't as big as we would have liked it, but no it wasn't a total
waste of our time." Which is pretty much par for the course for
marketing trade shows this year. Less folks show up, but those
who do are utterly qualified buyers.

Again par for the course, the event's party was a prime
networking ground. We wonder if it's because there are far fewer
parties these days, so people get more enthused about them. The
DMA primed the pump by offering gifts to the first attendees to
sprint through the entryway. Grossman says, "I didn't see four
people from the same company sitting together (that tells me a
party's not working.) There was lots of mixing around, a lot of
talking, a lot of business cards going back and forth."

The buzz throughout the show was 'i-marketing.' No, not
'Internet marketing,' but 'integrated marketing.' As in how do I
integrate all of my online and offline marketing channels
together? Grossman says, "These are multichannel marketers and
you can bet they're using the Internet purely as another
channel." In other words, vendors and agencies shouldn't pitch
B2B marketers on purely Internet campaigns.

The next DMB show is in (less glamorous) Phili this September.
There's no site up yet, but you can get some info at
the link below.