I just did the Friday Feature on Conventions.net and the idea that people could advertise on our mother site, Conventions.net, and how simple it was, and now you can as easily and as simply advertise on Convention Insider.  Randy Goldberg, Director of Marketing, wanted me to get this information to all of our readers right away as this is a limited time offer and I am told that some of the space has already been taken.

I have some great news! 

Conventions.net is now offering you the opportunity to purchase valuable text link ads!  We are the #1 buyer/seller marketplace online!  All of our main landing pages have a Google Page Rank of 5 or better!  This is your chance to move your site up on Google.com.  There is no better, more relevant text link to be purchased in the Trade Show Industry!  Search Engine Optimization is the #1 way to generate more visitors to your website, and the best way to do this is by acquiring dominant, relevant inbound links from top sites on the net!  This is a limited offer, we can only place a small number of outbound text links on our pages!  For more information, or to lock in your text links please contact me today by phone or email.

Rates:

Text Link Ads (3 month minimum, 15% annual discounts)

1. Site Wide Footer – excluding home page $350/month
2. Main Marketplace Landing Page $200/month
3. Marketplace Category Result Page $125/month
4. Package 1 – 5 Marketplace Category Result Pages $250/month
5. Package 2 – 5 Category Result Pages + Main Marketplace $300/month

Corporate Blog – ConventionInsider.com

1. Blog Roll Text Link Ad (3 month minimum) $100/month
2. 120 x 60 Sponsorship Banner $200/month

I look forward to hearing from you!

Links to your site are the new gold standard when they are relevant to your content and relevant to what it is that you offer.  If you are in the convention and trade show industry, you need to have those back links to make your organic search results soar.  Don;t take my word for it, go and ask your people in your SEO department or ask your website experts.  They will all tell you that links are an invaluable way to increase your page rank, your site searchability and your traffic.  What more could you ask for?  Well maybe you could ask for a discount.  That is why I also want to make you this offer from me.  If you mention that Convention Insider sent you for this offer, you will receive a 5% discount off your first order of advertising!  Sorry Randy, I keep spending your money!

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“Times they are a changing”… as I believe the the song goes.  This is what I first thought of as I happened along on a site that talked about the decline of trade shows.  All of this doom and gloom is not as a result of the day, being that it is Halloween and I felt like scaring all of you that read here and those involved in the trade show industry, but it is a time to look at how things are changing in the industry.  Here are some of the reasons they give for the decline of the trade show by those that use them for a marketing tool for their businesses.

• New products are first announced on the Internet
• Vendors and manufacturers do their competitive analysis on the Internet
• Potential buyers or existing customers gather information over the Internet.
• And Sales people are spoiling their time on booths, waiting for a visitor to pass along.

In addition to these that they have listed, they also indicate that the search engines of the world are making it very easy to find products and services:

It is not so much the Internet, which has killed the trade shows, but the search engines. They make it possible to find products and services 24 by 7 in a very easy and convenient way.
The whole Internet with all it’s websites, have become the biggest tradeshow, open night and day and with worldwide reach.

Conventions.net has realized that this is the case and want to make it easy for you and your company to be found on the Internet.  Visit our site today and let us know how we can make your company more findable!  Just Google the word “conventions”, and see where you show up.  How about the phrase “trade show”?  When you enter it into Google where does your company stand?  Let us help you.

Have I scared you yet?  Happy Halloween!!!

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I wrestled for a while about how to write that title, but I picked the best one I could muster given the fact that I wanted to get the info out as soon as I could. Reading through my news in the convention and trade show arena, I found out that Shelly Justice was named in the top 25 entrepreneurs in Catalyst Magazine!  A well deserved award I have no doubt. 

The reason I was most interested in Justice and her group at Convention Models and Talent (CMT) for their role in the social media world.  Justice has a company blog and you can even follow her and some of her talent on Twitter!  Many companies are adopting this type of marketing and of course Conventions.net has made blogging and other forms of social media a part of their own mission for its customers. 

Congratulations to Shelly and her award from the magazine, but I also want to personally thank them for using some of the tools available to them online. I am now following Shelly on Twitter and I hope to perhaps get a chance to chat with her about her business.  Perhaps I can give her a tip or two about this world of blogging and how they can use this blog to its best benefit.  My only advice now is to see what they have to offer!

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Freeman created a new exhibit concept for eight Teas city and convention visitors bureaus that received a top award at the recent American Society of Association Executives

annual meeting in San Diego.  The exhibit was named “Best In Show - First Place” in the Island Booth category. 

The island booth had eight pods containing the eight visitor bureaus within the state of Texas, all surrounding off of a center island that had a stage for live musical performances.  This also supplemented by a bar that served refreshments Texas style to participants.  The cities of Arlington, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Grapevine, Houston, Irving, and San Antonio, were grouped together for the exhibit. Sounds like an elaborate exhibit booth but as they say everything is BIG in Texas–well at least elaborate in Texas.  Congratulations from all of us at Convention Insider and Conventions.net to the folks at Freeman on their award.

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Trade Show Week has put out its list of the 100 most influential people in the industry. As I look through the list of names if becomes apparent I am not there. Actually, I never expected to see my name, but what I did expect is to see some of the names of the people we talk about here and I did see a few, like Colin Reed of Gaylord Entertainment, Jim Rooney at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and Paul Ashley at Smart City, but I think we need to reach out and get more interviews from this diverse list.

In the coming weeks I think I will be trying to reach out to these influencers to see if we can get them to come on here and give out some of their words of wisdom and let us know what is happening in the industry. If you are on the list and here reading, give us a shout out on the contact form. We’ll make you a featured guest!

In the meantime, we will continue to try to bring you news about our industry, will provide you with the best resource site on the Internet for meeting planners, convention planners and industry people. Don’t forget to head on over to Conventions.net and tell them I sent you! I’ll get my name on that list yet.

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I just recently came home from a convention and like other times, I pull out my suitcase and go through my receipts, my clothes and shoes and other things I need to wash and put away, and finally I go through the giveaways, or the swag I received from the event. I had a pen, a canvas bag, some sticky notes and other small items that had various company logos and branding. I always look through these things and put the pens in that drawer in my desk, use those note pads constantly, and have that cool toy that my kids fight over. Where do these things come from anyway?

I had a chance to sit down and talk with a company that does just that–promotional products for your convention or trade show. A one stop shop called MARCO Promotional Products.

Ken Arch, President of MARCO Promotional Products is a second generation leader in the company started by his father in 1964. Ken is pictured on the right with company CEO Dick Nelson. Nelson also comes from a company that was started by his own father. The company now has 50+ employees and has two locations to serve their customers.

I spoke with Ken Arch about some of the things that his company is doing and how they are providing products and services to convention and trade show planners. It was a simple idea for Ken as he indicated, “We have been in business a long time and we provide the best products, the best prices, and the best service.” After speaking to Ken for a while it was clear that their company could back up that charge. They truly want to make it easy for companies or the individual to come away with the best of the best in a promotional product. They offer free samples to try before you buy, free art preparation which in most other cases is a charge you will incur, and they can offer 24 hour service. Not only that , they provide real people to speak to when you need to hear a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.

As I wandered around their website I noticed that they too are catering to the ever popular “Green Movement” and providing promotional products that are eco-friendly. In fact, they also provide a glossary of terms to help guide people in the right direction.

MARCO Promotional Products has a wide array of clients and customers from the very large non-profit organizations, to the large corporate customer, to the very small individual with a small order. They also offer very competitive prices and back that with what Ken told me was “double the difference lowest guarantee”, which he explained as ” if you find a lower price we will double the refund to you.” They also have a program for those that have orders not needed to be filled for 60-90 days called their Asia Direct program. This allows MARCO to deal direct with the manufacturer for you in getting you the best price, often times Ken indicated as a “25%-30% savings.”

Right now for Convention Insider readers and those that visit the site at Conventions.net, MARCO Promotional Products is offering a great savings, a $100 savings on a purchase of $300 or more. These details can be found on their site as well. If you are a convention planner, meeting or event planner, you can take advantage of this offer and start saving money on your next event. MARCO will guarantee your savings.

The next time you find yourself pouring through the swag after your next trade show or convention, think about where those materials came from and think about the process it took to get you that item, chances are it came from a company like MARCO Promotional Products! Thank you Mr. Arch for taking time to speak with me and keep up the good work.

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I have been spending a lot of time lately speaking to and interviewing some of the leaders in our industry of conventions and trade shows and I will be doing a series of posts to reveal the results of those interviews and discussions.  One of the things that seems to occur to me after speaking to these industry leaders is that there seems to be a shift in what is the norm in trade shows and conventions and how they are being handled.  I have heard tell of new technologies being used, new players in the old world of how things were done and show managers that are seeking new ways to plan events and shows.  One thing is certain, there will be some benefit to the show exhibitors and attendees based on the changes I have seen in little areas.  Stay tuned for more information as I get all my notes together and get my posts completed.

If you would like to be featured as a thought leader in the industry or if you are doing things in the convention or trade show industry that you feel is revolutionizing the way we do business, please feel free to drop us a line or use the contact section to let us know about you.  I’ll be contacting many others to find ways to reveal what is happening in the world we live in.

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I was thinking of the amount of cleaning a stay at home dad like myself does in a week and it made me begin to think of hiring some help to get the work done.  I think I would probably have to have the big boss at Conventions.net to give me a little raise for that to be a reality.  It was time to search out a maid convention or trade show. 

The Association of Residential Cleaning Services International held its most recent annual trade show October 22-26, 2007 in Orlando, Florida at the Orange County Convention Center.  The convention was held in conjunction with the ISSA or also known as The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association. 

This year the event is to be held September 8-11, 2008.  The event will be held at the ever popular Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.  As with most things in Las Vegas, you can’t hold an event without having an exciting show and this event is no different.   The most interesting feature of the show that makes me actually want to go and see the convention this year is one of its keynote speakers.  None other than a childhood favorite of mine, Bill Cosby.  Or I guess I should refer to him as Dr. Bill Cosby as they do in the program details.   Dr. Cosby is scheduled to appear on September 10, 2008, at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel (adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center) in the Barron Room.  This is something I have not yet seen other trade associations do much of and that is to get some decent talent to address the attendees.  The good doctor will be addressing convention attendees according to the program:

Listen as Dr. Cosby humorously explains that “You better love what you do, otherwise it sure won’t love you!” He’ll help you ponder what the world would be like without your job and why more people should focus on the personal side of business, especially in the cleaning industry.

I would pay the price of attendance just to get a chance to see this legend in person.  I commend the event planners and would love to see more of this type of thing done at other events!

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It’s only 6:30 a.m. where I am and I am already having a case of “The Mondays”.  How is that possible?  Actually I have already been working for 3 hours.  Not because I woke at 3:00 a.m to get an early start, but because of the time I spent with my family this weekend I had a lot of email to look at and before I knew it I had stayed up a little past my bed time and have already had a few hours of work on this Monday morning.  I decided to get a few hours sleep.  I don’t have the greatest of track records when starting my day that way, but I have never had a case of the Monday’s like these folks.  Enjoy your Monday knowing that it could be worse.

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Today has been a whirlwind of April Fool’s Day jokes and I have been privy to a few on my end.  I did get some other news today I wished was a joke but alas business associates don’t always play those kind of jokes on the first of the month. Don’t worry it wasn’t real bad news, just everyday stuff.  Nonetheless I hope you all received great news be it funny or good.

I had a whole idea in mind for talking about crazy headlines I found in the trade show and convention news industry.  I wanted to talk about how I was asked to a judge at a bikini convention, or how I found a way to win money at a lottery convention, but you won’t get any of that from me here today.  No, you won’t find me talking about how you can win a large screed HD TV from the CES convention in Las Vegas, or how you can drive home a new car from the largest automotive convention in the world.  I cannot explain to you that the largest watch convention in the world is allowing me to give a reader here a brand new Rolex watch just for leaving a comment.  No, I won’t go that far.  Leave a comment though you could always take the chance.

What I will tell you all is Happy April Fool’s Day from your favorite Convention Insider and everyone at Conventions.net!

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