Exhibitors Become More Strategic About Which Conferences to Attend
For some companies, the SHRM conference is too big. For others, there aren't enough decision makers. Still the number of vendors is up over 2004.
June 21, 2005
Exhibitors Become More Strategic About Which Conferences to Attend
To show or not to show. That is the question marketing and sales executives have
been asking as they decide which conferences they should attend and which are
not worth it.
In the late '90s, when budgets seemed bottomless, most
companies chose to exhibit at any and every conference. Now, however, firms are
being more strategic in deciding which events are musts for them, says Elrond
Lawrence, a spokesman for HR Marketer, a Capitola, California- based public
relations and marketing company serving the human resources industry.
In
particular, smaller companies are deciding against having booths at the larger
trade shows, such as SHRM's annual conference, because they are worried about
being lost in the shuffle, Lawrence says.
ConnectedCare, a
Baltimore-based company that helps employers transition to consumer-directed
health care plans, has chosen not to exhibit at big trade shows like SHRM's in
favor of a strategy more focused on public relations, says Teresa O'Keefe,
director of marketing. "We believe decision-makers for employers don't attend
conferences—not ones that vendors are invited to,” she says.
Read the rest of this story and learn about more trends coming from the
annual SHRM conference in the Daily Conference News microsite.
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