When exhibiting, it’s important to learn each time.
If you continuously do the same thing repeatedly when exhibiting and expect different results then you need to ask yourself, are you actually improving your exhibiting techniques? The importance of vetting your key performance indicators (KPIs) is the difference between learning from your past exhibitions and not.
From the countless exhibitions we’ve attended, we have seen many businesses who attend exhibitions solely because they’ve been sold floor space at a discounted price, and they don’t link exhibiting back to their business growth strategy.
However, these businesses will come away with some business cards, phone numbers, and email addresses and deem the trade show a success.
We always like to pose the question 6 months down the line “How successful was your trade show?” – they usually have no idea.
This blog aims to delve deeper into measuring your KPIs to ensure your next trade show is successful.
The questions you should be asking when measuring your KPIs
Your KPIs are your driver to deliver brilliant exhibition results. The importance of measuring these results indicates if: –
- your investment is worthwhile
- to help choose the right exhibition for you
- to improve on your exhibiting
- to encourage goal-driven activities
- To increase your sales revenue and profits
In the first instance, you must justify whether the exhibition you attended was worth it. Exhibitions can be expensive and by measuring your KPIs, you can gather the facts needed to get your marketing mix right.
For example, if you’re planning to exhibit next year, it stems back to how much turnover you’re going to have this year. This in turn will enable you to do a quick calculation to understand your customer value.
By knowing your customer values, you can then look at your conversion rates.
Exhibiting needs to be embedded within your business marketing strategy and isn’t just a standalone marketing activity.
Let’s break this down into a series of questions you should be asking yourself ahead of your next exhibition.
- Your current turnover?
- How many customers do you have?
- Your average customer value?
- Next year’s target turnover?
- What percentage from existing customers?
- What percentage of new customers?
- How many new customers do you need?
By answering these questions, you should achieve a level of clarity surrounding your KPIs as you head into your next exhibition.
Planning your activity at your exhibitions
So, let’s put this into practice.
Your business needs to generate £100,000 worth of new business next year. This may seem like a lot of money but if we scratch beneath the surface and say, for example, your average customer value is £10,000 – this equates to 10 new customers.
If we say the ratio in converting a new lead is one in four (25%) meaning you need to make 40 engagements at your exhibition. Of those 40 presentations, you only get a 50% closure rate which means at an exhibition you need to make 80 qualified leads. If you have 4 booth staff creating 80 leads per day that is 320 leads.
Therefore, you will have to do a lot of engagements and demonstrations.
It’s imperative you plan out all these activities to ensure you get the best results from your exhibition, so you clearly know how many people you need to engage with and how many you have engaged with over the course of your exhibition.
Information is Key
Naturally, one of the ways you can measure your key performance indicators is from the data you collect such as name, email, phone number, and business. But why not take that a little deeper?
Your business may have a multitude of different offerings from consultancy-based services to an actual product. Therefore, when attendees are filling out an engagement form, ask them what it is about your business that interests them. That way, you can tailor your follow-up approach to them based on their response.
Also, asking your attendee how they would like to be contacted will make them feel more at ease when you do follow up with them.
Measuring your way to success
With anything in business, it’s important to be able to measure your KPIs to see if you’re achieving them. That way, you can check your process and make key changes to improve your next exhibition experience.
At Expo Stars, we want to take your shows to the next level. If you want help with understanding how to measure your KPIs or upskilling your team’s engagement and demonstration tactics, be sure to get in touch here, or email us at info@expostars.com.