Useful Metrics for Measuring Trade Show Success

Trade shows offer multiple opportunities for companies. They can present new products, increase sales, and talk with current customers and business partners to strengthen the bond. Trade shows are primarily useful in the B2B area, but how do you know that the event was successful?

The experts have different metrics they use when assessing your company’s trade show performance. Those reports can help adjust your strategy and improve results from these events in the future. Here are what metrics to consider when measuring trade show success!

Booth Visits

According to the reports, the average attendance at US conventions and exhibitions is around 5K. Most visitors attend multiple booths, and you should look forward to attracting as many as possible.

You can use different methods to assess booth visits, such as:

• An RFID technology that would measure each visit automatically
• A click counter that requires someone from your booth to click when a visitor comes
• Using cameras to count people that come to the booth
• Installing floor sensors to monitor traffic

It’s clear why you need a large number of booth visits. It increases the odds of generating more leads. That makes it a crucial metric to track, but how to attract people? It always helps to implement creative trade show booth ideas. You can consider small giveaways and even let visitors play games to win them. Installing a big screen and making the booth more visually attractive can also generate more visits.

The Number of Strategic Meetings

Trade shows are far more than finding new customers. They are about meeting with other professionals from the industry and establishing partnerships that could take your company forward. According to statistics, industry pros attend more than 15 trade shows yearly. The majority are regional (7.8), but they also visit national (5.9) and international (1.7) events.

Many companies consider a trade show a success if they have had many strategic meetings. It’s clear why you need to aim to get to know as many people as possible. You’ll expand the network of contacts and pave the way to potential partnerships. 

And you shouldn’t give up after a couple of meetings that seem unsuccessful. Even if a single from ten arrangements you had turned out to be a success, it can ensure the trade show ends up being a positive experience. As a business owner, you want to explore every opportunity. That includes having many meetings that could be beneficial for the company.

Average Deal Size

Some metrics can be deceitful. For example, you could’ve concluded 20 deals during the trade show. But most of those have low value, and you still failed to achieve the revenue targets you expected from the event. 

Ultimately, it’s not about the number of deals. You can reach the goal with only a single arrangement if it’s large enough. That’s why you should focus on bigger deals, as long as that is an option. Those arrangements take longer to close. It’s the reason business owners consider average deal size as an indicator of success.

First, set the goal you’d consider satisfying from the deals made during the show. Average arrangement size can help you determine if you are on the right track after the first part of the event. You’ll know whether you need to maintain that rhythm or push it to the next level during the remainder of the show.

Meetings per Deal Closed

It’s nice to have many meetings, but you also need to benefit from them. The ratio of discussions you had and deals you closed is known as meeting effectiveness. It shows whether scheduled talks have helped your business.

The crucial advantage of this metric is you can compare different sales team members. Apart from calculating the meeting effectiveness of the entire team, you can analyze each representative’s success. It gives you a better understanding of the seller’s strong and weak points. Combined with other metrics, it can help understand where to position each team member in the sales cycle to get maximum results.

Win Rate

Win rate is a strategy that sales teams use to assess success. You can have different approaches when calculating win rate, but the basic formula is to divide the number of available and converted opportunities. If you had ten opportunities to sell something, and you were successful on two occasions, that gives you a 20% win rate.

You can adjust the approach and compare total opportunities converted with the number of sales-qualified leads. The description of an SQL is a customer who expressed interest in your products.

The number of converted leads can be misleading. It’s why some companies focus on the deal value. They divide the total quantity of closed opportunities with the total value in the pipeline. This can show your win rate more realistically from a financial perspective. The advantage is that assessing the deal value considers the possibility that a single arrangement brought a major contribution to reaching your goal.

Obtaining More Value from Trade Shows

No matter how good your metrics are, there’s always room for progress. If you are looking to get more value from trade shows, here are some expert tips:

• Set your expectations. Would you like to increase brand awareness, promote a new product, or boost sales of existing services? Either way, knowing what to expect will help you figure out how to achieve it.
• Choose targets wisely. It’s all about talking to the right people. Determine your target group and try to arrange meetings even before the show starts.
• Be ready to answer questions. If a party is interested in your products, they’ll likely have many questions about them. Your sales time should prepare the answers to ensure everything goes smoothly.
• Use technology to your advantage. Technology is an essential asset at trade shows, from making a visually attractive booth to gathering leads faster. Scanning business cards can help you gather info quicker and speed up the follow-ups after the event.
• Don’t hesitate to recommend others. You might have encountered someone who’s not a good fit for your company, but you know another business at the event that’s a perfect match for them. Feel free to put in a recommendation as that will help boost the bond with other companies. With time, others will also refer clients to your booth.

Preparation is crucial to the trade show’s success. If you get ready for the event properly, that increases the odds of achieving the goals you placed.

Topics: B2B Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Marketing, Event Marketing