Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

To compute a true ROI, you would need to know the variable profit on that $230,275 in revenue. Let's say it's 25%, or $57,569. You'd then divide that number by your investment amount and come up with 325% ROI. Not bad.

That means you could expect $3.25 in incremental profit for every $1.00 you invest in trade shows -- assuming this result is typical/repeatable.

Both previous responses are dead on. However, I would question how you can attribute the $230,275 only to the trade show. Would these customers have bought anyway? Did you engage in an expensive ad campaign to get prospect to the trade show?

Attributing revenue to a specific marketing action is one of the key challenges in calculating ROI. Ideally, we measure all relevant marketing actions and revenue streams over time and then use regression to partial out what contributes to which revenue stream

The Event Marketing Institute, the MPI Foundation and George P. Johnson just released yesterday the EventView 2009: Global report - which has graphs and narrative comparing the impact of events versus the other marketing channels.

One of the the key stats is that most senior marketing and sales execs put events and web marketing at the head of the pack for ROI specifically.

Here's a link to more info: https://gpj.com/asset/pdf/rp00000066_090428134700.pdf

You can also go to CEIR's website at ceir.org, they have useful research and tools to help you build the empirical case for the trade show investment.