Saturday, January 12, 2008

Trade Shows Still Viable B2B Selling Tool

A professional colleague contacted me this week with a problem. She was attempting to convince her boss that exhibiting at trade shows is still an effective business development tool. I’m no expert on the subject but went to one to find out. I’m sharing the advice of Danica Tormohlen, Editor of Expo Magazine. Two points she stressed:

More than half of attendees will buy this year. The number of attendees planning to make a purchase in the next 12 months was comparable to last year. Forty-three percent of booth visitors plan to buy an exhibitor’s product or service within the 12 months following the show.
Shows, as well as individual exhibitors, continue to attract qualified attendees. In 2006, 79 percent of attendees who visited an exhibit had no contact with that company within the previous 12 months. Among visitors to individual booths, 82 percent are interested in the product or service displayed and 78 percent have buying influence for the exhibitor’s product or service.

Attribution and more details of the study can be found on the following link.
http://www.expoweb.com/Benchmarks_Research/2007MayMarketWatchTradeshowattendeebenchmark.htm

Danica also sited other resources:
1. The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (http://www.ceir.org/) compares sales costs for trade show exhibiting with other media;
2. American Business Media states cases for the most effective business-to-business marketing (http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com/abm/ABMIntellResearch2007.asp?SnID=1537975429)
3. B-to-B Magazine (http://www.btobonline.com/)
4. Exhibitor Magazine (http://www.exhibitoronline.com/)Trade Show Exhibitors Association (http://www.tsea.org/)

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