Making Connections at the 2011 VRMA Conference

LiveRez.com had a whole host of SWAG available at its booth during the 2011 VRMA Conference in Orlando, FL.

The national VRMA Conference offers an unmatched opportunity to meet with vacation rental managers from all over the United States and beyond. This year, LiveRez.com is doing a number of things to connect with professional VRMs. But these communication efforts can be used by just about any business to share its solution and connect with the people it can help.

Here are some of things we’re doing this year:

Stand Out: At LiveRez, we’re proud of our partners, and they have come out in force at this conference. To showcase our partners, we are giving them LiveRez lanyards and ribbons that say “LiveRez Partners.” In a conference setting, it’s always nice to let others know what groups you’re a part of; it really helps facilitate the networking process. One thing that can help LiveRez partners network outside of the conference is the LiveRez Network group on LinkedIn.

VRMA Gold Sponsorship: We think the VRMA is very important for vacation rental managers across the company, and our primary goal is to serve professional vacation rental managers. Many of our partners are VRMA members, as well. So, it only makes sense for us to give our support to the VRMA.   

SWAG: It’s the Stuff We All Get, and at the annual conference it’s in high supply. At LiveRez, we’re giving out pens, mints, ribbons, lanyards and more – all branded. Giving away useable branded items is a great way to connect with current and future customers (in our case, partners). Not only are these great for the conference, but in many cases they travel home with the attendees.

Promotions: Giving away a popular item is a great way to get people to visit your booth, start conversations and develop relationships. This year we’re giving out an Apple iPad 2 (who wouldn’t want one of those?). Concurrently, we’re running a promotion for a free iPod Touch on our LiveRez Facebook Page. To enter, just go to our page, click like, and then fill out the form. It’s that easy.

QR Codes: You can only fit so much information on a sales sheet, brochure, post card, etc. But, thanks to the advent of smart phones with QR-code-scanning aps, giving people a quick path to your website has never been easier. All of the LiveRez sales sheets at the conference have these codes on them. And, if you shorten the link with Bitly, you can actually see how many people are scanning the code and going through to your website. These days printed marketing materials are not complete without QR codes.

Presentations: LiveRez.com will be delivering its 10-minute Gold Sponsor presentation Wednesday morning during General Session. Additionally, LiveRez sales manager Tyler Hurst will be part of an educational presentation entitled “5 Fundamentals of Closing on the Phone.” That presentation will Tuesday at 11 a.m.  You can check out the slides in advance here.

What are you doing to connect with the people using your product and services? Share your ideas below in a comment.