SEMA News - November 2009
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This year, we have developed several new SEMA Show value centers designed to help your business succeed. They include the Enthusiast Research Project, the enhanced New Products Showcase and the Matchmaking Program.
The Enthusiast Research Project is an innovative program that will capture enthusiast’s responses to the tremendous collection of new products and feature vehicles that are exhibited at this year’s SEMA Show. The program was developed in direct response to requests from SEMA members for up-to-date market research and trend information. SEMA has invited and screened a small but meaningful sample of automotive enthusiast opinion leaders, including car collectors, car club leaders and bloggers, and will give them a chance to experience the 2009 SEMA Show. These project participants will provide feedback, insights and opinions, which SEMA will collect via surveys and focus group activities. The information will be analyzed and developed into valuable market research and trend reports that will be made available exclusively to SEMA-member buyers and exhibitors participating in this year’s Show.
The Enthusiast project participants are also going to help generate a second exciting benefit for Show exhibitors and buyers: the group will be invited to record comments, videos and photos of the great new products and vehicles from the Show floor and to blast them out to their online contacts around the globe. Our project participants were pre-qualified as having substantial online contact networks, so this initiative could expose the products displayed at the SEMA Show to millions of automotive enthusiasts eager to see the incredible offerings our industry brings to Vegas this year. And SEMA will be tracking this coverage to provide additional market trend feedback and industry reports.
While a significant volume of activity will occur at the Show, the user-generated content will foster interest in member products throughout the year.
The New Products Showcase is an established attraction at the SEMA Show, but we’ve expanded and enhanced it for 2009. This year, the No. 1 destination for buyers and the media will be housed in an expanded floor space located at the upper South Hall adjacent to the Trucks, SUVs & Off-Road and Powersports & Utility Vehicles sections. The Showcase will be 25% larger this year, allowing for better product viewing while making it easier to gather photography and information through the use of electronic scanners that read and record bar codes associated with each product. And, for the first time, the New Products Showcase will be open prior to Show hours beginning at 8:00 a.m. each day. Exhibitors who wish to enter products in the Showcase may do so by clicking here.
At its heart, the goal of the SEMA Show has always been to bring manufacturers, distributors and jobbers/retailers together so that they may service the world with the best and most innovative automotive specialty-equipment products. This year, we’ve introduced a new Matchmaking Program—a terrific communications tool aimed at helping increase sales.
The program actively matches buyers and exhibitors based on demographic and product-interest information collected during Show registration. It not only matches businesses according to the relevance of their product selections, but provides data about specific geographic areas as well; so if you’re looking for a specific product or outlet in a particular area of the country, the Matchmaking Program can get you hooked up immediately. It also steers buyers to the most appropriate educational seminars and events based on the types of businesses they’re in. Best ofall, it’s free to registered buyers and exhibitors.
Visit www.SEMAShow.com, and click on the “Connect” icon. Use this tool once, and I guarantee you’ll rely on it again and again to establish contacts at the 2009 Show.
Take advantage of these programs to keep value at the forefront of your SEMA Show experience. We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!