Inside ASI-AP

The annual FIA (Fundraising Institute of Australia www.fia.org.au) conference was held in Melbourne earlier this week - Saturday through to Tuesday. ASI are major sponsors of the FIA which includes signage in all the seminar rooms and recognition at various stages in formal presentations. We also had a booth in the exhibition area which was hosted by Marketing (Liza, Marla) and Product Marketing (Jay, Kevin B) throughout the 4 days, and also included visits from myself, David Riffle, and Customer Care.

The booth was decked out in the new iMIS 15 colours and looked very professional and very fresh - photo below. I particularly liked the orange shirts! We handed out iMIS 15 cup cakes and had conference delegates complete a 'How Evolved Are You?' survey (thanks Jay!) to go into the draw to win one of two iPods. Over 100 people completed the survey. The winners were Rebecca Atkins from Benetas and Helen Whyte from Melbourne Uni.

The conference overall was big - their largest yet. Around 700 delegates plus exhibitors. There were lots of exhibitors too, probably too many for the space they had available at the Grand Hyatt and the display booth setup was more like a rabbit warren. We had a great spot in a high traffic area but other exhibitors would have been disappointed.

As far as new leads, we did not get many. It is a difficult environment to get leads. I also think we did not have a strong enough offer to make people interested in us. Our signage was a little small and it probably was not really clear to a casual observer what we even did.

In fact we have more work to be done to get our message out. Although we are major sponsors of the FIA we are just not that well known. Blackbaud on the other hand - at least Raisers Edge - is very well known to the fundraising community. Since the fundraising/charity segment is a high growth area for us we must address this problem, and leverage the investments we make in sponsorships and other marketing activities. The good news is that Liza and Marla have a strong plan for our marketing campaigns this year that will continue to build on our message. But don't forget everyone can help spread the word!