We’ve already established that companies spend a lot of money at events. 57% of companies spend more than 25% of their annual budgets on events. And 69% of marketers plan on increasing their spend on events next year.
But for all the money that’s being spent, event teams need a concrete way to showcase the returns that companies can get from B2B events. To get bigger budgets for future events, they’ll need to clearly demonstrate the value of events to their upper management. But what constitutes value at events?
It’s the sales pipeline being built at events.
So which components of event spends are best suited for increasing the sales pipeline? Booths or meetings rooms? Let’s look at the facts.
Booths are the face of the company’s presence at events, and is the first touchpoint for customers and prospects.
How much does it cost?
Events come in all shapes and sizes, and the costs will vary depending on that. But for the purpose of this comparison, we can assume an average rate of $40K-60K for a 20×20 Booth. And this is for mid-size events. If you are looking at an event like CES, the costs can quickly add up to over $100K for the booth fabrication and space.
What do companies get out of it?
Booths are great for building brand awareness, and to lure prospects into the sales funnel. They catch the eye of passers-by, and can instantly pique interest in a company’s service or product.
What metrics do they track?
For booths, companies track the number of badge scans, post-event surveys, and the number of walk-ins. Which are all great, and gives them a sense of the success of the booth. But those metrics alone are not adequate for justifying the event costs. Event teams who solely rely on these metrics report that they face cutbacks on their event budgets, because these metrics cannot be directly tied back to the sales pipeline built.
How much does it cost?
The cost of meeting spaces varies with the type of event (as above) but they tend to cost around $3500 per day on an average.
What do companies get out of it?
Events are particularly great for face-to-face meetings, that otherwise would not happen.
Most b2b meetings are being done remotely to save costs, but events are a great excuse to get some face-time with prospects. And 95% of professionals believe that face-to-face meetings are key to successful business relationships, and make for sales outcomes.
To event teams, meeting rooms are just another part of their event checklist. But these meeting rooms are being used to discuss deals that directly add to the sales pipeline at events. Once event teams start tying together the pipeline built to the costs of meeting rooms, they would be able to accurately measure their event ROI and command bigger budgets.
What metrics do they track?
Meetings data are a goldmine of insights. Right from the obvious ones such as the size of deals discussed at the meeting, to the number of attendees, the type of attendees, they offer actionable information on bettering their impact on the sales pipeline.
Booths are important for reeling in the prospects, and meeting rooms are important to close deals. An increased focus on meeting rooms, with a sales-pipeline driven approach would definitely put event teams in a place where they can command larger budgets for future events, which can be in turn used for better booths. With these tactics, event teams can make their next event presence bigger and better.
