TRENDY Award (Formerly All Media Contest)
BOMA Georgia was recognized by Association TRENDS with a 2021 Silver Trendy Award in the Exhibitor Sales Kit category.
Association TRENDS, a community dedicated to providing association executives and industry partners the training, data and insights needed to better understand and serve their organizations, presented the award through its annual Salute to Association Excellence celebration on October 28, 2021. The celebration, held virtually, was the 41st annual awards program facilitated by Association TRENDS. The Trendy Awards, formerly named the All Media Contest, recognized excellence in association communications and educational programs.
BOMA Georgia earned the recognition for its transition from producing an in-person trade show in 2020 to a virtual “Enhanced Exposure Experience,” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Below are excerpts from the award submission:
In a year where a global pandemic interrupted many associations’ ability to conduct in-person trade shows, BOMA Georgia launched an innovative idea to protect one of the organization’s most substantial non-dues revenue generators and member connection experiences. The BOMA Show Enhanced Exposure Experience was created with the goal of facilitating meaningful business connections between BOMA Georgia’s property management professional members and the vendors and service providers who still sought to maintain and establish new client relationships, all while protecting the association from substantial net revenue loss occurring from the inability to conduct an in-person trade show legally and safely.
The Enhanced Exposure Experience was an opt-in program for those exhibitors that had already registered to exhibit in the association’s annual trade show. Companies could choose to opt out of the experience and receive a full refund or credit for the cost of their trade show booth; however, those companies that chose to opt-in were provided with a package of exposure opportunities that provided significant exposure for their organization in a time where many opportunities were non-existent.
Exhibitors participating in the Enhanced Exposure Experience received a package of benefits including a listing in the special publication, “Building Operations, Management, and Finance in the New Normal Guide;” a six-month premier or premium listing in the CRE Insight Marketplace website; participation in two, virtual networking experiences that offered exhibitors the opportunity to meet with up to 30 contacts in successive five-minute one-on-one virtual interactions via ZOOM; and the opportunity to participate in the presale for the following year’s in-person BOMA Show trade show.
To effectively communicate and promote this opportunity to exhibitors, BOMA Georgia created the BOMA Show Enhanced Exposure Experience Sales Kit that communicated the terms and benefits of this new opportunity which resulted in 78 of the 184 companies originally registered to exhibit at the in-person trade show opting in to the BOMA Show Enhanced Exposure Experience, making it the largest virtual trade show produced by any BOMA in the United States in 2020.
Furthermore, more than 75 percent of BOMA Show Enhanced Exposure Experience participants completed the presale to participate in the 2021 in-person trade show.