5/4/2007 | Testimonial: Jeff Doyle, president, Revention POS Solutions

This is the second year we’ve exhibited at NAPICS, and we were just blown away. It started off with phenomenal attendance. The aisles were full and our booth was so busy that we sold almost a half-million dollars’ worth of systems in only two days.

As good as (the 2006 show) was, it was even better this year. Though it’s a regional show, it wasn’t even like a regional show because we talked to people who came from as far as 500 miles away. The prior year we had people coming from just a couple hundred miles away.

What’s unique about NAPICS is it draws serious buyers. We had people coming there ready to make commitments on the show floor. To see people in a regional show—ready to buy with money in hand—is outstanding.

One thing we believe helped us a lot was we got very aggressive with our (pre-show) marketing. We hired telemarketers to call almost 900 contacts all throughout Ohio and in every major city around the show and invite them personally. We don’t know exactly how many of them came, but we’re pleased with what we got.

At the show we rolled out a brand-new, very high-end marketing module that gives unlimited capacity to queries for automatic e-mails, mailing lists—anything in the entire system. That generated a lot of buzz and I’m sure it helped sales.

I wish I could go to more shows like that, make the investment I did and get the return I do from NAPICS. I’d do that every month. Compared to any other show we’ve been to … well, it’s hard to compare. We did really well at the Vegas show this year and we always do, but Vegas always costs a lot of money, especially the entertainment part of it.

But with Ohio being centrally located, it’s inexpensive to travel to, both for exhibitors and attendees. NAPICS is probably my smallest marketing investment with the highest return. That’s something that needs to be vocalized to other exhibitors.