Sent:  Fri 6/1/01 3:51 PM

Dear BoD

I talked with Tony Shaw (Wilshire Conferences) for over ½ hour about vendors and marketing. He was very helpful and forthcoming.

Here is some of his advice:

On Vendors:

They charged $2950 for a 10x10 booth (base price) He thought $500 seems too low for an expected 200-300 people (potentially more) Suggested $800 - $1000 range. Since this is our first time in a while, we need to develop a feeling for what the market will bear, and especially, for what the vendors want. Develop marketing package with options like web links, cover listing, booth sizes, free conference registrations, logo on give-away bags, and whatever else you can think of that a vendor would like. But don’t compromise the integrity of the program. Offer a discount price for total package. They will likely just take the whole package instead of itemizing.

On list brokers: bottom line is they don’t focus on our type of people. But here are some observations:

Types of lists: Compiled Lists (broker surveys companies and compiles list …) and Customer Lists (either of subscribers or of buyers – mostly PC buyers) Response rates from rented lists tend to be very low: a handful per 1000. Costs are about $150/1000, usually a minimum of 5000 = $750 (this agrees with what Elaine found about the Special Libraries association list) They’ve use a company called Rubin Response – specializes in hi tech & software – limited results

On Marketing:

Count on spending 25 – 30% of expected gross revenue Look for list from affinity groups, gov. agencies, professional associations, etc. Don’t put all your marketing bucks in one basket Appeal to members to spread the word: tell friends, post on their company web sites and BBDs, submit to their professional org.s & SIGs, post on listservers, etc. (we could post an appeal in our newsletter) He thinks most of their results come from word of mouth

--Jim