Question

Topic: Research/Metrics

Need To Come Up With Tradeshow Metrics For Myself

Posted by Anonymous on 3/13/2008 at 12:54 PM ET 250 Points
I'm in charge of coordinating tradeshow for my company. I've come up with goals for each show and metrics to evaluate the success of each show. But now my boss wants me to come up with metrics to evaluate my own success at these shows. He wants quantifiable things

I can come back and say that I did. I’m not sure how to go about doing this. I don’t want to get buried in the minutia- had the booth set up on time, had it staffed the entire show, stayed under budget. But I’m not sure how I can go about giving him what he wants. Shouldn’t the fact that we were at the show, brought back leads and had an awesome booth be enough?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Levon on 3/13/2008 at 1:46 PM Accepted
    Sounds like your boss knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing!

    Your going to the event for the potential of meeting clients and partners - building a positive image in the minds' of your industry and so is everyone else attending the event. That's the irony.

    What is your goal for the event? Is it sales, leads, building affiliates, obtaining a list, spying on the competition? Maybe its a test exercise. Maybe its all of these.

    Be realistic and set your goals so that they can be met. It is really hard to predict an outcome of something that you have no experience undergoing in the past.
  • Posted on 3/13/2008 at 3:01 PM Accepted
    Hello,

    If you have a B2B audience:
    A month or two before the show try to get some appointments with potential customers at the show.

    Some event companies provide a attendee list before the show. Use it to make appointments.

    Show him you are being pro-active, instead of standing at a booth waiting for prospects to come to you.

    Good Luck
  • Posted by Tracey on 3/13/2008 at 6:19 PM Accepted
    It sounds like you are responsible for planning/coordinating the trade show, but not necessarily for following up on leads - is that correct? If so, make sure you separate your success metrics from those of the salespeople. That is, you might set up a perfect tradeshow that garners 50 leads. If the salespeople don't follow up on any of them, you shouldn't be blamed for it. Here are some ideas for metrics you may find helpful. I would caution you to tie yourself only to goals that really spell out success for YOU.

    - Implemented tradeshow plan within budget (might add +/- 10%).
    - Created/implemented tradeshow strategy (here's where you need to be specific about the goals of the tradeshow -- lead generation, brand awareness, etc. and how you carried that goal through your tradeshow strategy)
    - Developed a process for tradeshow implementation. (If you created repeatable, documented processes, this is a good one).
    - If you're responsible for recommending shows and creating the show schedule, you could put a goal about that. I.e, gathered input from key stakeholders to create schedule...
    - You could add a professional development goal. E.g., learned xyz, or got trade show manager certification, etc.

    You may not want to get too specific on numbers -- like, generated x number of leads -- because that doesn't necessarily reflect success on your part. If there was a bad show or sales didn't invite people to the booth, etc., you still may have done a great job.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 3/14/2008 at 9:14 AM Accepted
    No doubt you already have a to-do checklist. If you were satisfied how you met each item, check it off. If things didn't work out, there were snags, then flag them (with an explanation). Ignoring the metric angle - it'll be a great list to use for the next show and avoid the problems you encountered. It will, in fact, turn into a manual over time (what to do, when to do it, and how to do it).
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 3/16/2008 at 8:18 PM Accepted
    Can you tell us what goals you've established for each show and the metrics you've established for checking your achievement against those goals?

    I'm concerned you say your boss wants "quantifiable". Your goals and metrics should be "measureable, if not all quantifiable. Some will be quantifiable but others will be quality based metrics - I hope.

    Your overall performance as the convener, organiser and manager of your firm's booth should be against those goals, not some other set of goals...

    So my guess is either:

    1. You boss doesn't think your goals & metrics cut it. Or...
    2. S/he doesn't understand them.

    Either way, you have a problem you need to resolve quickely, effectively and to your boss' satisfaction.

    So, tell me about those goals and metrics...

    ChrisB
  • Posted on 3/17/2008 at 11:48 AM Author

    The thing is- for this year's marketing tradeshow metrics, we've really only focused on the numbers of leads we get. And, of course, qualifying and tracking those leads.

    And of the 7 shows we are doing this year, 3 are new to our company. So we have no history or data to compare them to previous years.

    And we have no database of leads. I’m just supposed to hand them off to our VP of Sales and then follow up with him. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to track those leads.

    But that’s for another question.
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 3/17/2008 at 6:48 PM Member
    l.benson

    I know what you're going through, having been there myself in the past.

    I'll come back in around 24 hours and give you some ideas on how to set up some solid metrics for your trade shows.

    ChrisB

    PS If you can add a bit more detail to your profile (e.g. where you are based, what industry, etc.) you'll find the responses you get will be a lot more targeted towrads helping you.
  • Posted on 3/21/2008 at 11:50 AM Author
    I'm in the manufacturing business. I'm based in Los Angeles, but we have offices all over the world. I'm responsible for the tradeshows in North America.

    I only have to do 7 tradeshows a year, but I have the largest budget in the company- and it's not even that much really ($200K but we spend about $100K on our largest show where we throw a party)

  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 3/21/2008 at 6:40 PM Member
    l.benson

    That's helpful. if you put that kind of info into your profile it will be available to respondents on future questions too. If you click on a person's name - the blue text at the start of each response -you'll see their profile, and that's what a lot of the experts here do, to find out more about the questioner's business.

    OK, back to trade show metrics:

    This is probably stating the obvious, but the key thing to measure - which is the key thing to manage is what you spend versus what you get back.

    You need to add up the whole cost of attending a trade show event (everything - staff wages, travel, accommodation, booth costs, entertainment, gifts and promos, product samples, direct mail programs and trade publication advertising, etc) then allocate a value to each lead and/or sale you get, then calculate a ratio (total costs)/(total value of all leads) and (total cost)/(total value of all sales at the show).

    I also like to do a follow up on all the leads generated after 2, 4, 8 and twelve weeks, to find out what value of sales was closed after the show from leads generated at the show, and issue follow-up statistics in post-show analysis reports.

    Unless your typical sales cycle is very long, I wouldn't worry about tracking leads longer than 3 months form the end of a particular trade show.

    One of the most comprehensive summaries of trade show metrics can be found in a MarketingProfs template by another KHE expert, Ruth Stevens, available here.

    Ruth also has a 350-page text book on running a Trade Show presence which you can buy here and I would highly recommend it.

    Once you've read both those publications, I think you'll know more that you'll ever need to know, to satisfy any boss.

    Something you can do to help bring forward actual sales, as opposed to leads, is to have trade show special deals that are only available at the show.

    You can extend the offer validity to leads generated at the show for some flexible period after the show to help get any ditherers across the line.

    Do be firm once you decide to close that deadline otherwise prospective customers will just keep stringing you along.

    Using the "trade show special" technique, walking the sales team through the booth, offering increased sales commissions for sales signed up at the show, and having pre-opening sales meetings every day of the show, (at which the previous days sales were reported and loudly celebrated) helped me increase trade show sales for one company by 8,000 per cent. (i.e. an 80-fold increase).

    Hope that helps!

    ChrisB
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