COMMENTS
Tradeshows have been something many of us have loved to hate for a long time. Longer even than that distant era known as "Pre-Internet". Even then, CEOs and their bean-counting exec staffs would chant in unison, "What's the ROI? What's the ROI?" Funny thing is, whenever anyone would seriously propose an alternative, the first question from these same execs would be to ask which competitors would be there, or which hot new startups. Next thing you know, we'd be shipping a new booth to the show, budget be damned. As for 2009 numbers, I'm not sure that the worst recession since the FDR administration is indicative of any longer-term trend. Fact is, a lot people secretly like shows. CEOs included.
Interesting article. I think that social media has been taking away from the marketing budgets more and more. Pepsi was a huge example of this. People are finally starting to utilize webinars and other social media platforms more effectively. I would say my company has greatly reduced their tradeshow budget. They are time consuming, expensive, exhausting and highly cluttered.
Where I am in Asia, tradeshows and conferences are still pretty much alive.
Although social media is a hot topic, the corporate executives are still asking about its ROI (IMHO that's the same question they should ask about tradeshows!)
I'm not arguing that social media isn't the best option, but woulnt you also think that part of the shrinkning attendance would be linked to the economy? Whose to say the numbers won't go back up if the economy recovers?
Events are the essential social media in any marketing mix.
There will always be a place for face-to-face <a>http://bit.ly/5zX99t<a>. While online social media is growing fast on a small base, event spending is likely to grow as well on its huge base, especially with innovations delivering ,better, faster, cheaper events, <a>http://bit.ly/djbFYQ<a>. One has to distinguish between the cyclical phenomenon of reduced marketing spending driven by the business cycle and the secular phenomenon of shifts toward online direct marketing and broadcast advertising with the development of new online media. The balance of resources may shift but effective integrated marketing will always include events.
Trade shows are becoming less effective as a general trend. I noticed that for a business that I used to own 2 years ago. The trends 'feels' like it is continuing.
One of the things that I was thinking this could be due to was that people were so much more likely to check things out online and could just get samples of things if they wanted to take a closer look.
Tradeshows have been something many of us are still using but i think as rightly said it is getting used less as we use more and more inbond marketing and specially social networking as a tool for the inbond marketing and it has much better effect on what we want to tell custommer and show them aswell yosef
I would also include in that 15K spend an effort to build up a company newsletter by utilizing co-reg marketing activities.
Online marketing spending of all types including online “social media” continued to grow in the recession which started in December of 2007 while total marketing spending declined especially last year. A substantial portion of the decline in trade show spending was a function of the decline in total spending. But as comments above indicate, online search appears to be an effective substitute for tradeshows for general information gathering, which typically is an early stage in the sales cycle. Information gathers can be identified online, nurtured and converted to prospects without the face-to-face, truly social, media of trade shows and events. So the role and perhaps the share of marketing spending for events is changing. But as I asserted above, there will always be a key place for face-to-face, e.g. SXSW, PAX East which just ended here in Boston etc. Question - is it accurate to call tradeshows "outgoing marketing?"
This column makes an interesting point, namely, that the author, along with many others, simply doesn't know how to evaluate the ROI of their face-to-face marketing dollars.
How could anyone possibly compare the ROI of Trade Shows against the ROI of Social Media, without knowing how to measure each one? The answer is, of course, more education. Before throwing the baby out with the bathwater, companies must look hard at all their marketing investments, and not simply throe money at a channel or tool because it "seems like the right thing to do". Frankly, ROI at a trade is a fairly simple thing to measure and there are numerous tools available to marketers to do this, as well as tools to improve their strategies and exhibiting tactics to make them work harder.
If anyone wants more information on how to do this, please drop me a line. I'm happy to share expertise in trade show measurement and strategy.
I also agree that Trade Shows aren't for every company, but shouldn't your decision be based on something more than an opinion, or your sore feet?
The statistics from CEIR are correct. The industry is showing a 12.5% decline, coupled with an equal decline in show attendance.
However, think about which 12.5% of the attendees have stopped coming.
If you dig further into the CEIR data you that "Buying Power" percentages are on the rise as overall attendance declines.
What does this mean? It means the less serious buyers are no longer able to justify the travel expense to attend the show -- there are now fewer "tire-kickers". This increases the chances that the encounters at today's trade shows will be more serious than in the past. Sure, you might give out fewer stress balls, and talk to fewer spouses, but the conversations you do have will likely be of better wquality. Are you ready for that?
In all the companies that I have worked with, we have always struggled to justify our 'Trade Show' spend and show a positive ROI. In some cases it was easier than the rest but nonetheless it was always a struggle! Despite this there was / is a huge demand for participating in 'Trade Shows' by the sales organization and senior management, and most often it becomes challenging for marketing to suggest otherwise. With the recent increase in popularity of 'Inbound Marketing' it has become easier to divert the marketing dollars to other channels and justify the spend. But what I would like to explore is the option of 'Online seminars'. Would love to hear others experiences and suggestions about the same.