ROO or ROI?

Let’s face it, most of us exhibitors have been fairly guilty of a lacklustre performance when it comes to maximising our investment at a show. Over the last few lean years, the need to mitigate risk and justify spend has taken a priority, and rightly so. The latest post-recession trend amongst exhibitors and organisers alike seems to be an obsession about measuring your ‘return-on-investment’ (ROI), and why not?

Exhibition organisers have at last realised that for events to be taken seriously and to be worthy of a decent slice of marketing budget, some tangible return must be demonstrable. Historically when evaluating an event, exhibitors might consider such factors as numbers of visitors and, well, that is it really. Often it was a ‘cost-per-thousand’ justification. For example, the marketing at this show has a demographic of AB1 Transylvanian Archbishops, and delivers X thousand visitors over Y days, hence generating a number that in turn is used to wave under the financial director’s nose by way of justification for the same or slightly larger budget for the following year.

Proper grown up companies had access to the true cost of client acquisition and compared this to the overall costs divided by leads at an event. Their more enlightened colleagues would even consider such matters as the number of business cards collected, or leads converted. Others considered the clearly vital issue of the number of brochures dispensed or the overall ‘gut-feel’ of the personnel manning the stand.

A casual exchange may go somewhere along the lines of:

“What do we reckon folks? Good show?”
“Yeah all our competitors were there!”
“Sorted!”

Whilst some might have factored in the list of competitors also exhibiting, or the pre-registered interest levels versus the no-shows, yet others looked at the amount of column inches the event generated in their trade publications or other media.

It stands to reason that using the above metrics, exhibitors with high-value goods and services would often find the exercise rewarding, whereas those selling a low-cost item or service would rarely be able to ‘justify’ their attendance using such evaluation measures. People exhibit for a whole raft of reasons and therefore their criteria for measuring success should vary to a similar degree. 

Knowledge is power

Go back to your original objectives for attending the show. What were you trying to achieve and what was your thinking in booking a stand at that particular event? If your intention was to generate a set number of new leads, or see a certain number of your existing customers, or make contact with a dozen overseas buyers, you suddenly have your criteria for measuring your success—return-on-objectives (ROO). As we have discussed earlier, focusing on the overall number of visitors is usually a waste of time. If you met the people that you planned to see then you were successful. It does not matter whether those one hundred leads came from an audience of one thousand or ten thousand—you still have one hundred leads.

You can make your evaluation as complex or as simple as you like; the important thing is that you have some way of knowing that the event you attended was worth repeating or best avoided. The facts exist to suggest that face to face is a terrific way to sell and facilitate the buying process; it improves loyalty and enhances the feel good factor. We know that the more senses you engage, the greater chance of converting the prospect into a client.

The return is there to be measured and assessed and, therefore, compared with the rest of your marketing activity.  Most good organisers will also go some way to helping you establish a matrix to measure your return as it is as much in their interest as it is yours. Remember, a happy exhibitor is a re-booked exhibitor, and organisers are quite partial to those.