What's the Value of Trade Show Exhibiting?

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What’s the Value of Trade Show Exhibiting?
August 25, 2009 | Michael Flavin | Comments 3 .A crowd of potential clients can visit you at your trade show booth, a lot more than your sales people can visit in a day.
I often hear this question: “Help, please! My trade shows are under attack from management! What is the value of meeting a customer or prospect on the trade show floor versus in their office?”

Trade Shows Work

An estimated 110 million people attend more than 4,000 shows in the United States and Canada every year (courtesy: tradeshowsandevents.com). How many clients or prospects can your sales reps see per day? Maybe 3-4 or 6-7?

Consider a 20 total hour show with 10,000 attendees. You have the potential to visit with up to 500 people per hour. Even if you only meet with 5% of those attendees, you’ll end up with the opportunity to connect, face-to-face, with 25 people per hour. To achieve the same level of success, one sales rep would need 20 weeks!

The Numbers

Trade show exhibiting, it’s a great value. Consider the following numbers, provided by CEIR.org:

For the past 10 years, an average of 81%-83% of visitors have some kind of buying power.
The average visitor spends 9.2 hours at a 2-3 day trade show.
86% of your visitors will be new contacts.
77% of visitors will remember your company for up to 10 weeks.
Cost per lead from show averages $212.00.
Cost per lead from field averages $308.00.
Cost per sale from a show averages $705.00.
Cost per sale from the field averages $1140.00.
That’s 38% less for a sale from a trade show lead!
How to Use This Info

I suggest you share these numbers with your management and accounting teams. Then couple the information with your own statistics & measurement results, so that you can help everyone understand the importance of your trade show marketing program.

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