When it comes to exhibit at the major cities across the US, measuring ROI from trade shows is an important part of justifying your budgets and determining whether participation is worth the investment for trade show displays Houston, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and other major trade show hubs across the US.
The vibrant trade show industry makes ROI analysis especially relevant for exhibitors like you seeking to maximize returns. Here are some of the best methods for you to accurately gauging the return on investments from your exhibits:
Set Clear Objectives:
The first step is setting clear, measurable objectives for your trade show. This could include your goals like generating X qualified leads, securing Y sales appointments or meetings, unveiling a new product, etc.
Having quantifiable targets enables you later assessment of success. General goals like “increase awareness” are difficult to evaluate.
Track Booth Traffic:
Visitors to your booth are potential sales opportunities, so it’s crucial to track traffic patterns to understand engagement. Tools like clickers, digital counters, or time-stamped photos allow your staff to record quantitative foot traffic over the show days and times. This informs future planning and staffing needs.
Collect Quality Lead Data:
Ensure your staff are gathering complete contact and qualifier information from every prospect including name, title, company, address, phone, email, and areas of interest using digital or paper forms. Incomplete entries provide little ROI insight. Capturing robust lead profiles allows you post-show follow-up.
Survey Attendees:
Creating brief visitor surveys distributed at the trade show booth displays gauges success on softer metrics like brand awareness, interest in products/services, and likelihood to purchase. Survey participation incentives encourage response rates providing rich impression data.
Conduct Pre/Post Research:
Comparing pre- and post-show surveys to a control group measures lifted awareness and perceptions directly attributed to exhibiting. This quantifies any change in unaided recall, opinion of offerings, or inclination to buy as a result of attendance.
Track On-Site Conversions:
Note any on-site sales, meetings booked, partnership agreements signed, or other on-floor conversions providing immediate hard ROI from the show investment itself. While a small percentage of overall leads, these validate the value of exhibiting.
Document Follow Up Actions:
Following up qualitatively by phone and email after your event identifies interested prospects to be nurtured over time through the sales cycle. Tracking the volume and outcome of follow-ups shows return potential in qualified pipeline opportunities.
Analyze Long Term Sales Impact:
The true ROI comes from sales cycles extending beyond the actual show dates as a result of attendance and follow-up activity. Monitor your new customer wins, contracts, renewals, or expanded projects won months later that can be attributed directly back to your exhibition participation.
While soft metrics like improved brand metrics are also valuable, major trade shows benefit from emphasis on quantifying hard sales achievements either directly onsite or soon thereafter, combined with analysis of your investments to trade show exhibit rental, robust lead data, traffic patterns, and surveys to paint a complete ROI picture.
ROI Reporting Frameworks:
To ensure you as an exhibitor can see maximum value from measurement, reports should follow structured frameworks validated by industry bodies. Examples include:
- Show ROI Model: Calculates returns against investment costs including pre-show brand research, booth design/build, staffing/travel, lead generation, and lead management efforts post-show.
- AEM Cost Calculation Forms: Standardized templates from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers assess hard/soft ROI factors from leads to partnerships to future revenue.
- CEIR Framework: Developed by CEIR, this evaluates booth traffic metrics, lead quality improvements year over year, and sales cycle conversion attribution to participation.
- Fusion Framework: Incorporates CEIR approaches alongside survey pre/post comparisons and long-term brand tracking to understand the full multi-year ROI journey.
Templates bring structure and consistency allowing more accurate benchmarking of your exhibition performance against past shows or competitors to optimize your exhibit future strategies.
ROI Technology:
Technology streamlines measurement ROI processes. Integrated exhibitor dashboards aggregate traffic patterns, attendee engagement data, lead retrieval insights, survey results, and sales pipeline updates in one place for your easy trade show assessment.
Specialized lead retrieval apps distribute digital forms captured on mobile devices. Automated survey distribution through custom QR links encourages response rates for instant insights. Analytics tools crunch large data volumes pinpointing top-performing elements.
By investing in measurement best practices guided by proven ROI models and technology, exhibitors like you gain a real understanding of return on objectives. You can make smarter strategic decisions that raise events’ value as a proven driver of qualified sales opportunities over the long run.
CONCLUSION –
Ultimately, no single ROI metric or method alone tells the full story of your exhibit display companies. Blending quantitative sales data, lead quality insights, brand impact valuations, and benchmarking year-over-year performance provides the clearest view of total long-term returns generated by exhibitions.
The investment is proven worthwhile through comprehensive, structured analysis guiding optimized strategies.
