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What is your opinion on the future of trade shows?
Trade show attendance has been down sharply in most sectors due to the lagging economy. Even before the downturn, we had cut back on trade events, because we found fewer qualified buyers attending events. And it seemed that the larger the event, the more diluted the pool of prospects was.
I'm interested in hearing viewpoints on the long-term importance/viability of the trade show. Will it bounce back with the economy? Is falling victim to other marketing channels, which can be significantly less capital intensive? Are we seeing a shift to more smaller events plus a few mega shows (e.g. Consumer Electronics Show)?
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13 Answers
Trade shows represent the marketing channel sales & marketing people everywhere love to hate. High costs, LOTS of time (before and during the event), typically followed by less-than-exciting leads and few converted sales.
But as much as I also typically shy away from trade shows as a front-line marketing channel for demand generation, they do have their place in delivering solid, profitable revenue. You just have to get a few things right. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it's a start in the right direction.
Pre-show expectations
First and foremost, make sure you understand what trade shows can do, and what they likely cannot do. Trade shows are busy, attendees are scattered and flustered on the show floor, so having a lot of high-quality conversations that lead to short-term revenue isn't likely the expectation you want to set. Fast deals are bluebirds, with the majority of attendees earlier in the buying cycle which means a longer lead time to being ready for your sales pipeline. Most trade show revenue, therefore, will be long term. Go into the show with that mindset and you're already a step ahead.
Establish & estimate required ROI
Before going any further, do the napkin math to make sure your fully-burdened spend (including out-of-pocket budget, travel costs, as well as the opportunity cost of the team's time) is worth the expected sales. Know up front, before the show is green-lighted, whether it has a chance of being a profitable effort, ideally with an expectation of exactly how many sales need to come directly from attendees. More often than not, this ROI will either keep you from wasting further time on a show that's destined to be a failure, or at minimum will give you guidance on the investment and strategy required to make it a success.
Pre-show buzz and "appointments"
Get a copy of the attendee list if possible, and give expected booth visitors - before they're inundated with messages at the show - a reason to stop by. This is where knowing your audience and their pain points well can make it easy to map that knowledge to an offer or message that prioritizes a trip to your booth over others. If they plan for it, they're more likely to not only stop by but invest a little more time in your presentation.
How you approach prospects
At the show itself, how do you engage traffic? How do you get browsers to break their gait, pause in front of your booth, and engage with your staff? The answer is likely not a cheap giveaway or in-booth game. What message or offer can your booth staff deliver in three seconds or less to a passing attendee that will get at least 50% of them to stop? It's likely something related to your value proposition - a sample, a no-risk trial, or even a challenge. These types of offers will likely generate the most visitors and better prospects.
After-show follow-up
Sadly, this step is ignored, forgotten or just plain dropped by many sales and marketing teams. But it's arguably the most important step of all. You've just invested a significant amount of time and money to capture sales leads early in their purchase cycle. At the show itself, they were overwhelmed with messages. And few of the other exhibitors will do anything coordinated to follow up. Think in advance, before you attend the show, what you want your follow-up to look like. Whether it's all from marketing, or combined with some sales team follow-up directly, plan for this in advance so your team can hit the ground running as soon as the show is over. Even if you decide to give attendees a day or two to get home first, having this done beforehand will ensure the plan is well executed and measured.
Nurture nurture nurture
Knowing these leads are early in their buying cycle, make sure they are added to your broader lead nurturing efforts. If you don't have one, come up with a plan that "touches" these leads on a regular basis with relevant information, messaging and offers to ensure you stay top of mind well after the show. If you made a good first impression at the booth, that's a great start. If you fail to follow up and build momentum on that early start after the show, your expected ROI will fall as well.
Track results regularly and long-term
If you know going in that collected leads will likely take longer to close, you're less likely to deem the event a failure after just 30 days of follow-up. But no matter how long your sales cycle, measuring conversion and close results from collected leads is critical. If you're a Salesforce.com user, putting all collected leads into a unique Campaign is your best choice. But no matter what you use, have the patience and discipline to watch conversion over time.
I believe trade shows have been dying for years, and they're just declining faster now because of the economy...
The fundamental problem with shows has always been ROI: You're trying to show off your wares in an extremely noisy environment — and in the presence of all your competitors! Also, you will get, if you're very lucky, maybe 5 to 15 minutes of a prospect's "attention" — immediately after which they will hear dozens of other pitches and forget 90 percent of what you told them. And for that, you pay big bucks, for your booth, booth space, graphics, etc. plus all the "hidden" costs of travel, hotels, meals and key personnel time.
Also, if you happen to be a smaller company up against big, established competitors, that will be clearly evident to all, as they compare your bitty booth to the big guys' Taj Mahals. Spending marketing dollars to look small-time is never good marketing strategy.
Before long, I think just a few mega shows (such as CES) will remain, and their ROI will primarily come from media coverage for major companies making new product introductions.
I agree with what Matt says and also add my own:
I am sure that the success of tradeshows depends on your market. For instance, are you in high tech manufacturing, packaging, office supplies, pharmaceuticals etc.?
At the end of the day, it is critical that you determine your ROI after specific periods of time have passed (this is critical, especially if you do lead nurturing). This will give you a good idea if spending the huge amount of money on trade shows (and which ones) are making you any money or if you would be better to spend that same money on more effective marketing campaigns.
I'm in the this business and can tell you that I speak to 30-50 executives a day on both the VP and Director buyer side, as well as the vendor/supplier side and you hit the nail on the head. Trade shows have been in a state of decline for 5 to 10 years and they will not rebound with the economy, because there is a better, more efficient way to get business done. As you mentioned, large trade shows have fallen victim to smaller more intimate events, where busienss can be discussed in a casual, civil environment.
Some of these marketing events even set a pre-scheduled agenda of meetings that take all the leg work and grief of a typical trade show away.
I'm very interested in hearing more about this from others here; please post if you have thoughts, ideas and opinions. Thank you!!
I'm a big fan of personal networking and face-to-face interaction and I strongly believe in the power of trade show exhibition (even in this economy)... if you do it correctly. All of Matt suggestions are right on -- with the most important one being follow-up. Many companies exhibit at shows, hand out hundreds of business cards, flyers, and promotional material, and then expect attendees to magically sign up for their product/service or follow up with them as the exhibitor. That simply doesn't make sense. As soon as you return from a show you must begin actively following up with prospects and be persistent about it. We exhibited at ad:tech Chicago on September 1st and 2nd and I just had someone respond to my ongoing followups yesterday - and today they have become a partner. Sure, digital media allows us a much greater reach for less money up front, but leads have a much harder time ignoring you after you looked them in the eye and had a real conversation. That is the value of a trade show and personally I will continue to include them in my marketing strategy.
And - adding to Emily's statement of following up right after the event:
Some companies that manage trade shows are hurting themselves. They want you to scan the attendees badge when they visit your booth so you can get a datafile right after the show is over. Attendees often claim they don't have business cards with them (and may not) - "Here - scan my badge."
Some trade show's I've participated in might give you immediate access to the name, company name, and title of people who attended, but take WEEKS to get you more detailed contact information (such as email and phone #), making immediate follow-up impossible, thus diminishing the value of your investment in the trade show.
We've completely stopped attending trade shows as an exhibitor, having averaged 2-3 shows per year for the past 3-4 years due to negligible ROI. OK, we can kid ourselves about lifetime value of new customers and convince ourselves that the 3 days of the exhibition generated 50-75 "qualified leads" but in reality the "total costs" far outweighed the benefit.
We've found also that the level of prospects tend to be "Generation X" employees/execs who value their position of being able to still attend trade shows and catch up on industry trends, competitive information old buddies, etc, etc. Generation Y prospects who are now increasingly the influencers and DMUs, simply go to one exhibition, i.e. Google. This begs an interesting debate in itself: If a prospect has to attend a trade show to gather the requisite information in order to make buying decisions (and all that that entails. . .) then there's an instant reflection on the modus operandi of that organisation.
In this day and age the efficacy of attending an exhibition/trade show must surely be extremely low and those that have the time to do so, probably don't understand the quantum shift that has taken place. So who's conning who?
I'm still seeing a fairly heavy reliance on events in general for B2B complex sales. We've recruited attendees for over 100 different tech events this year so far. They may not all be large tradeshows - some are company-specific events.
In my experience this year, there are a number of companies with sales teams that will continue to rely on tradeshows. I've actually seen companies chose tradeshows over less expensive (and typically more productive practices, such as teleprospecting).
The B2B sales teams that feel the need to be on the road to sell will continue to support large events. These are not typically the types of folks who will adopt social media or develop an email program to reach prospects, because they are more comfortable wtih face to face time.
Depending on the type of show, you can convert to virtual trade shows and hit a higher concentration of your target audience. If you are in the retail display business, a trade show is a great tool because it's visual and all about merchandising. I find that attending virtual trade shows, at my desk and at my convenience, helps me cruise through the clutter and find the exhibitors I'm interested in doing business with.
Meeting with people face to face will always be the most effective way to build and nurture business relationship. So, I think that some types of trade shows will exist forever. However, I do think that some of the type national shows will go away and there will be more regional and long-tail conferences.
While I believe tradeshows overall are dying, marketers ought to get smarter about them. When you talk to our prospects and customers, you should ask about what trade shows and events they visit. Make it part of the profile. Go to the ones they go to and no others.
I know a search marketing firm that spent their entire marketing budget to sponsor a search marketing conference in NYC. Leads generated -- zero. Marketing budget -- wasted.
While trade show attendance may be down, I still think they're an essential piece to the old school marketing mix. I'm a firm believer in Integrated Marketing Communications - the holistic approach to marketing communication that aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. Rather than just exhibiting at an event, ask yourselves if you're truly leveraging that tactic.
- Are you exhibiting at events where you get access to a pre and/or post attendance list?
- Are you sending out communications prior and driving people to your space?
- Are you leveraging the location by setting up meetings with nearby customers and prospects?
- Do you attend alot of events that your customers attend? They're generally the best folks to have onsite and champion your product.
- Do you participate in events with partners to cut down costs?
- Do you take advantage of the networking events?
I think tradeshows are still very valuable if efficiently leveraged. Brainshark still participates in 25-30 events annually with great return. We use our own product for sending out pre/post show communications and track the viewing for sales to follow up. There's still something to be said for face to face meetings and building rapport. I think it's just a matter of modernizing these old tactics with a more integrated approach.
-Amanda
Marketing Programs Mgr.
The trade show is not dead...At least not just yet. They are still a valuable part of a multifaceted marketing strategy and one that can bring revenue if you focus on those events that have proven successful in past years.
Yes, trade show attendance is down. Travel budgets are being cut. But we as marketers should see this as a positive. Would be attendees are filtering themselves out due to lack of a clear reason for them to be there in the first place. Their managers, policies, and lack of a real projects are doing a good bit of the triage/initial qualification we would have to do in sales. For that, I for one say thank you.
After attending several major events in our market (enterprise data management) and analyzing the results(sales ready opportunities and revenue) these are my findings.
1. The days of prospects attending events to get a free vacation is over. The majority of the individuals with whom I spoke had to create a justification for attending the event. This is a good thing.
2. The majority of attendees have or are currently planning a project that will include a technology purchase within the next 6-12 months. A very good thing.
3. Decreasing numbers of "just researching" attendees. The vast majority of attendees are there to gain insight into how to best deploy their initiatives. This does not mean in all cases attendees had a project that would fit our technology, but is to be expected.
Trade shows still have their place and we will continue to stay involved in those that produce results while weeding out those that do not. Stay focused out there.
Jon
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