Simple Steps to Measure Your Tradeshow Marketing

Georgea April 25, 2022

When you're an exhibitor, it can be difficult to measure your marketing success and determine if the effort was worth it. Many exhibitors don't have processes in place for analyzing tradeshow marketing, or it isn't something that occurs to them in the first place.

Tradeshow marketing can significantly improve the success of your exhibits, however. Your analysis provides a visual representation of how your marketing operations are going, so you can refine them for more success in the future.

Follow the steps we've compiled below to measure your tradeshow marketing and discover exactly how your business is doing!

"Tradeshow marketing can significantly improve the success of your exhibits."

Step 1: Outline your revenue details.

Measuring your tradeshow marketing starts with tracking potential revenue gained from the exhibit. This can be a difficult aspect of your tradeshows to outline because you might not be making sales at the exhibit itself.

However, you can outline any hot leads from your sales team, any spike in responses from your marketing team, any seminar participation that seems pertinent to include, and key details of traffic flow around your exhibit. These insights can show you if your exhibit was successful in the ultimate goal sales.

"Measuring your tradeshow marketing starts with tracking potential revenue gained from the exhibit."

Step 2: Estimate your total amount spent and saved.

Exhibits always have unexpected costs, so it is important to note any expenses you tallied up during the process. You should also track any savings or costs you cut. This will give you a better idea of budgeting for the future and can help you see just how much you're getting out of your tradeshow marketing.

Exhibiting can actually save your company money in addition to generating sales revenue. Every dollar of cost avoidance equals a dollar of profit. Include any savings realized because of your program in your calculations to determine your exhibit's success

"Exhibits always have unexpected costs, so it's important to note any expenses you tallied up during the process."

Step 3: Calculate the approximate cost of your meetings.

Successful exhibits involve a lot of meetings between teams. Sales, executives, strategic alliances, association members, channel partners, industry analysts, investors, and technical experts may all be part of planning and executing an exhibit.

Getting teams together incurs a lot of time and expense with travel, facility/rental fees, training opportunities, and more. That's why it's crucial to track how much your meetings and events cost, so you can compare how much you are spending with your return on investment. To calculate these costs, meet with your accounting, sales, and finance departments to iron out the details.

"That's why it's crucial to track how much your meetings and events cost, so you can compare how much you are spending with your return on investment."

Step 4: Determine how many sales may have been lost from the exhibit.

Losses are part of participating in an exhibit your sales team needs to be where the action is to voice your brand, so that means there are field calls that just simply won't occur during that time.

That's not necessarily a bad thing! The purpose of an exhibit is to discover new leads that otherwise may not have heard about your company. So, if the profit you gain from the exhibit is more than the cost of potential sales lost due to your sales team not being able to make field calls, you are on the right track!

"Your sales team needs to be where the action is in order to voice your brand, so that means there are field calls that just simply won't occur during that time."

Step 5: Identify any name-acquisition costs that many have transpired.

Determine the cost of acquiring names for your sales and marketing databases.

With any exhibit, there is potential to walk away with hundreds of new names and contacts that's a lot of potential leads to keep track of!

That's why you should invest in some sort of client database to keep track of names and information for your sales and marketing teams. Hundreds of new, qualified contacts can be made at trade shows. If your company spends money acquiring names, email addresses, or other contact information, it will be simple to assign a monetary value to them.

If you do not have such a database, make sure to consult with list-rental companies to determine the cost of contacts in your industry.

"Determine the cost of acquiring names for your sales and marketing databases."

Get started on your tradeshow marketing plan today

These steps give you the foundation you need to analyze the success of your exhibits.

When you measure your tradeshow marketing, you'll set your sales and marketing teams up for success at events and you can track how your company grows and flourishes with each tradeshow!

Georgea

Georgena