To be or not to be exhibiting at a trade show

To be or not to be exhibiting at a trade show:by The Leads Explorer

The benefits

The benefits for a company to exhibit at a trade show:
- The marketing message gets exposed
- The solutions are on display
- The partners will meet you
- New partners can be found and discussed
- Leads can be generated
- Your sales team has a terrific time: luxury hotel, food, drinks and fun increasing loyalty
- You can check upon all your competitors and see the level of interest received
- Chance to meet CxO people without an appointment
- The resulting sales pays for the investment
- The trade show showed your company is on top for both products and interest generated
- You actually close new deals on the trade show
- Improving your relationships with your customers by dining and wining
Ok – we have looked into this too positively

The disadvantages

The disadvantages for a company exhibit on a trade show:
- The high cost can be wasted almost entirely due to not resulting in sales
- The sales reps and pre-sales engineers could be doing their normal work instead
- The leads generated will never qualify
- The cost per lead is way too high due to the high expenses and the low number of leads
- Interested people you talked too have a too low level in the organization
- Too many badges have been scanned without qualification making the data worthless
- There was more interest for your hostess than your solutions
- The freebies were popular but not your solutions or products
- You have talked more to partners than potential customers
- You and your sales team missed sleep and some got a cold resulting in less productivity the week after
- Several members of your sales team managed to fish for a job with your competitors
- Several laptops or tablets or smartphones were stolen during the trade show
- Your sales team was hanging around with each other instead of addressing interested people
- Collecting freebies was more important than looking for and qualifying leads
- Your sales team is convinced your competitor is doing much better
- Your sales team was more interested in the dining and wining than convincing interested parties
- Too many nights out with existing clients resulting in no additional sales
Ok – we sometimes exaggerated but most actually has happened.
There are both benefits and disadvantages for being present and exhibit as a company on a trade show. You have to weigh the benefits and the disadvantages and come to your own conclusion.
So to be or not to be exhibiting on a trade show ?