Do Trade Shows Pay Off in Big Sales?

Conventional wisdom is that trade shows and conferences are an excellent way to schedule multiple face-to-face meetings. But how cost-effective are they in generating sales, compared to other kinds of customer-facing activities?

According to a recent survey conducted by the global research firm Oxford Economics, traveling to a customer site to have a face-to-face meeting had an average ROI of approximately $17.50 per dollar invested.

Care to guess the similar figure for trade show and conference attendance?

CLICK for the correct answer »

The correct answer is: About $5. According to the executives surveyed, while conference and trade show participation returns ranged from $4-$5.99 per dollar invested.

Does this mean that you should be spending big on trade shows? Not necessarily.

The Oxford Economics study only covered travel expenses, not the expense of setting up a booth and paying the conference fees. As I pointed out in "Are Trade Show Sales Leads Worth It?" and "Are Trade Shows Blackmailing You?", many marketing and sales organizations are beginning to look askance at trade shows as a lead generation method.

However (and this is important), many trade shows are opportunities to network and meet with large numbers of EXISTING customers and, as such, are relationship-building events. Thus, even if trade show leads tend to be expensive, that's not the only reason to attend.

BTW, I originally thought -- a couple of years ago -- that trade shows were completely useless because the data was beginning to show that the resulting leads were too expensive relative to other forms of selling. However, you guys set me straight, and pointed out the value of the relationship building.

It was one of those many times where I learned something new from the Sales Machine readers, rather than the other way around.

NOTE: An easy-to-follow system for selling B2B -- including an entire chapter on demonstrating products -- is provided in my new book How to Say It: Business to Business Selling available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Indiebound.
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