Have You Tried These Ideas for Cutting Costs from Your Printed Program

Published by Chris Uschan on March 5th, 2010 | Filed under: Chris Uschan, Conference Materials, Tips

When it comes to your conference, you’re tasked with finding ways to shave dollars… or maybe better put, your conference budget has been cut and you need to find ways to work within it. Perhaps you’ve already eliminated the printed session handouts, but you can’t really eliminate your printed program books.

Why pay a higher cost for your program when you can pay less?

Since we print hundreds of programs for hundreds of associations and events, I thought I’d share these ideas for cutting costs.

First, let’s make a few assumptions:

• The final “on-site” program is not a marketing tool to attract attendees, they’ve already paid and are there.
• Most attendees throw away their final program after the event because it has nothing of lasting value.
• You’re struggling to find advertisers willing to pay $1,800 for a half-page ad.

Cutting Cost Out of your Program Book

1. Go black - Shift you program from full-color printing on glossy paper to black ink/toner on a standard house stock, but still print a color cover. Fact is, it’s cheaper to print in black than color. The same information you share to attendees like program grids, session info, agendas and evening activities can still be read in b/w. And, by lowering your production cost, you can charge a lower fee to advertise in the book. Hence, you can to attract (or keep) advertisers who are spending less on traditional marketing.
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2. Combine session content with the program – Unless your conference binder, proceedings book or meeting handbook is already a hedgehog (a big book), combine those materials with your conference program and create a single publication. You save by not having to pay for separate binding and cover charges. Some of our customers are getting creative and flipping the program content upside down and putting it at the back of the session book. It’s unique way of not having a back cover because the back cover is really the front cover for the program. It creates a little buzz at your event and saves you money.
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3. Change the specs - We have easily saved our customers 10% to 40% just by changing the specs. I know you’re probably used to doing it like you’ve always done it, but times are changing and your budget is likely too. Here are a few simple ideas:
   - Use a cover stock that is the same weight as the inside pages
   - Use an offset stock instead of glossy paper
   - Design the book without bleeds. Bleeds mean the printer has to use a larger stock (more cost to you).
   - Print only the ads and VIP pages in color and go black ink for the balance of the pages (see #2 above)
   - Um, here’s a simple one… reduce pages. Eliminate unnecessary content, tighten margins, make things a little smaller. Fewer pages equals lower cost.
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   More Tips – 10 Ways to Save on Conference Materials
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4. Produce a spiral bound Learning Journal/Program instead – If you’re supplying notepads and a expensive full-color conference program, try a Conference Learning Journal. This handy tool contains all the program information, agenda and maps. It might even have brief descriptions and learning objectives of sessions. Put all the detailed, expansive session information online. Include about 20 pages of blank paper (with lines for notes). Now, you’ve eliminated the expense of notepads, reduced page count, yet provided the attendee with enough information to make decisions and navigate at your event. Plus, you’ve created a space they can take notes… which means, they won’t be throwing away your Program anymore <cheering!>. That little puppy will sit on their desk back at the office as a constant reminder of your awesome event <marketing will love you for it>. And if you want to include some color pages for VIP’s and advertisements, you can still offer this. Learn more - Conference Learning Journals

There are many ways to save money, you just have to think a little outside the box. That’s where you need to ask people who are in the business to help out. At Omnipress, our reps have all kind of ideas and will brainstorm with you on different ways to produce your materials and save money.

Event Communities and Conference Challenges

Published by Chris Uschan on February 16th, 2010 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Remember what it was like a few years back when we had to communicate with someone in another office by sending a fax or even a letter? Or when we attended a conference, we were completely out of touch with work? In the days before cell phones, did you ever have a flat and no spare on a deserted stretch of highway?

Technology Solve Problems

What I love about technology today is that it solves problems. We can stay connected. We can work more efficiently. We can discover connections we never knew we were missing. And as technology improves, we encounter innovative ways to address our industry’s biggest challenges.

We’ve just put comprised a white paper about the top challenges that meeting organizers face and how today’s technology – specifically, an online conference community – can solve them.

An online conference community is a cutting-edge combination of social networking, a resource library and a marketing tool. It links attendees, exhibitors, presenters and conference organizers with an online, interactive home base (or central hub) for the event.

You can download our “Solving Five Top Conference Concerns with an Online Conference Community” white paper, but here’s a snapshot of what I consider the two most fundamental problems that a meeting organizer will face and how an online community can help:

Your Attendees Want More for Their Money

If an attendee doesn’t see enough value in your event, he won’t come. Period.

A robust online conference community will act as the ultimate conference resource, allowing attendees exclusive access to the full library of handouts, conversations with the presenters and a searchable database of fellow attendees. Plus it helps them organize their time with an itinerary builder and insight into the conference sessions. The engagement starts before the conference, keeps attendees connected during the conference and lasts long after the conference. So instead of rushing around trying to see everything during one 3-day event, an attendee receives months (maybe even years!) of value for the same registration fee!

Your Exhibitors Want More for Their Money

Vendors can’t go to every show, and they’re watching their expo budgets closer than ever. When you create an online conference community, your exhibitors will benefit from the extended exposure and can interact directly with attendees online. Plus you can offer them unique sponsorship opportunities and teach them how to drive booth traffic by engaging in the community. Again, the same fee exhibitors paid for the events before you started an online conference community now includes months of extra exposure and much more value.

Download: Solving Five Top Conference Concerns with an Online Conference Community

Now that I’ve boiled down what I think are the biggest challenges, what’s your opinion?

Thank You UNTECH10 – The Power of a Community

Published by David Mcknight on February 12th, 2010 | Filed under: Chris Uschan, Meeting Industry, Social Technologies

As the Untech10 attendees, sponsors and organizers head home… and those of us who attended virtually turn off our computers, I wanted to reflect a bit.

Guest Posted by David McKnight

Community Drives UNTECH10 Success

Credit should first go to the ASAE Tech Expo team (Ann, Allison, Kelly and Reggie) and those before them for nurturing a community passionate about their technology event. It’s that passion which drove people to make it happen. When I got Lindy Dreyer’s urgent e-mail regarding the opportunity to help create an unconference, I picked up the phone immediately and called her. Her excitement about creating Untech10 convinced me, without hesitation, to help.

Tony Veroeven, our man on the ground in DC, carried the biggest load to understand the needs for getting the schedule and content into our Conference 2.0 community solution. While back at the Omnipress headquarters, Ryan Hood, Sean Lawler and Christopher Uschan executed on the technology and marketing.

It’s About Relationships

When it comes to rubber hitting the road for events like this, the gals from SocialFish have the experience and know-how to get it going and how to reach out. Lindy Dreyer and Maddie Grant have a vast network to lean on when needed. That’s because they work hard at that daily (just follow then on twitter and you’ll know what I mean). We’ve know Lindy and Maddie for a few years… Christopher Uschan had asked Lindy to contribute to a “paperless conferences” whitepaper, then continued his relationship with them through Twitter and their YAPstar organization. This relationship expanded and eventually grew into working weekly with SocialFish on our Engage365 knowledge community. We knew they were superstars and their energies and brains behind Untech10 doesn’t surprise me. It’s these ladies who get my largest congrats.

It’s about Working Together, with Passion

No one asked the event exhibitors who had been grounded by snow to pull together, they just did. A small, self-driven task force, led by SocialFish, met for hours (last into the night) putting together a program, reaching out to speakers and getting their staff and solutions in place to make this happen. Aaron Biddar offered up The Port Network’s hotel space and video capture, NFI Studios offered transportation and happy hour (which was probably much needed) and Dave Will at Peach New Media streamed the video to the virtual attendance. “Heros” is probably a good word to describe this passionate team.

Check out the list of Untech10 Sponsors offering anything from wifi, to coffee to alternate audio feeds.

The Value of Face-to-Face and Opportunity for Change

There is tremendous value in face-to-face meetings and I feel that will continue. However, there is a huge opportunity with technology tools (before, during and after the event) to offer a way to exponentially reach more people and more members, increase future attendance, future membership and ensure relevance for years to come.

It’s easy for association leadership and staff to be overwhelmed by this social technology which is changing almost monthly. Most have moved beyond the fear and now are saying, “Okay, now what?” Some are doing it and others have great ideas on what to do. I’m also hearing that they don’t want to or can’t manage dozens of suppliers and technologies to deliver these solutions.

What UNTECH10 demonstrated is that suppliers can work together, own their part of the project and deliver a meaningful experience and value to members and attendees. In my mind, the organizers have the hard part — getting content and creating engagement. Together, we can find new ways to expand our universe and deliver more knowledge (hey…maybe even save the world too). Well, okay, maybe we can at least make attending a meeting more fun and meaningful.

Thank you to everyone at UNTECH10, as an attendee and sponsor, for an incredible virtual experience – even though I still wish I was there.

Guest Posted by David McKnight

Related Articles:

• Snow Cancels ASAE Tech Conference, but New Instant Event Emerges – MeetingNews
• Continuing the #UnTech10 Awesome – SocialFish Blog

ASAE Tech Expo Goes Unconference – UNTECH10

Published by Chris Uschan on February 10th, 2010 | Filed under: Chris Uschan, Meeting Planners, Social Technologies, conference 2.0

Not more that a few hours after ASAE leaders pulled the plug on the official ASAE Tech Expo due to the big blizzard in DC, social media leaders and conference evangelists created UNTECH10, an unconference alternative (FREE) to everyone.

The Background

A lot of snow in DC… I mean a lot! ASAE cancels Tech Expo 2010. Then conference go’er Aaron Biddar from The Port Network contacted Lindy Dryer at SocialFish (one of our Engage365.org community leaders) about using their hotel space for an on-site rally. It didn’t take long for the unconference idea to surface. The call came while Lindy was having lunch with Omnipress’ Tony Veroeven and the two of them discussed it with Socialfish Maddie Grant (who can’t say no to anything involving social media). It was at that point the UnTech10 Unconference was born.

How to Create an Unconference in 24 Hours

Maddie Grant and a small team of ASAE Tech Expo exhibitors and other meeting industry leaders have been meeting on and off to determine the best on-site approach for those who were going to attend the ASAE event as well as a way to take the unofficial event virtual. It was decided to have a mix of on-site sessions and virtual sessions (streaming content) to anyone who is interested with the focus still on Association and Event Technology.

The team quickly launched an eventbrite registration page to get an idea of how many people may attend (at the time of this blog it was 93). They also chose Omnipress’ Conference 2.0™ solution to be the conference hub for networking, schedules and conversations while other providers like Peach New Media, NFi Solutions and The Port provided web casting and video support. All of which has been updated in the unconference wiki.

The team then used social outposts (e.g., Twitter) and created a hashtag for the event to share event information — #untech10. This combined with traditional marketing efforts from many industry suppliers has helped spread the word to their followers.

Watch a Canceled Conference go Unconference and Learn

1.  Follow #untech10 on Twitter

2.  Join the UNTECH10 Conference™ 2.0 event community

Social Media and Meeting Planning at it’s Best

If these is something to learn here, it’s to be prepared.

1. know a good meeting planner
2. know some really good, experienced social media leaders who can lead and rally the social media world
3. realize the power of relationships and “just ask”
4. take care of your suppliers and they will take care of you
5. have an event community in place

Open the Doors for Your Exhibitors’ Success!

Published by Paul Wehking on January 27th, 2010 | Filed under: Meeting Industry, Paul Wehking

Hey, association folks… as a regular sponsor and exhibitor, I want to ask you a question… are you really – really – giving your exhibitors the best opportunity to succeed at your show?

I consider a successful show one where I am able to make connections with people who may want to use the solutions that Omnipress offers. I will gladly pay the thousands of dollars for travel, freight, booth space, badge reader rental and even carpeting if I know I will be able to share a description of our services with the people who come to your show.

Yet more and more I find barriers to being able to reach those people when I go to shows. Take opt-out lists, for example. Many shows now include a checkbox on the registration form that allows attendees to opt out of receiving information from exhibitors and sponsors. We’re all being careful about legal issues these days and making sure we respect attendees’ privacy, and a lot of the most important organizations in our industry seem to be doing this (such as ASAE, PCMA, MPI, Association Forum, etc). But when you cut off our connections to people, you eliminate the benefit I get from attending.

The simple fact is that if we exhibitors cannot market and sell to your attendees, eventually we may decide we are not going to be able to justify the price of your event. I know you’re already challenged to keep your exhibitors coming to your events – do you really want to take away more of the value we expect?

Consider these proposals for…

A better system to help your exhibitors get value from your event

1. Offer multiple registration rates for attendees

• Lowest registration fee for attendees that accept mail and email marketing from exhibitors and sponsors. Their registration fee is $395.
• Those who accept snail mail only = $495 (emphasizes green marketing practices)
• Those who decline all marketing = $595 (Don’t want to play…then you gotta pay!)This pricing strategy sends a clear message to the attendee that the exhibitors and sponsors are paying for a considerable portion of the expenses while still offering them the option to opt-out… but now it has economic context.

2. Put the opt-out logistics on the exhibitors’ side

• You could make it clear to exhibitors that the first information they send to a new contact after a conference will have clear, easy opt-out instructions. Most exhibiting companies are very respectful to our contact list, and we certainly don’t want to send out communications to people who don’t want to talk to us.

3. Charge for a trip to the exhibit hall

• Make the exhibit hall a pay-to-enter area where attendees actually have to pay to get in. The reality is that there are solutions galore on the exhibit hall floor to make an attendee’s life better. Every problem an association may have can be solved there – why not elevate this part of events to a more honored position?

4. Help brand your exhibitors as the consultants they are

• FREE consulting always given out to the inquiring attendee who never buys or is just gathering information. That’s part of the game! Industry events are put on for the education, and there is often as much education being delivered in a vendor booth as there is in an educational session. The beauty of the booth is that you can hire someone to do a particular thing versus having to trudge back to the office and try to implement some learning from an educational session on your own.

5. Stop mixing lunch with expo hours

• Although we as exhibitors love a free meal just as much as the next company, free meals in the exhibit hall floor brings in “qualified eaters” versus qualified buyers. Let’s focus on ways we can connect with attendees who need our services, not just attendees who need lunch. Create blocks of time that the expo floor is open, but not associated with lunch. Some expos are so large an attendee cannot meet everyone. Having dedicated expo hall times on different days separate from lunch places value on meeting suppliers.

So, what are your ideas for bringing more value to your exhibitors? I’m all ears!

Guest Post by Paul Wehking