While walking the exhibit hall at a recent direct marketing conference I tried to understand why some of the exhibitors were there. Clearly many felt having a booth was a key part of their multichannel marketing efforts to attract business-to-business customers. However, most of the booths and the staff manning them acted as if they were exiled from high potential sales opportunities rather than performing an important marketing channel effort. I speculated about their decision to sponsor and staff those booths.
Most marketers follow a thoughtful decision making process to allocate their budgets to their online and catalog merchandising of products and services. Web pages are inexpensive and unlimited. A firm’s entire inventory can be included. Realistically, the top sellers are identified through analyses of sales history and projections of potential sales. The items or services aligned with the current strategy of the firm’s brand and editorial agenda will be featured on the home and main landing pages. Catalog and direct mail pages are expensive and limited. The previous catalog results as well as recent Web sales history can drive the selection of high potential items and services for those limited square inches.
Trade show booth space and time is even more limited than square inches in print. The exhibit hall is not available to attendees after the show. Sales collateral such as brochures and CDs or DVDs can have a lingering impact. But the distribution of the exhibit hall materials as well as the other brand and editorial messages at most booths is funneled through the booth staff. The booth itself plays a role in attracting prospects. However, I have learned a lot about valuable services at uninspired booths when the staffers invited me to notice them with perceptive questions as I walked by.
My recent experience leads me to conclude that most booth sponsors don’t use the same decision making process for trade show participation that they do for their other marketing channels. Trade show investment and return analysis should parallel catalog and online techniques. Historical and anticipated show attendance should be considered beside catalog circulation and Web page views. Booth square footage investment should follow catalog square inch productivity and web time-on-page scrutiny. Most importantly, booth staff productivity in getting attendees’ attention and securing leads measured as gathered business cards or scanned badges with comments about needs and intentions should be somewhere in line with catalog response percentages and web page click-throughs.
The obligation of a multichannel marketer is to insure that the tactics for each channel are equally well executed and measured equally and accurately with similar techniques. The money spent on an under-performing channel should be diverted to more productive channels. If your company is going to pursue a multichannel strategy you should insure that each channel, including trade show participation, is contributing toward the firm’s communications, lead generation and revenue goals on an equal basis.
Bill Singleton is a manager of analytical services at The Allant Group, a database marketing and consulting services firm in Naperville, IL.
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