The Kamloops, B.C.-based solution provider won the Gold Award for Best Marketing Initiative this year by organizing and flooring a successful show during Tech Select’s annual Technology Showcase event held last year in B.C.
The full-day event attracted more than 100 attendees and included presentations and exhibits from vendors such as IBM Canada, Nortel, Lenovo Canada, HP Canada and Xerox Canada. Marketing initiatives for the Technology Showcase event involved direct mail, newspaper ads, Internet advertising, e-mail blasts, prizes, vendor booths and tables, and so forth. This company saw its profits increase by 12 per cent over the course of the year following the Technology Showcase event. In addition, the clients who attended also increased their business with Voda by 65 per cent.
Marketing director Belle Virdee of Voda, who was on hand to accept the award, is already busy putting the finishing touches on this year’s Technology Showcase to be held in the Grand Okanagan Resort and Conference Centre. She expects 150 end user customers to attend this year.
A big factor in pulling off this kind of an event was Tech Data and its TechSelect group, she said.
“It is a collaborative effort and you put in your proposal and they assist you on the funding side, location and getting key manufacturers to come,” Virdee said.
Getting key vendors to the event is key. Virdee said that a lot of customers appreciated hearing vendor roadmaps first hand. And, for some of the customers, it was the first time that they ever met an executive from Cisco, IBM or HP.
Frank Haid, vice-president of sales for Tech Data Canada, said the distributor helps in leveraging vendors which made it a bigger show. With more vendors you attract more people. Also Haid, along with company president Rick Reid, attended the event.
“Voda did a fabulous job in delivering the end user customers and getting very positive qualified leads,” he said.
Haid believes that this type of show is worth doing, but it is not easily repeatable. “It involves a lot of hard work and planning and even with that it is not a certainty. There is a lot of leg work and to Voda’s credit they leveraged Tech Data’s marketing department. We have experience in putting on big shows and Belle (Virdee) did a great job in owning it. That is the key. Is there an owner driving the event,” Haid said.
Virdee said it was awesome to win and it was equally a surprise to share the award with a great solution provider as Softchoice, which shared the Best Channel Marketing Initiative Gold prize with Voda.
