Marketing Communications

ASSESSING EFFECTIVENESS 471

for the show operations and success lie with someone who has and can develop expertise.

A study clearly indicates that success is not based on preference for shows but rather on the

performance of activities that lead to success. Less successful companies can increase success

by identifying someone in the organisation to take the exhibition marketing responsibility.^24

Assessing effectiveness

Aft er participating in an exhibition, a company should evaluate the eff ectiveness of its eff orts.

Th ere are four major reasons for measuring the results of every exhibition:^25

z To justify investments (by calculating return on investments, just like for any other item in

the marketing budget).

z To help choose the right exhibitions.

z To improve trade show activities (before, during and aft er the show).

z To encourage goal-driven activities.

Th is means that results should be compared with the objectives. Sales fi gures from current

clients as well as new customers, and market and competitive information gathered at the fair,

are criteria to evaluate whether the exhibition brought value for money.^26 Sometimes exhibiting

companies evaluate a fair by asking their sales reps about the contacts they made during the

fair. Oft en this leads to stories about jealous competitors or fi rst contacts with important new

customers ‘in the near future’. Th is is not the most objective or appropriate tool for analysing

exhibition success. Others look at increases in sales returns aft er a fair, but this would only be

a good evaluation if direct selling were the main goal of participating. Future sales returns

cannot be predicted as many contracts have not yet been signed.

Th e coverage or reach of exhibitions and trade fairs diff ers from that of traditional print or

other media. Gross reach has to do with the number of exhibition visitors, net reach could be

the number of stand visitors. But eff ectiveness does not depend on the number of visitors only,

but also on the quality of visits. Since 2000 the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has provided

an independent ‘currency’ by which the success of exhibitions and trade shows can be compared.

Th e two types of certifi cates issued are ‘standard’, which amounts to a number count only, and

‘profi le’, which has audited demographics of the visitors. International Confex, for example, a

trade fair targeting the travel industry and held every spring, has a profi le certifi cate.^27

In many companies, decisions on trade fair participation are largely uncontrolled and based on tradition, emotions

and local habits. In an international industrial marketing company,^28 the management considered better planning

and decision-making for trade shows and events based on formal ROI measurement to be a priority. The problem

was that the customer relations management database only provided an incomplete picture of the selling cycle.

Some data were available on lead intake (including the source: web, mailing, trade show), quotations and invoicing,

but there were no other systematic data. The company had some idea, though, of the length of typical selling cycles

for different product types: product C, twelve months; product B, nine months; and product A, six months (true

product names disguised for confidentiality reasons). Other useful available metrics were the ratio of new versus

BUSINESS INSIGHT

Measuring the return on investment of trade shows

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