measure ROI when so many other marketing tactics get away with measuring objectives achieved and not actual ROI.
How do you measure a trade show?
Phew, now we’ve got that out of the way – there’s absolutely no excuse for not setting some SMART objectives for your trade show activity and there are most definitely ways you can measure whether your event has delivered what you set out to achieve. When we ask exhibitors, ‘What’s your objective for attending a trade show?’, we so often get the response, ‘To meet people’, and that’s about as much thought as goes into it. If that is genuinely your objective then undoubtedly, you’ll achieve it, just through meeting security when you arrive, the bar man at the hotel, a bloke in the toilets who’s at a different event in the same venue and the cleaner who tidies up your stand but can any of those people contribute to the delivery of your overall business objectives? Getting SMART about your objectives focuses your mind for every subsequent decision you make about how to spend money on a show and how that contributes to achieving your overall business strategy. But how do you get SMART in the context of trade shows?
Looking back to Chapter 2 remember why you decided that trade shows were even the right tactic for your business in the first place – what is it about a trade show that makes you confident it can contribute to the overall delivery of your plan?
Some of the big marketing ideas (macro objectives) for exhibiting at a trade show might be:
• Entering a newly identified market with an existing product or service
• Launching a new product or service into an existing market
• Entering a new market with a new product or service
• To drive brand awareness in a current market with existing and prospect customers
• To be part of the industry conversation
• To collaborate or initiate a conversation with partners who could be useful
These are not so great examples of objectives for exhibiting at a trade show but ones we have heard before:
• Because we always have
• Because the organiser is a mate of the boss
• Because it was cheap
• Because I fancied a trip to Spain/USA/Birmingham
• Because the competition exhibit there (that’s a tough one – see below)
The first step in setting SMART objectives that actually mean something to your business plan is working out specifically why you’re exhibiting and that should be fairly obvious from the thinking you did in Chapter 2. Picking up on exhibiting because ‘the competition are’, it is admittedly a tricky argument. There is some credence in the suggestion that if your competitors are exhibiting at a show it is likely to attract the same visitors who you could do business with and that provides you with an audience. It is equally worth noting that you may be conspicuous by your absence and as shows impact the buying decision of 91% of visitors (GraphiColor Exhibits, 2017), by not being there, the only decision a potential customer can make is to buy from someone else. However, exhibiting just because a competitor is doesn’t make a strong enough objective on its own. What if your competitor is much bigger than you, with more money to invest, making you look inferior by comparison even though you know you have a better product? Is there a more creative and less comparable way you can engage with them to demonstrate your quality? What if your competitor is only exhibiting because they always have without thinking about whether it’s right strategically for them – it’s a bad reason for them to exhibit and a doubly bad reason for you just to copy. So there might be a good reason to exhibit if your competitors are, but you probably need to explore more deeply if there are other reasons why it’s right for you. Also, remember the visitor’s perception of a company and brand that isn’t supporting an industry show can reduce by as much as 5% (Russo, 2017).
If you’ve figured out the big reason why you’re going to invest thousands, potentially tens of thousands of pounds in a trade show, congratulations, but you’re only halfway there in terms of SMART objectives and there’s still a bit more work to do. Just knowing you want to launch in a new market doesn’t tell you who you’re going to meet, how many you want to meet or how you’re going to communicate your expertise and start building those relationships that are eventually going to lead to profitable sales. So how do you set SMART objectives for what is considered such an intangible tactic? It might help to sit down at this point and imagine being back in the office the day after a show, talking to your colleagues who ask you ‘So was it a success?’. Imagine having an answer ready for them that starts ‘Yes, because…’ while you’re able to reel off all the great things that have happened and how they will specifically contribute to the delivery of your organisation’s business plan.
So here are some ideas that might inspire you towards setting your own SMART objectives:
• To distribute 3,000 samples of our new product variety to visitors
• To host five demonstrations with 20 interested buyers at each session
• To contribute to a live panel discussion featuring two of the key thought leaders in the industry
• To make contact with five high potential prospects and secure a follow-up meeting
• To give out literature and contact details to 100 interested browsers
• To ensure 2,000 visitors leave with our giveaway that reminds them what we do
• To meet the senior team from our top five customers
These are just generic examples and there will be hundreds of other examples that are possible based on the industry you work in. We will talk more about definite buyers and interested browsers in Chapter 4, but not every visitor to a show will be a potential buyer of your product, however well you’ve done your research, so it’s useful early on to manage expectations and understand what’s realistic in terms of contact. However, if you do know the average order value for customers you can start to add some more specific figures about the number of contacts you’re likely to meet, potential conversion rates and possible order values that start to bring your objectives to life, especially for a sales team who are always focused on the numbers.
Another comment we often hear in relation to setting objectives is ‘we want to meet everyone who attends’, which is an admirable if somewhat challenging aspiration. This is so often the default position for exhibitors who think that trade shows are all about meeting as many people as possible without considering the resource needed on the stand to talk to that many people, never mind the sales force required to follow up with them. In reality, research shows that on average 16–20% of a trade show audience will be able to buy your product or service (Bailey, 2004). Without any targeting or filtering, gathering contact details for every random visitor who attends the show becomes a value-less experience. Exhibitors fail to engage with visitors who have a real prospect of buying in the haste to move on to scanning the next person’s business card. It’s worth remembering that just one or two high-value contacts at a show could return more in orders than the cost of the show itself. We will go into how to engage and filter visitors in more detail in Chapter 4.
So, just
