A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the successful quizzes that Lessiter Media is doing—an initiative they started well before the pandemic hit. For one, they received a few thousand submissions with almost 2,000 new email addresses; more than 120 new subscribers emerged from the list of quiz takers.   This week I came across a quiz from a publisher in the UK that ties into the pandemic. The Investment Week Virtual Quiz 2020 was designed to help "heroic frontline NHS [National Health Service] staff tackling the coronavirus crisis." Today at 4 pm their time they held the live quiz "hosted by a special industry guest." Participants were sent a link and also could dial in to a video/audio call. They would even show a leaderboard in real-time so the winner can be revealed instantly.   To take part they asked people to choose a donation fee with all proceeds going to CASCAID's NHS fundraising campaign (minimum donation was £15).   Coinciden ...

Recently, the state and future of the exhibition industry was put on display in St. Petersburg, Russia, at UFI's Global Congress. Trade Show Executive put together some takeaways that I'd like to build on.

"We launched an association that exceeded our expectations in a few months," said Elizabeth Petersen, project director, Simplify Compliance, referring to the National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity. "We were looking at registrations for events and one of my product people noticed, 'There's a new title popping up and we had never seen this title before'—it was revenue integrity specialist. We started picking up the phone and calling customers, [asking], 'What does that mean?'"

"Does including 'free' in your subject line entice potential readers to open your message?"

"During my early years in the company, I was fairly analytical in how I approached most situations. And although that served a purpose, I later realized that you can be much more effective if you recognize the importance of people in business. The sooner you learn about reading people, listening to others and building relationships, the sooner you will be more effective."

When it comes to getting feedback from customers, Victoria Mellor, CEO and co-founder, Novatum Group and before that Melcrum, does not like most surveys.

Towards the end of a takeaway-stuffed session at our BIMS conference in November titled Bringing Customers Into Your Marketing, Fulfillment & Product Development, Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up! Marketing asked his fellow panelists this: "Do you ever get to the point of asking customers or prospects, 'Would you buy it [if we built it]'? How do you get as close as possible to the answer in your interactions with customers?"

Watching an enlightening new production of Lillian Hellman's 1939 play The Little Foxes here at Arena Stage the other night, I should have had my pen out. A quote early on really struck me. It went sort of like, "We have to do something new—that's the only way to make money these days."