Show Wrap-Up: Why DMA's net.marketing Wasn't a Failure! Plus, Who Won

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MarketingtoWebMarketers From MarketingSherpa.com
======================= March 5, 2001 - Vol. II, Issue 7
Subscribe free at http://www.MarketingtoWebMarketers.com

SPECIAL REPORT: (Yes, you may forward)
Why DMA's net.marketing Show Wasn't a Failure!

1) How It Was Simultaneously Awful and Great
2) Best Tchotchke
3) Best Moderator
4) Best Party
5) More Exclusive Headlines

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INTRODUCTION: How the Conference that Failed was (Actually) a
Winner

As one exhibitor described it, you could have tossed bowling
balls down most of the aisles of last week's DMA net.marketing
show in (pre-earthquake Seattle) and not hit anyone.

For those of us who've attended net.marketing events in the past
that were heaving with eager attendees, this one felt like a
science fiction movie where 7/8 of the earth's population has
vanished, leaving a few dazed survivors wandering huge, empty
hallways.

It would be easy to jump to conclusions and say the show was a
failure. But, strangely it wasn't. In fact we came back from
the show feeling enormously cheered about the future of the
industry. Why?

Well, for one thing, as every B-to-B marketer knows, it's not the
quantity of leads that matters as much as their quality. Only a
few hundred attendees may have shown up, but by golly they were
highly qualified and interested marketers. This lead to more
than one instance of the audience knowing as much (or more) than
the expert speakers. It also meant that although exhibit hall
traffic seemed light, we repeatedly had a hard time getting a
word in during intense conversations between the handful of
attendees and biz dev reps at many booths.

Despite this, the next DMA net.marketing show scheduled for Fall
2001 will probably be cancelled. This too, we take as a very
good sign both the DMA and for the industry. Why? Because
most people we talked to told us it's not about "e" or "net"
marketing anymore. It's about integrated marketing. It's about
online and offline coming together.

Yes, you could also say that the show's "failure" was due to the
fact that the marketplace has been more than flooded with too
darn many similar events over the past 24 months; or to the fact
that folks are cutting back on business travel and high-ticket
shows to make it through the anticipated mini-recession.
(Several exhibitors did tell us that the local/regional event
scene is still hopping.)

But we'd like to focus on one critical point: nearly everyone we
talked to agreed that the net.marketing show should be rolled
into the main DMA conference instead of being a separate event.
This may mean less money for DMA because two shows are more
profitable than one. However, it also means Internet marketing
isn't a separate strategy or tactic anymore. It's not something
you test. It's something that's just as natural and integral a
part of your marketing mix as direct mail is. We're being
incorporated into the mainstream. And that's good for everyone.

Now on with MarketingtoWebMarketers' awards:

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BEST TCHOTCHKE (aka Swag)
Infant "I'm a Future Boss" t-shirts size xs 2-4
Traffic Boss won hands down with these seriously cute entries.
They also offered infant "Clicks Happen" t-shirts and high
quality umbrellas, but attendees, many of whom were that 30-
something-with-kids-at-home age, only had eyes for the "Boss."
http://www.trafficboss.com

Runner-up
In the event Traffic Boss cannot serve out their entire term as
Best Tchotchke Winners, Vertis Integrated Solutions will assume
the crown for a little sign they stuck on top of their rack of
free tote bags, which read, "$1 per bag: Donate Shoes to
Seattle's Homeless Children". Awwww. By the end of day one,
they'd already collected over $100 which is outstanding
considering how few attendees there were, and the fact that free
totes were available in several other places (including a booth
directly across the corridor.)
http://www.vertisinc.com

BEST MODERATOR
Keeping a panel on target is like herding cats. There's the
speaker who wants to spend the entire time pitching his company.
And the one who's given her canned presentation so many times
before that her PowerPoint slides are getting worn about the
edges. Plus the guy who didn't quite "get" the topic so he's
veering off in a direction all his own.

Lauren Freedman, President of the e-tailing group, rose to the
challenge admirably by distributing a detailed checklist of
required speaking points to her panelists well before the event,
that covered all the topics you'd want to ask these guys if you
met them. Things like "What online merchandising tactics haven't
worked for your company?" and "What email tactics have been
successful for you?" Her speakers, VPs of marketing from ebags,
idine.com and Norm Thompson Outfitters, followed directions to
give some of the most useful, example-filled presentations of the
conference.

In fact, Freedman did such a good job that most of the audience
remained glued to their seats a full half hour longer than
scheduled, ignoring the siren call of free end-of-day martinis in
the Exhibit hall.
http://www.e-tailing.com

BEST PARTY
AIM's event at the Space Needle didn't have a lot of competition
(in fact we knew of two parties that were cancelled) but even if
it had, they would have won. The evening started with one of
AIM's invites-only "Power & a Deal" dinner parties, sponsored by
Return Path. The salmon was ... unremarkable. But the wait
staff filled and refilled wine and coffee glasses with
astonishing speed which kept everybody jolly. Practically all 80
attendees were a vendor-side CEOs, mixed with a handful of
client-side leaders and seemingly everyone on this planet who
works for trade rag iMarketing News.

After dinner and presumably vendor CEO deal making, the doors
were flung open to the show's attendees who streamed up in packed
elevator after packed elevator. The space was just right for
about 200 people and that's about how many showed up. So
everybody felt like they'd been to a happening gig. And it
wasn't nearly as hard to get to as say (sly insider dig) a boat
in the harbor.

Our only quarrel with party organizers was that name badges were
too hard to read. Company names were printed in a shade of red
you had to really squint at to make out. This was inadvertently
good fun for us as a few of our competitors schmoozed us up for a
while before realizing whom exactly they were talking to. Then,
they mumbled a few words and fled.
AIM - http://www.interactivehq.org

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