Nancy Schmalz: 5 Tips for an Effective Trade Show Strategy

Nancy Schmalz, Senior Vice President at 3D Exhibits, discusses her 5 tips for having an effective trade show strategy.

5 Tips for an Effective Trade Show Strategy:

1. Define the visitor’s experience
2. Define what makes your product or service unique
3. Develop quantifiable goals and objectives
4. Understand your audience
5. Understand your staff

3D Exhibits talks with James Carville

From sustainability, to social media and how he became married to someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum, James Carville sits down and talks with 3D Exhibits.

3D Exhibits talks with James Carville from 3DExhibits on Vimeo.

The Success of HCEA 2010 – The Opportunity to Give Back

The success of a trade show event not only comes from the number of leads generated for your business, but the opportunity to give back in a meaningful way. While in New Orleans for HCEA 2010, the 3D Exhibits team was honored to participate in contributing to the cleanup and physical labor efforts with helping rebuild the community in need. It was an experience we will never forget and we’ll continually think of those in need and the other 85 people we worked with through the Beacon of Hope project.

At HCEA 2010, 3D Exhibits conducted a social media scavenger hunt called the #Evolve3D Tag Hunt using Microsoft Tag Reader, throughout our exhibit space. The purpose of the Tag Hunt was to have the opportunity to showcase our capabilities of utilizing new technology, showcase our products to exhibit visitors, meet some of the 3D team and more importantly, to give back to a great cause through the New Orleans Beacon of Hope organization.

As each person participated in the #Evolve3D Tag Hunt they downloaded the Microsoft Tag Reader application to their mobile phone and scanned the individual tags throughout our exhibit space. When the Tags were scanned, a video automatically played featuring a member of the 3D team discussing the trade show market is evolving within the healthcare industry.

It is important for the 3D Exhibits team to continue to give back to the community. For each person who participated in the #Evolve3D Tag Hunt and experienced the 3D Capabilities Presentation, 3D Exhibits donated $25 to Beacon of Hope. We found participants became more interested in participating when they heard it was an opportunity to give back to New Orleans.

To extend the opportunity to contribute to Beacon of Hope to those people that were unable to attend the HCEA 2010 Meeting, we pledged to donate $2 each time the hashtag #evolve3D was tweeted. It was great to see the activity and to watch the Twitter community participate in giving back to New Orleans.

We are excited and thankful to all of the people who participated in our exhibit activity at HCEA, as well as from home on Twitter. It is our pleasure to announce 3D Exhibits will be giving a $1,000 donation to Beacon of Hope in New Orleans.

#Evolve3D Tag Hunt Activity at HCEA 2010 from 3DExhibits on Vimeo.

2010 Conference highlights from HCEA leaders, Nancy Hoppe and Eric Allen

HCEA President Nancy Hoppe and Executive Vice President Eric Allen took a few minutes out of their very busy days at HCEA to share some of their thoughts on this year’s conference in New Orleans.

Changes to the educational seminar offerings brought new and interesting opportunities for attendees to earn CME and CME/H credits and exhibitors wowed the crowd with cutting edge technologies for exhibitors in this challenging industry. Regulatory and promotional constraints often create challenges for exhibitors and the use of interactive and engaging technologies within the exhibit space can help in the achievement of ROI for events.

What were your favorite aspects of the HCEA 2010 conference? What technologies were most interesting to you?

James Carville’s Thoughts on Healthcare – HCEA 2010 Keynote Speaker

We were pleased to have the opportunity to talk with James Carville, keynote speaker at this year’s HCEA Annual Meeting and well-known political consultant. Carville earned political campaign fame for the campaign victory of Bill Clinton against President George H. W. Bush in 1992, where two of the primary campaign platforms included the famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid” as well as  “Don’t forget healthcare.”

In this short video, he shares his predictions for the future of healthcare which include the need to control costs through the strategic use of technology, greater focus on preventive care for early illness detection and better healthcare consumerism to enable more cost-conscious patient decision-making.

James Carville’s thoughts on healthcare – HCEA 2010 Keynote Speaker from 3DExhibits on Vimeo.

These factors play out in a number of ways for companies in the healthcare industry. Companies are challenged to remain profitable and effective manufacturers, solution-oriented service providers, informed caregivers and strategic exhibit marketers – all while containing costs without reduction in quality. The need for cost containment often trickles into tighter budgets for everything from R&D to promotional and exhibit activities.

How are you and your organization working to achieve cost containment while maintaining effectiveness in your exhibit and event efforts? We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions and welcome a healthy dialogue on the topic for the benefit of the entire community.