Meetings & Incentive Travel (November 2009)

• EEA Announces 2010 Networking Expo
• Don't Miss This Important Webinar on Engagement Research!
• Seasite, the First Online Cruise Portal for Groups
• Groupe Aeroplan to Acquire Carlson Marketing
• It's Time Everyone Discovers What We Already Know...
• 2009 Motivation Show Exceeds Expectations
• Communication is Vital to Engagement
• Ammunition: What Does the Latest Research Reveal?
• Whitepaper Connects Engagement with Economic Recovery
• Connect Your Marketing to Transactions
• About Selling Communications Inc.

News Briefs

EEA Announces 2010 Networking Expo

The Enterprise Engagement Alliance will hold its first annual EEA Networking Expo at the Doral Arrowwood Hotel Conference Center in Rye Brook, NY, June 3-5, 2010. The event is designed to help organizations profit from engaging their key audiences and engineer new ways to use rewards and recognition to drive performance. A slate of interactive education sessions will enable attendees to share the latest and most effective policies, procedures, strategies and tactics in the field of engagement, offering unique, actionable ideas and information they can use to boost performance and profitability, and build relationships with all key audiences. Exhibitors representing the top products, programs and performance-improvement companies will be available during eight hours of dedicated exhibit time, as well as at other networking events and activities during the EEA Networking Expo, to share their extensive expertise with attendees. The Doral Arrowwood is convenient to all major metropolitan areas in the Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/Washington, DC corridor, located only 10 minutes from Westchester Country Airport and 40 minutes from New York's LaGuardia airport. More information about the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Networking Expo >>

Don't Miss This Important Webinar on Engagement Research!

On Tuesday, February 9, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance and the Human Capital Institute will sponsor a webinar entitled "Return on Value by Engaging Talent: What Leaders Can Do," presented by Rodger Stotz, Chief Research Officer of the Incentive Research Foundation, and James Dittman, President of Dittman Incentive Marketing. The webcast will focus on a research report highlighting the economic reasons to engage talent, discussing what leaders can do to create value from talent engagement. You'll hear examples of leaders and organizations that excel at engagement and gain insight to achieving high levels of engagement in your own organization. (Exact time of the Webinar to be set shortly) Register now >>

Seasite, the First Online Cruise Portal for Groups

The first and only comprehensive online marketplace for planning cruise meetings and events, Seasite is a revolutionary approach to ship selection and onboard event planning. Driven by sophisticated technology, rich content and robust ship-search capabilities, Seasite – a Landry & Kling company – puts incentive and meeting management companies, corporate or independent meeting planners and other group event organizers in total "cruise" control.  For those needing assistance, Cruise Advisors are on hand by chat, phone or email. And for those already comfortable with organizing events at sea, Seasite's sophisticated search and content rich data, coupled with its unique eRFP process, saves time and simplifies the process. There is no cost or membership fee to use Seasite. For more information, visit www.seasite.com

Groupe Aeroplan to Acquire Carlson Marketing

International loyalty management corporation Groupe Aeroplan Inc., headquartered in Montreal, recently announced that it would acquire U.S.-based Carlson Marketing from Carlson Companies Inc. at a purchase price of $175.3 million USD. The deal is expected to close in December 2009. Carlson Marketing is recognized for leading-edge loyalty marketing services, engagement and events management. It also has strong client relationships with leading brands in the financial services, automotive, high tech, consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical industries. Groupe Aeroplan is a major player in the international loyalty management marketplace. It owns Aeroplan, the leading loyalty program in Canada, and Nectar, a coalition loyalty program in the U.K. It also operates programs in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. Current plans are for Groupe Aeroplane and Carlson Marketing to continue to run separately and independently – with no planned staff reductions or relocations. President and CEO Jeff Balagna will continue to head the Carlson Marketing management team. Says Balagna: "We look forward to joining forces with Groupe Aeroplan and significantly strengthening the scope of our loyalty marketing, program management and engagement and event offerings for customers, employees and business channels. Together we become the world's leading loyalty management provider, able to offer a vastly expanded network of loyalty marketing capabilities."

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Insights From ESM Meetings & Incentive Travel e-News

It's Time Everyone Discovers What We Already Know...

A full-court press by those in the meeting and incentive industries seeking to combat numerous media stories about questionable spending on such activities by bailout recipients is having a dramatic and positive effect. Travel industry leaders have met with President Obama to discuss the unique role that travel can play in strengthening the American economy. The meeting focused on the urgent need to pass the Travel Promotion Act, which would establish the first-ever U.S. promotion and communications campaign to attract millions of additional international visitors to the United States annually and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. This followed on the heels of an industry meeting where guidelines (www.ustravel.org) were drafted that are designed to ensure transparency and accountability, as well as protect the one million American jobs supported by corporate meetings and events. While the metrics outlined in the guidelines are intended for the recipients of emergency government lending, other organizations may want to consider implementing the policy. We tip our hat to all the people who have taken the time to invest in this important effort – let's continue to make sure our voices are heard!

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In the Next Issue of Engagement Strategies Magazine

The Fall issue of Engagement Strategies Magazine is scheduled to mail this week. Here's a preview of what you'll find inside:

2009 Motivation Show Exceeds Expectations

According to exhibitors and attendees alike, the 2009 Motivation Show, held from September 29-October 1 in Chicago's McCormick Place, exceeded expectations. One of the most pleased was Mike Landry, Director of Special Markets for TUMI, a long-time exhibitor at the show. "A boatload of customers showed up!" Landry says. "With booked exhibit space off by 33%, I think we were all mentally prepared for tumbleweeds and the sound of crickets in the aisles. Instead, we had aisles jammed with resellers and end-users. Resellers were coming in with actual hard projects with actual hard delivery dates and price points and demanding specs and pricing and images. We got run ragged for the first day and a half, with barely time to catch our breath." Read more about this year's show >>
 

Communication is Vital to Engagement

Jeff Grisamore has spent virtually his entire career in the performance improvement field, but as the 21st Century dawned he and his company saw the need for a change. "About eight years ago we made a decision to diversify the company," says the President of EGR International, "and we started an in-house marketing communications/ad agency. We realized that in order for the promises made by performance improvement companies to be delivered, there had to be a communications component. Whether you're trying to motivate an individual or a group, the success of the program has a lot more to do with communications than it does with the reward component alone." Now, in addition to the performance improvement component of its business, EGR employs art directors, copy writers, graphic designers, web application experts and motion graphics and animation people. "We have this really dynamic agency competency that we can overlay onto our performance improvement programs," Grisamore says. "That's a huge differentiator for us from a lot of the traditional, mainline incentive companies." Read more >>

Ammunition: What Does the Latest Research Reveal?

In our annual overview of recent studies on recognition, motivation and engagement, we look at the latest research from the Human Capital Institute, the Incentive Research Foundation, the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement, Aberdeen Group, TMP worldwide, Hay Group and Watson Wyatt. Find out how people are driving performance and profits >>

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News From Selling Communications Inc.

Whitepaper Connects Engagement with Economic Recovery

One of the greatest opportunities to increase corporate profits – and subsequently boost the economy – lies in motivating workforces to improve performance, drive greater customer engagement and ultimately increase revenue, according to a new report from the Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) and the Human Capital Institute (HCI). The Enterprise Engagement Alliance is a coalition of companies and associations dedicated to promoting the importance of engagement, founded  last year by the Human Capital Institute, Peppers & Rogers Group, 1to1® Media and Selling Communications, Inc.

Entitled The Economics of Engagement, the report provides a comprehensive analysis of research in the field of Enterprise Engagement and offers how-to information on benchmarking tools that can quantitatively measure the benefits of employee and customer engagement. These measurement tools are critical to demonstrate the bottom-line impact of enterprise engagement, both to corporations and to the economy as a whole, using financial language that senior executives, investors and economists are accustomed to. Get a copy of the report >>
 

Connect Your Marketing to Transactions

Does your organization have a transactional website to handle bulk sales of merchandise to qualified buyers or points programs for incentive companies? The incentive industry is one of the few areas of business that doesn't have a true transactional model to support its end-users and incentive companies. The Corporate Rewards Exchange is a cooperative effort of leading brands, incentive fulfillment firms and incentive companies to build a new distribution channel for sale of gifts to corporations, incentive companies and marketing services firms. The CRE enables brands to tap into a large ad hoc market for bulk gifts and rewards in a way they can carefully control, providing a powerful means for incentive companies to more effectively use their products in reward programs via a highly automated billing, redemption, tracking and customer service system. It's designed to support all of the current players in the incentive marketplace by providing a more efficient means of offering rewards to end-users and incentive companies, at a very low cost. For more information, .

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About Selling Communications Inc.

Selling Communications, Inc. is a fully integrated, target marketing, media and technology agency that improves results for clients by focusing on the people who matter most. We can help your business grow and save you money by targeting key prospects, getting their permission and strategically integrating your marketing and sales communications with the specific audiences most likely to affect your business performance.

Take advantage of these SCI services to improve your business development:

• Results Marketing Agency Solutions: Identify and get permission to communicate with the people who matter most through an integrated program rooted in permission-driven databases, direct mail, e-mail, Web sites, brochures, newsletters, public relations and sophisticated telephone sales that produce results. Go beyond the traditional sales and marketing approach by providing useful information and resources to build better, more measurable relationships.
   
• Target media: Build your brand and bring it directly to your power buyers through our stable of established niche print and online magazines in the sales, marketing and meetings fields (including this newsletter).
   
• Integrated Communications Technology: Build permission-based databases through Solata software to effectively communicate with the people who want to hear from you and precisely track the results in real time. Solata is also available to other media companies and marketing agencies seeking to profit from integrated, permission-based marketing and communications.

For more information on Selling Communications, its products and services, contact Jim Kilmetis at 914-591-7600, ext. 229 or send an e-mail to .

Tapping new customers, and keeping those you already have, costs less than you'd imagine...

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