National Defense Industry Association Promotes Specialty Conferences to Suppliers Background
The National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) facilitates growth, innovation and technological advances for all facets of the defense industry. Its membership includes over 1,400 corporations and 40,000 individuals. Among many activities, the association products 25 trade shows annually.
The Challenge “Time is our biggest challenge,” says Luellen Hoffman, director of exhibits. “We must have the resources at our disposal that will let us turn around work in short periods of time.” With a lean internal staff and an intense schedule of trade shows, NDIA has to conduct numerous attendance-acquisition campaigns simultaneously.
Topping the list of needs are building attendance for new shows, the Ground Robotics Symposium; the Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference West and the Missouri Science & Technology Summit 2008.
To add to the challenge, the defense industry is vast and complex. Defense industry companies tend to be large and decentralized, with multiple divisions and multiple decision-makers. Reaching the right people at the right time is a challenge.
The Response NDIA’s needs to acquire trade show exhibitors and attendees for its key events are fulfilled in part by outbound telemarketing campaigns conducted by Foundation Marketing Group.
“I have found Foundation Marketing Group to be a great resource for supporting us,” says Hoffman. “They can accomplish more in terms of reaching out than we can in house, given that 90 percent of our time is taken up by trade show operations. We have found that, as effective as email is, people in the industry still need to be touched. Picking up the phone is the smartest way to contact them to stand above the competition. And if they won’t come to our shows, we want to learn what their objections are."
“We provide Foundation Marketing Group a file of suspects and prospects before each show. For the suspect file, they identify the key contacts, capture information and verify the receipt of show literature. For the prospect file, they deliver a ‘commercial’ and work to drive the prospects to our Web site. We measure the results of their efforts by monitoring for up-ticks in registration and for inbound calls and inquiries. This business model has been very successful."