Back in the beginning of August, SDL Exhibitions approached us and asked us to host a networking evening in the RDS in conjunction with the 2007 Marketing Expo. We were delighted and on Tuesday 9th October, there we were. Our topic of the 5th P of Marketing soon followed and for those that didn't attend the answer was: Participation.

We needed to look no further then our very own e-marketing guru Sarah Carroll (Eventznet.ie) for the presentation. Having talked with Sarah many times on the subject of blogging, podcasts and surveys, I thought I was quite up-to-speed. But even I learned something new, who would have thought :).

Sarah Carroll's talk on the 5th P of Marketing

Juddy Shema (Red Zebra), Gerard Tannam (Island Bridge), Conor Savage (Neo Ireland), Anna Fitzgerald (Debra Ireland) and Cormac Killeen (Axira Expo Services)

As with all of our Neo events we had some facilitated networking to help break the ice. We split everyone into 5 teams and asked them to come up with their top tips for getting participation before and after an event. We also asked them to pick team names and tell us who they had met that they didn't know before.

And here is where we made it interesting. Pictaural, kindly loaned us the equipment to record the teams answers so we can turn it into a podcast.

We will be releasing the podcasts in a future issue of the ezine. We got some great answers, and even better out takes. :) Though they will never be released. Thanks for Joanne Ballesty from Pictaural for all her help so far. I can't wait to see the finished product.

For nearly all of our Neo events we get a helping hand from various people to ensure the smooth running of the event. This time was no exception. Clyde Carroll, our chairman was on hand to be our MC. Julie Mullanne and Clare Brady, both 3rd year event management students from DIT have both been working at Neo Ireland events since well before my time and it was great to work with them again. And this time we got even luckier to have four of their brightest first year minds on the case in the form of Fiona Cronin, Marian Fox, Marian Fenton and Lisa O'Shea. Thanks for the help, we really couldn't have done it without you.

Carol O'Kelly (Red Storm), Me! and Tom Shanahan (Kendlebell)

Fiona Cronin (Neo Ireland), Joann Hevey (BHP Insurance), Alicia Coyle (Entertainment.ie) and Gordon Smith (GVD. Ltd)

We got out of the office last week for 2 days to head on down to the RDS for the Marketing Expo. I was on double duty between exhibiting and the Neo event and loved every minute of it.

SDL Exhibitions organised a fantastic expo focused on e-markeing, so it was right up our alley. With new branding/brochures and business cards we headed on down. SUMO Multimedia and Pure Graphics did the Eventznet.ie stand and on Tuesday morning at 10.00am we were all ready and set to sell our wears.

No sooner were we in the door then we were bumping into Neo Ireland members left and right.

Michael Jeffrey's - Expandasign

Keith Long & Tom Miller - Bound to Impress

Karen O'Gorman (SDL) - We'd also like to thank Sean, Sally and Lorainne for all their help over the two days.

I'd never exhibited before, so it was a strange experience to say the least. I was lucky however to be surrounded by veteran exhibitors. It is such a different style of 'selling' then I'm used to. That said, I met a lot of new people, even got myself invited to some events. I got the feeling that e-marketing is now becoming a main stream issue with more and more people realising how important it is. E-marketing is fast becoming the most effective means of reaching the masses.

Sure let's take this ezine as the perfect example. Neo Ireland markets to over 2,000 individuals/companies within the events industry. This is a targeted list, we don't add people we don't know or who have not asked to be included. Of course some slip through the cracks, but mostly we don't hit the inbox's that don't want us. The Neo ezine gets opened by around 700 people each month. Knowing this is a real asset, as opposed to using a mail client like Eudora/Outlook. Of course, I'm lucky as I get to use e-marketing @ eventznet for free! The Eventznet e-marketing system (what I use to produce this ezine) is fantastic for delivering reports on how many people opened the email, what links were clicked on, all that stuff. I can see what are the most popular parts of the ezine and expand on them, thus making it better for the readership. I can also set myself targets to beat that 700 each month.