±±¾©Èü³µpk10

London's Earls Court 2 will play host to the Fair, with about 11,000 visitors expected over the course of the three days. A record number of 44 free seminars will explore topics ranging from data protection, databases and B2B/B2C marketing, to e-mail marketing, SMS marketing and creative.

Though seminars are usually offered on a first-come-first-served basis, this year visitors have the opportunity to pre-book their seats online.

"Everyone has a game-plan when they reach the Fair, but those schedules often go out of the window once you get caught up in conversation," says Darren Whitehead, exhibition director of show organiser Reed Exhibitions.

"So we're allowing visitors to book their seats via the IDMF website, which will help them plan their day more efficiently and secure seats for the seminars they wish to go to."

Two keynote sessions will take place on each morning and a learning-rich programme will also run sessions all day, offering advice and keeping delegates updated on key industry issues.

A four-star "headquarters hotel", only a short walk away from the show itself, has also been introduced this year to help "extend and open up further networking opportunities for both visitors and exhibitors", says Whitehead. The Holiday Inn Kensington Forum hotel will provide visitors with a place to rub shoulders with others long after the show ends each day.

Reed Exhibitions will also continue to uphold its Meet at the Bar sessions, which are available to those who pre-register to attend the Fair online.

This proved a huge success last year, with more than 5,000 people taking part. Once again, delegates can scan through the visitor list for people they would like to see at the show, then drop them an e-mail with a date and time to meet at the bar.

As usual, an array of about 300 exhibitors will demonstrate and launch products, as well as offer advice on some of the tricks of the trade.

Interactive mobile messaging specialist Mkodo will use the show to launch Version 4 of its Interactive Messaging Platform (IMP). "IMP allows you to conduct mobile marketing campaigns from your desktop and accumulate opt-in lists," says Sue Parker, executive director at Mkodo. "And it enables consumers to respond to static advertising as well as engage with the brand." The newer version also has the ability to segment data and target specific groups with mobile messages.

This year, Mkodo has teamed up with Reed Exhibitions to carry out a mobile marketing campaign on its behalf, aimed at those who have pre-registered to the show. Delegates will receive reminder-type messages of "must see" events and seminars and a post-event survey with questions on how they ranked this year's show, and where they feel there is any need for improvement.

Experian will also use the Fair to showcase its new products. These include Canvasse Option, a facility that not only uses a client's data, but also feeds off Experian's own knowledge of data collection surveys to gain an insight into the opinions and needs of customers and prospects. Also on offer is Canvasse Selections, a group of sector-specific prospect lists, sourced from various sources, including investor, credit and lifestyle data, through to Experian's own segmentation systems.

But perhaps its most important showcase will be the re-launch of the National Business Database. "This consists of three major corporate sources of data - Thomson, Companies House and Yell - and it also encompasses commercial Mosaic," says Richard Lloyd, director of B2B Marketing at Experian.

"These are now available in one single place, giving us 3.8 million business locations in the UK - 2.2 million of which are actively trading businesses, with 85 per cent of those offering full contact details."

Another company planning to launch products is consumer marketing and data company Ebiquita. Its new consumer verification service behaves like a look-up system, which verifies consumer identification and other personal details, including credit and contact details, at the point of application.

This customer information can not only be used to construct more highly targeted direct marketing campaigns, but can also help prevent fraud, says managing director Andy Taylor. The second product, Beyond Data, currently gathers information from around 1,200 websites. The system engages with visitors to these sites on their relevant subjects, with their information going on to form the building blocks of more highly targeted campaigns.

Similarly, data company Data Locator will demonstrate its new interactive website, vouch4me.com. "This a site in its own right that we promote via other sites using banners. We build a relationship with customers by offering them a chance to win a holiday, a weekend break or a car for example, in return for information about themselves," says Richard Webster, operations and marketing director. "Initially we achieve the core data sets and then go on to construct further questions that match the profiles of each individual, allowing us to gain additional personal details and target more intelligently."

The Preference Service currently holds attitudinal data on 2.8 million households in the UK and will use the show to demonstrate its new attitudinal-based geo-marketing tool, StreetLife. "StreetLife scans data to evaluate what your customers look like. It then matches those profiles with existing postcodes across the country, all in about five to six seconds," claims managing director Thomas Adalbert. This information can then be put into practice through highly targeted door-drop campaigns and direct mail using relevant postcodes throughout the country.

Marketing response management provider Granby Marketing Services will focus on its new online reporting system, SCOPe (stock control order processing in an e-environment), at the show. "Where traditional fulfilment operations are limited in what they can do, we've developed a service system that can be utilised through any consumer interface, including SMS, web page associates and telephony," explains chief executive Stephen Bentley. "These were previously separated, but we've encompassed them all into one package so clients can now enquire about anything, at any time, and through any channel. That information can also be used predictively for future campaigns."

Print demonstration

Packaging manufacturer Greys Packaging has invested in a new, eight-colour, flexographic printing press since last year's show and will be demonstrating the fruits of its labour for the first time. "The machine prints on plastics such as polythene bags for magazines, but it's the rapid turnover and the quality that makes the difference," says Tim Cowan, sales director at Greys. "Previously you could see the separate dots of ink, but now we can print to 133dpi on thinner and more transparent films," he adds, "so the weight and cost are down, but flexibility is up."

Following its merger with Mediaprisme, list management and broking company Acxes Data will be dishing out advice on acquiring lists from abroad.

"We offer clients advice on the sources of data available, the best list to go for, and the kinds of things to watch out for, including data protection, foreign legislation and address formats," says Claire Harding, account director at Acxes Data. Nine experts from various countries, including Spain, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands, will be at the stand, as well as two from the UK. A meeting table will also be set up for visitors who have pre-booked meetings with experts from one or more countries.

And for those who feel there simply aren't enough hours in the day to visit everyone, Reed Exhibitions has come up with a solution in the shape of an appointment booking system. Available to delegates who register online, this allows them to e-mail exhibitors and book specific appointments.

In addition to the show itself, the Institute of Direct Marketing will run a B2B conference on the first day, giving delegates an insight into how they can exploit business data, manage key account relationships, generate better sales leads, and incorporate online marketing in their strategy. The finalists and the winner of the Marketing Magazine Agency Challenge will also be announced, and the work of the best talents in the industry will be on display at the DMA Award Winner's Gallery.

Throughout the event, Reed will carry out an outbound telemarketing campaign aimed at 4,000 seniors and key-decision makers from the top 100 DM spenders.

They will receive an initial personal updating service reminding them to register for the show and book up for key events and seminars. And if they haven't done so already, Reed will then do the job for them.

And lastly, if it all seems too much like hard work, there will plenty of time to let your hair down at the gala dinner taking place on the second day of the show at The Park Lane Hilton, and at the DMA party on the first day. With so much to take on board, the only worry now is how everything will be squeezed into 72 hours.

SEMINARS: DAY 1

Speaker: Steve Lowes, database marketing manager, PC World Business and
Verran Townsend, director LBM.
Topic: Releasing the potential within your own data to maximise ROI
Date/Time: 2 March, 11.45-12.15
Location: Acxiom Seminar Theatre

Lowes says: "PC World will demonstrate how it analysed and consolidated its existing data to help stimulate the growth of its business, with the help of agency LBM Direct Marketing.

"There will be three elements to the presentation. The first is about making sure you get the basics right before you add any intelligence to it - so this means checking names and addresses are correct, and that there are no goneaways.

"The second phase will focus on making sure you have good transactional history of your customers in terms of recency, frequency and monetary value. This will allow you to segment your database into how often customers spend, how much they spend, and when they last spent with you. Some spend very infrequently and some not at all.

"This is the stage at which LBM came into the picture. The agency has a business market file that tells you where businesses are, how big they are, and what they do. We matched this file to our own database, using it to effectively model a view of potential customers.

"The third key thing we did was build a model of IT potential, which told us how much customers and prospects, in general, are likely to spend on an annual basis. This gave us a total view of the IT market and PC World's share of it. We were then able to select those customers who aren't spending much with us, as well as lapsed customers, and prospects.

"We used this information to target those who we felt were worth chasing, and this in turn determined how long we should keep sending them catalogues and mailers. The higher the potential value then the longer we continued sending them mail.

"When we launched we would have sent 100,000 catalogues to everybody. Now we send half as many catalogues when selecting from four times as many people. It's made a huge difference to our ability to select which lapsed or inactive parts of our database to effectively target and mail."

SEMINARS: DAY 2

Speaker: Neil Fox, founding partner and director of planning, TDA
Topic: Developing (not managing) relationships with customers
Date/Time: 3 March, 11.45-12.15
Location: Acxiom Seminar Theatre

Fox says: "We've looked at how financial services companies can generate a more meaningful relationship with customers. Most people think a relationship is an intimate two-way communication, and the term often carries so much baggage, that it is often misunderstood in marketing.

"One longstanding issue we face is that some lenders will avoid contacting customers who are coming to the end of their fixed-rate deals because they have discovered that doing this is more profitable for them, since fewer customers defect and more revert to the standard variable rate.

"There are only a couple of long-term fixed rate deals currently available and Government research has found that the general public are less receptive to these offers because the market is driven by short-term deals, so they find it difficult to accept longer term benefits against a short-term lower rate.

"A lot of people are aware they are being swindled, but aren't doing anything about it. This is a big issue, since it means financial service companies need to have the courage of their convictions to realise that transparency will ultimately generate a greater return on investment.

"For companies to understand how to relate to people, they have to get back to the grass roots. In response to this we have developed a customer relationship development (CRD) model. What we are trying to suggest is that establishing communications with customers that mean something is about understanding what kind of 'relationship' they want.

"And those brands that put the customer experience at the heart of their business, product and service strategy, reflects those whose ability to recruit customers and build brands seems almost incidental.

"So the opportunity for UK financial services is to be receptive enough and bold enough to learn from these and adapt to meet the expectations of consumers in a way that is honest, engaging and mutually beneficial.

This is, after all, at the heart of healthy, long-standing relationships."

SEMINARS: DAY 3

Speaker: James Hanscomb, MD, dunnhumby crucible
Topic: 10 things I hate about direct mail
Date/Time: 4 March, 14.30-15.00
Location: Wegener Seminar Theatre

Hanscomb says: "The same issues and complications that were cropping up 16 years ago are still cropping up now. People always seem to cock things up throughout the entire campaign process - starting from planning a campaign to the way it's thrown together. This is one of the reasons why they become so riddled with errors.

"First, there are too many people involved in the process. You need to be more strategic - build a prospect database, have a planned strategy, and know how often to maintain contact with your customers. It's also a continuing problem that when a campaign works the marketer has no idea why it works, and when it doesn't work, they don't know why it doesn't, either.

"Too much time and money is also spent on the creative work and the marketer is brought into the picture far too late in the day. So what we're trying to preach is that data is a pivotal part of the targeting process. You need to know about your customers - what flicks their switch - so you can use the right tone, coupled with the right offer.

"An entire campaign is driven by the information you have on your customers, so it's unfortunate that data is so often an afterthought."