Customer
The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) is a professional, scientific organization of approximately 10,000 members employed in academia, industry, government, and other research institutes worldwide. AAPS advances the capacity of pharmaceutical scientists to develop products and therapies that improve global health. 
Event Name
The 2014 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition which had 4,834 attendees and 2,524 exhibiting personnel for a total attendance of 7,358. The exposition hosted 459 exhibiting companies.
Challenge
AAPS offers an Exhibitor to Attendee Communication Program that enables a small number of the event’s exhibitors to purchase the right to send pre-show and post-show emails to registered attendees. The program provides exhibitors with a vehicle to connect with potential buyers and provides the event with an additional source of revenue. AAPS management began outsourcing this service in 2012 but made a change to Event Technologies in 2013 seeking stronger customer service.
A key requirement of the firm chosen to manage the program was to demonstrate the ability to protect the attendee list and ensure that the exhibitors could not access the attendees’ contact information or email addresses. In addition, the program needed to stick to a tight schedule and follow strict content guidelines. Also, AAPS wanted to introduce a new offering to exhibitors allowing an email template or creation of their own custom email. Finally, the service had to be reasonably priced to fit within their budget.
Solution
Event Technologies created a program that satisfied all of the AAPS requirements without increasing their workload. The program was designed to send two emails per day over the course of 4 weeks. To keep the program on schedule and ensure exhibitor satisfaction, each exhibitor is assigned to an Event Technologies representative who guides them through the process.
The solution implemented by Event Technologies includes these key elements:
1. Strict confidentiality of the attendee email addresses.
2. Dedicated support representative for each exhibitor during the email creation process
3. A central function for attendees to unsubscribe from all future program emails
4. Adherence to a predetermined schedule of two (2) emails per day
5. Exhibitor and AAPS approval prior to each email being sent
6. Real time access to email statistics for both AAPS and the participating exhibitors
Results
42 exhibitors participated in the program. Over 100,000 emails were sent with an open rate over 18%. AAPS netted over $50,000 of additional revenue from the program at this event. 
Event Technologies has delivered this service for (4) additional AAPS events. The events have sent more than 325,000 emails from 175 exhibitors with an open rate of over 20%. As a result of this program, AAPS has generated over $200,000 in additional revenue while providing this valuable service to their exhibitors.
Client Testimonial
I have been most impressed with Event Technologies’ customer service. As many organizations can concur, we can’t manage all our responsibilities to exhibitors alone. Event Technologies has been an asset and gives us peace of mind that our exhibitors are being serviced in the same way we would at AAPS. -Kate Hawley, AAPS
