Europe’s no-fly zone because of volcanic ash has hit the international association sector as well as corporate meetings, triggering cancellations, postponements and delegate attendances, a surveyof ICCA member companies has revealed. While more than 70 per cent of European events were badly affected, conferences as far distant as Sarawak and the US West Coast experienced delegate cuts and missing keynote speakers. But ICCA members have worked with clients to mitigate the damage: many events have been rebooked at no extra charge; cancellation and attrition clauses have been relaxed; massive efforts have been made to help and communicate with delegates. Smaller events have been replaced by video conferencing and some larger events converted into “hybrid meetings” by way of webcasting. “This is not a time for either party to insist on contractual small print,” says ICCA CEO Martin Sirk. “If there has been one heart-warming aspect from our survey, it was to hear so many stories of collaboration and flexibility.” Meanwhile, a last-minute schedule change amid the 75 free workshops and presentations at IMEX 2010 in Frankfurt this week – the event’s largest-ever – saw Martin Sirk present a session on the impact and implications of the Iceland eruption.

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After a national bidding process Sydney Olympic Park will be the home of the Australian Event Awards for the next three years.

“In the end, Sydney Olympic Park with its incredible capacity to host all events from sporting grand finals to concerts, festivals and business events is a perfect fit for the Awards. This is the start of a great partnership between the team at Sydney Olympic Park and the Australian Event Awards which will benefit all Australian Events".

“From your local community festival, weekend sporting fixture or your wedding, to a conference for work or the major event that you plan your holidays around, events really are the fabric of our society. By bringing the entire industry together we can leverage this message to government and the general public." Miller said.

This is the first in a series of new developments for the Australian Event Awards in 2010. Entries into the 26 categories are now open to all event professionals from around Australia and close on July 26.

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We’ve been sharing some results from the recent Meetings Focus 2010 Meetings Market Trend Survey, such as the changes planners made in 2009 to their meetings. Last year was tough for planners, who found themselves taking on bigger workloads and dealing with more complicated contract negotiations.

Guess planners have learned that it’s not necessarily about the obstacles themselves, but you how perceive them!

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As part of Tourism Australia’s monthly updates on conference and convention visitor arrivals, the Events Arrivals – February 2010 report is now available.

During the year ended 28 February 2010, there were 147,500 convention or conference visitor arrivals, a decrease of 18 percent year-on-year.

There were 29,000 convention or conference arrivals during the three months ended 28 February 2010, an increase of 12 per cent year-on-year.

There were 13,200 convention or conference arrivals during the month of February 2010, an increase of 15 per cent year-on-year.

The best performing convention or conference markets to Australia by country of residence for the three months ended 28 February 2010 were Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Thailand and USA with increases of 109, 93 and 65 per cent respectively.

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Direct mail marketing is an effective method of event marketing that involves advertising in circulars or printed matter directly mailed to the consumer.

Event marketing is one of the fastest growing fields in marketing and advertising making an event marketing job a lucrative prospect. Event marketing covers several fields from event marketing manager to event marketing planner and involves management levels and internships. As an event marketing team, all parties work together to create, implement and oversee marketing and promotional campaigns. One campaign if handled correctly can be extremely productive – direct mail marketing.

Marketing Campaigns Include Every Product and Service Available

From health care to children’s toys, every item or service needs the right marketing and promotion for success and profit. Direct marketing is one of the cheapest methods of exposure, making it ideal for small, medium and large businesses. Direct mail especially, when coupled with the right offer, is cost effective and easy to track when based upon the response rate a company receives. A company can track its own responses, or employ software that can collect, analyze, and track the performance of marketing mailing lists and mailings.

Response rates are based upon a varyiety of factors:

What the product or service is

Time of year; is it an evergreen or seasonal product/service

Whether the product or service has a good reputation

Whether the product has received good reviews

How good or lucrative the offer is

A good campaign will take all of the above considerations into account and plan the marketing accordingly. A well-thought out and reasoned marketing strategy can potentially tap a 50-80% response rate. So how is this response rate achieved?

Successful Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns

The first step in any direct mail marketing campaign should be to target the right audience. If a product offer is geared towards dog owners, why is money being wasted sending it to cat owners? Every person in the country receives junk mail and if it isn’t applicable, the only thing it will see is the inside of a trash can.

Targeting is a particularly important tool then to ensure promotional materials reach those people that actually have an interest in the product or service. An established company will have a database of mailing lists and companies to work from but new companies will have to start from scratch. Given the current attitude of the public towards marketers in general, the best bet would be to find a direct mail marketing company that can gather the data independently.

The design of the direct mail promotion must stand out and be visually appealing or risk getting lost and buried among those of better quality. If a designer is not budgeted for, remember that simple is best. A promotional offer will have a few seconds at best to grab a consumer’s attention, make the most of it. Highlight the positives and the benefits first and foremost and remember that consumers will always listen to other consumers first, so include good reviews.

Realistic Response Rates and Advertising Gadgets

Setting realistic goals for response rates is crucial, as is keeping the promotion focused on one aspect rather than several. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so look at an area that needs improvement and focus the campaign there. The special offer must also has to be carefully balanced. It must be lucrative enough to tempt the customer, yet not so ridiculous that it bankrupts the company.

The offer must be competitive in relation to similar offers of other companies, or even better if the other company has an established reputation. Set a deadline for the offer that matches or slightly exceeds another company’s offer.

Make contacting the company easy. Include the website address; e-mail address; telephone number; fax number and address. The best way to achieve this is with an advertising gimmick such as a company magnet. Include all contact details on it; people often throw away the literature, but a magnet almost always ends up on a refrigerator.

Understanding and learning about the consumer, is the single most important aspect of any successful direct mail campaign. The average consumer is tired of feeling pressured in his own home – do not call lists are evidence of that. Direct mail marketing campaigns are less invasive but can be just as, if not more effective, than a sales pitch. All it requires is the correct planning and research.

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Tips for Planning a Destination Wedding in an Foreign Locale

Simple wedding etiquette do’s and don’ts for planning your destination wedding

So you’ve decided to hold your nuptials at that distant locale you’ve always dreamed about. Now you’re probably wondering just where to begin. Here are some simple do’s and don’ts to help you navigate through your journey to becoming the perfect destination bride!

Do Save the Date

Ideally, “save-the-date” cards for a destination wedding should be mailed out six months before the wedding date. The advance notice will give guests the opportunity to earmark vacation time and to begin budgeting for travel and lodging.

Do Trim the Guest List

When planning a destination wedding, keep your guest list simple. Don’t assume that because your wedding is being held abroad most guests won’t show up. As you extend invitations, bear in mind that nearly 70 percent of people invited to a destination wedding actually attend. And if you’ve selected an exciting location you can count on a good number of family and friends traveling to witness your nuptials.

Don’t Feel Compelled to Pay for Guests’ Travel Expenses

Typically, invitees pay for their own travel and accommodations but proper etiquette dictates that you price airline tickets and hotel rooms. If you are having your wedding at a relatively expensive property, research and offer a list of more affordable lodging options at nearby properties. Make sure that transportation will not present an issue.

Do Book Early

Be sure to book reservations early so that you can negotiate discounted group fares and room rates. Even better, hire a travel consultant to handle all of the travel logistics, which could become intricate, especially if you have guests leaving from different parts of the country or world.

Do Pay for Food & Beverages

While guests pay for their airfare and lodging, the bride and groom are expected to pick up the tab for food and beverages. To help manage costs, consider having your wedding at an all-inclusive resort.

Do Invite All Guests to Rehearsal Dinner

Normally the bridal party, immediate family and out-of-town guests are invited to the rehearsal dinner, but with a destination wedding it is proper to invite everyone who has traveled to attend your affair. If covering dinner for all of your guests is out of your budget, simply invite the wedding party and close family to dinner. Extend an additional invitation to everyone else to join you later in the evening for drinks and dessert.

Do Delegate Shower & Wedding Gift Duties

Overall, inviting guests to your shower but not your wedding is poor etiquette. The destination wedding is one exception to this rule. As with all weddings, just be sure to assign a relative or someone from your wedding party to inform guests that your wedding will be a very intimate affair attended by a small number of guests.

As for wedding gifts, never mention them in the wedding invitation. Instead, once again, have a member of the family or your bridal party spread the word about your registry and where to send gifts.

Do Your Guests a Favor

Show guests how grateful you are for their journey to witness your marriage with a favor they will cherish. If everyone is staying at the same hotel or resort, arrange to have a small token of your appreciation waiting at the front desk for check-in. You might also consider creating a themed welcome basket and have it waiting in their rooms for their arrival. Be sure to include local maps or area guides and a list of activities.

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The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has announced the release of a whitepaper on rich media mobile advertising.

The MMA used the paper to create a definition, which it refers to as ‘Rich Media Mobile Ad Units’ – interactive and/or non-interactive ad units displayed on a mobile web page and/or in a mobile application that offers inclusion of streaming video content or animated GIF within the ad unit, sound or a richer interactive feature set than basic mobile click-through.

According to the whitepaper, the MMA estimates that advertisers spent about $1.7 billion on mobile marketing in 2009, which will grow to $2.16 billion in 2010.

Rohit Dadwal, managing director of the Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific, said that the smartphone market is estimated to be at 52 million devices, indicating a tech-savvy consumer group that wants to get the most out of their mobile experiences.

“With increasing penetration of these feature-rich smartphones, marketers have now started to increase mobile ad capabilities and provide richer content on mobile devices. The purpose of this whitepaper is to educate the industry about the rich media mobile ad units that are available for use in mobile advertising. We aim to encourage experimentation with these rich media mobile ad units, and to influence future Rich media mobile advertising guidelines,” explained Dadwal.

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Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in Article Marketing

Article marketing can promote your website and protect your website from competitors. You can strengthen your article marketing strategy by evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in your article submissions.

Article marketing provides you with an opportunity to optimise your website for search engines, promote your website visibility, and keep your website strong in the face of competitors. Applying a traditional SWOT analysis to your article marketing strategy can sharpen your strategy to capitalize on opportunities that might have otherwise gone unrecognized. SWOT is the acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat that has been used in business development, organisational development, and competitive marketing strategies for decades. This highly acclaimed strategic method for planning can be applied to your article marketing strategy.

Your article marketing strategy should analyze the strengths of your website, your knowledge and your content. Analyzing your strengths positions you to create content that capitalizes on your greatest strengths and can keep your articles central to your primary content. Your article marketing strategy should also analyze the strengths of your competitor’s website. By researching the articles on your competitor websites and blogs, the articles submitted to article submission directories, and the topics the competitor typically writes articles on, you can plan to write your content to surpass your competitor and position yourself as the more knowledgeable author.

Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the websites that you are submitting your articles to is critical to your reputation. Your article marketing strategy should specifically plan to submit articles only to quality websites. If your competitor has a relationship with a link farm, not being everywhere your competitor is will protect your website. It also important to look at your weaknesses and your competitor weaknesses. If your competitor has neglected to post pertinent information or has posted incorrect information, capitalize on that opportunity in your article marketing strategy.

Article marketing strategies should always look for opportunity. You should be where your competitor is, (unless they are linked with the wrong crowd), and where your competitor is. You should also look for opportunities to submit articles with sought-after content. Top tens, recent news, sharp or contradicting opinions, how to and reviews always offer opportunity to submit articles. Social bookmarking websites can be researched for popular topics and be made a regular part of your article marketing strategy.

Threats are an unavoidable aspect of an article marketing strategy. New competitors constantly enter the market, and ethical and unethical competition seeps through every link that is posted on the web. Avoiding links that search engines disrespect, keeping up with your competitor article marketing strategy, and optimising your website for search engines will add protection to your website viability.

Article marketing requires strategic development to optimise its success. Applying the SWOT analysis to your article marketing strategy will serve to refine your article submissions for optimal search engine positioning and website protection. Take the time to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are an intricate part of your article marketing strategy, and your marketing will surpass your competitors and reach search engine success.

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