Organizations have relied on the trade show industry for decades as one of their most impactful marketing channels. But now, with event costs on the rise, many executives are wondering: Are trade shows worth it?
In short, they are — that is, if you set yourself up for success. There are many reasons why trade show marketing is still an effective growth vehicle. However, there are also several obstacles you’ll have to overcome.
The good news? Optimizing your event is a lot easier than it sounds, especially with the help of meeting scheduling automation. In this guide, we’ll highlight why this marketing channel is worth your investment and what you can do to maximize its outputs.
Benefits of trade show marketing
More than just a marketing channel, the trade show industry is a unique opportunity to acquire new leads, close deals with potential buyers and grow your business at scale.
Indeed, trade shows are great for many use cases, such as:
- Increasing brand awareness: Almost 88% of businesses participate in trade shows to enhance brand awareness. Why? Because they bring large swaths of their target audience within reach. No matter your organization, you can make a lasting impression on trade show attendees by engaging them in meetings, booth tours, sessions and other types of engagements.
- Advancing the sales pipeline: Trade shows are an excellent opportunity to connect with your target accounts at pivotal moments in the buying process. Whether they be with current or prospective customers, meetings have the power to further lead generation, sales and other business objectives. For example, introducing a prospect to one of your product experts may be exactly what you need to seal the deal.
- Face-to-face time with potential buyers: There’s perhaps no better way to engage a potential customer than at a live event. Plus, it’s much more cost-effective. Meeting with a prospect at a trade show costs around $142, which is $117 less expensive than meeting them at their office, where the average cost is $259.
- Marketing products and services: Bringing a new product to market? Trade shows can help you keep prospective and existing customers informed of the latest offerings. According to 92% of trade show attendees, their main reason for attending is to see new product demos and presentations.
Connecting organizational goals with trade show participation
With benefits abounding, it’s no wonder why many enterprises focus on event marketing. But, before you start booking a full trade show calendar, think strategically about your approach.
As advantageous as they can be, events are also an enormous investment of time and money. If you aren’t careful about which events you attend and how you manage them, you may not be harnessing their full potential. Even worse, you could be leaving money on the table.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1. What are your organizational goals?
Events can serve many objectives, but it’s best to focus on one or two to guide your team from the outset. For example, marketers frequently participate in trade shows to:
- Create brand awareness.
- Attract and win new business.
- Engage existing opportunities to advance the deal pipeline.
- Cultivate relationships with existing customers.
- Educate customers about new offerings.
Of course, how you define success greatly depends on organizational priorities. Some businesses may be more inclined to spend money on a large booth space at a more prominent location, thereby boosting foot traffic and visibility. Enterprises that are more revenue-focused are better off investing less on a flashy trade show display and more on meeting rooms and hotel suites.
2. Which types of meetings support your goals?
This question is paramount, as certain engagement types align with specific goals more closely than others. For example, if you have a new product, platform or service, holding demos, meet-the-expert meetings and similar presentations would make the most sense.
Trade show challenges (and how to solve them)
Even the most experienced trade show exhibitors run into obstacles. Here are some challenges you might encounter and steps you can take to mitigate them:
1. Creating demand
Events are a great way to engage your target audience, but first, you have to secure their interest — otherwise, your investment may go to waste.
Pre-event demand-generation campaigns can help you do exactly that. Here’s how it works:
- Sales reps manage outbound communications with prospects and customers. By leveraging their industry knowledge and existing relationships, salespeople can reach out to your target market, inform them about the trade show and book them into meetings or sessions.
- Marketers manage inbound meeting requests. Ideally, pre-event marketing activations — banner ads, email, social media, etc. — drive demand and inspire prospects to schedule an engagement. You can make this especially effective by directing them to inbound request pages (IRPs), where they can quickly book the meeting of their choice.
Meeting scheduling and management are difficult if you’re booking a lot of engagements. And, if you’re using manual tools, it becomes a bigger problem in and of itself. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution (see below).
2. Scheduling meetings
Sales reps and marketers too often rely on outdated, paper-based or manual processes for appointment booking. Spreadsheets, for instance, are common scheduling tools, but are littered with errors. This can lead to no-shows, double-bookings and other inefficiencies that undermine meetings and sessions.
The most effective way to solve this problem is through meeting scheduling automation. A robust platform, like Jifflenow’s eEvent software, can streamline appointment booking at scale.
It empowers trade show attendees to request meetings mapped to specific engagement types and topics of interest. Plus, managers can automate approvals, reminders and notifications while pre-scheduling thousands of customer meetings. Not only does this mitigate the risk of no-shows and cancelations, it also ensures your internal experts are always kept busy.
3. Resource utilization
Executives want their marketers to spend less and get more bang for their buck. One way to maximize return on investment (ROI) is to cut back on resources that don’t directly contribute to trade show ROI.
Rather than a fancy exhibit or display, devote your budget to more meeting space throughout your trade show booth. This way, you can accommodate more engagements with potential clients. Better yet, get creative and host prospects elsewhere across the venue, such as hotel suites or conference rooms, which are usually available at a lower rate.
4. Sales and marketing alignment
Bridging the gap between sales and marketing is tough. Many teams don’t share the same goals or approach events the same way, which ultimately undercuts performance.
Start by breaking down the technological barrier. Deploy a meeting scheduling platform that seamlessly integrates with both sales and marketing automation systems, allowing either department to synchronize data and stay aligned on core objectives.
With Jifflenow, you gain a centralized hub for all meeting notes, target accounts and expert schedules, providing full visibility for the entire event.
5. Reporting trade show ROI
Many trade show exhibitors struggle to accurately report event ROI, as it’s a very elusive and misunderstood concept. Few know how to effectively quantify the business impact of their event marketing efforts, particularly when it comes to meetings and sessions.
Fortunately, meeting scheduling automation software can help in this regard. Jifflenow’s platform makes it easy to connect sales metrics to meeting data and generate reports. This means you can measure the effect customer engagements have on pipeline acceleration, revenue growth and any other critical objective you may have. Better yet, you can easily share reports with stakeholders to demonstrate success.
Amplify meetings at trade shows today
Are trade shows worth it? No doubt. But, to maximize their returns, the best way to approach trade show marketing is through scheduling meetings with prospects and customers.
The process is hard, but Jifflenow makes it simple. Our eEvent software harnesses automation to help you schedule more engagements, advance more pipelines and generate more revenue.
Ready to get started? Request a demo today.
