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Lead Liaison

Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Need

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Dear Show Organizers… Here’s What Exhibitors Want Need

We speak with exhibitors daily and learn about their challenges and why some hesitate to invest in events. With virtual events having low satisfaction ratings and live event attendance being uncertain… exhibitors are carefully evaluating each event to decide:

  1. Which events they will or will not participate in (Top performers only, new markets, etc)
  2. In what way do they want to participate (Exhibit, Speaker, Attendee, other)
  3. How much they want to invest (Booth, staff, tech, marketing, sponsorships, private meetings, etc)
  4. With events now being virtual, live and hybrid, what should they change, improve, automate, streamline and make more efficient to set up their team to handle any type of event and get highest ROI

Exhibitors want SERVICE

Each exhibitor from every industry has their own story/experience to share. Some stories are amazing, about organizers who really understand the exhibitor and set them up for success. Other stories are about their frustrations of not being treated as the customer or getting the ROI they expected. Many will be making their decisions based on their relationships with each event organizer and how much they care to hear about their challenges and offer solutions that set them up for success.

Solution: Deliver concierge style service 

Exhibitors want EXPOSURE

Every exhibitor we speak to is asking organizers to make connecting to their target audience easier. They want their brand to be seen, their prospects to find them, and their new products or services to be showcased. Event organizers who build some basic brand exposure opportunities into their event will provide added value to exhibitors on the fence.

Solution: Offer unique engagement experiences that drive attendees to take action

Exhibitors want to STREAMLINE

With every event offering a different lead capture solution, how much time and energy does the exhibit manager spend on training their team for every single event to ensure no lead is missed and everything flows nicely into their sales process? How many leads are not captured because they have one scanner to share among their team? How many leads don’t receive follow up until days after the event or not at all? How does a company close deals if the next step of the sales & marketing process is not integrated into their lead capture workflow? The challenge is real!

Solution: Do not restrict their ability to capture leads. Now more than ever, exhibitors are seeking a Universal Lead Capture (ULC) provider so their sales team can use the same lead capture system with automated follow up and sales analytics everywhere they go. Event organizers who offer an option for exhibitors to plug into their Registration API will see exhibitor ROI soar and attrition decrease. Organizers who use unfriendly platforms that restrict API access for scanning badges will find push back from exhibitors who will find those events less valuable or friendly to their company.

Exhibitors want ENGAGEMENT

Ask any exhibitor…if you put them in front of a prospect…they will take care of the rest. That is why gamification has become so popular. Exhibitors who use an exciting activation or game in their booth are seeing up to 3x to 5x more leads captured than booths who do not. Plus, it is a known fact that attendees who engage in a memorable experience are 22% to 35% more likely to remember the brand and engage in a next step. Ask any marketing person, this is a dream for any brand and a goldmine for salespeople seeking to build new relationships.

 Exhibitors who know this are asking organizers for ways to promote their games and incorporate them into the event experience. Show organizers need to be prepared.  Exhibitors are on the hunt for engagement solutions and want to incorporate them into the event.

Solution: Organizers have an opportunity to make their event more exciting and engaging!  We suggest offering gamified lead capture as a premium option, or inviting exhibitors to “bring their own game” and plug it into your treasure hunt or other event engagement experience!

 

Exhibitors want ROI

If you were to speak to the CEO of any exhibiting company, they would tell you that ROI is their primary reason for exhibiting. Exhibiting at any event must contribute to the growth of their organization and move the needle forward. Exhibitors measure ROI in different ways depending on their goals. If brand exposure is the goal, they might track email and banner ad views, click thru’s, open rates, game plays, etc. to measure ROI. If lead capture is the goal they would track leads captured, quantity vs quality of leads, and sales generated to measure ROI. The more organizers understand the goals of the exhibitors, the better chance they have at meeting their expectations.

Solution: If show organizers want to improve their attrition year over year, they need to help exhibitors see the value and results your event delivers. Example: Instead of a paper scavenger hunt that cannot be truly measured, use a digital solution (Such as Waypoints or Hybrid Gamification) that can provide detailed analytics to both the show organizer and the exhibitor with a list of leads that supplement the lead capture their sales team is using in the booth.

 

In a nutshell, as we return to live events we cannot go back to the way things were. Events are forever changed, technology just took a huge leap forward, and hybrid is here to stay. The best thing organizers can do is to listen to exhibitors as they explain their challenges, enable them to be successful, and be open minded to doing things differently.

 

 A Message for Exhibitors!

Please keep in mind that event organizers need your help too. Their biggest challenges right now are re-negotiating contracts, managing logistics, and trying to organize speaker agendas and finalize floorplans when exhibitors and speakers are waiting until the last minute to confirm. Organizers have a lot on their plate trying to fill the exhibit hall, promote the event, make people feel safe, and bridge the gap between live and virtual. Now more than ever they are stressed to bring their event back to life on tight deadlines while trying to give you the service you need to ensure you return next year. Please work with them, confirm as early as you can, be patient if they can’t get back to you right away, offer suggestions and partner with them to put on a great show. The challenge of getting our industry up and running again is real and the best thing we can do is to help each other succeed.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

Lead Liaison

Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

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Determining ROI on events: Why are you operating blind?

One of the biggest challenges event managers seem to have is determining the return on investment for the events they participate in. The reason for that is because they are consistently lacking one piece of crucial information. In fact, it is a piece of information that is readily available to them if they would just ask this simple question of their CEO, CFO, CMO, or owner of the company. It’s a magical question that opens up all sorts of possibilities and releases your creative energy once you have the answer. It causes all aspects of your business, and the company’s short and long-term goals to become crystal clear. So, what is this question?

 

What is the value of a new customer or client to the company? 

I am continually amazed at how many event managers from both small to medium-sized businesses, all the way up to fortune 100 companies have no idea what the value of one new customer is to their company. Now, one of the most common reasons I have discovered for this lack of information on the part of event managers is that no one ever told them the importance of the question, you can’t ask a question you don’t know you should ask.

A lot of companies view events as just another line item on their overall marketing budget, and as long as marketing is producing results, then hi-five! But, that doesn’t mean event managers and their teams don’t benefit from knowing what a customer or client is actually worth to the company. Just as the Sales team needs to know what the value of one new customer is in order to determine salaries, commissions, and bonuses, the event team needs to know this information if they want to put together an effective strategy, and/or evaluate new technologies and tools that can help them achieve their goals.

In so many cases, event teams are left to rely on the show organizer to provide them with their leads, and then it’s up to them to try and qualify them or send them onto sales to qualify and pursue. This makes it even more difficult to determine whether what you are doing at these shows is effective. But, when you know exactly what a new customer is worth, you then begin to look at your budgets differently and can make a case to those within the company who have the final say on approving your budget that investing in a more effective lead capture system will be worth it because you can justify the return on investment. Imagine no longer needing to rely on the show organizer to provide you with a lead list that is also being distributed to your competitors as well. But, because you know the value of a new customer, your ability to move your events team forward with an effective strategy for growing the company will give you the upper hand. 

As live events come back, and with the increased implementation of hybrid events, knowing exactly what you’re aiming at will make all the difference in the world when it comes to planning which events will be the most profitable for you, and creating a strategy to CRUSH IT at those events. 

We sincerely hope that this will inspire you to dig a little deeper into what each new customer actually means to your company, rather large or small, and will help you become more empowered to make impactful decisions for your team and the company as a whole.

For information about Lead liaison for your next event or marketing campaign, or to get started with Lead liaison: CLICK HERE.

Lead liaison is a multifunctional event platform that provides: Universal Lead Capture, User Customizable Gamification, Marketing Automation, CRM, Lead Management, Sales Enablement, Leader Boards, Point Rewards & e-Gift Cards, Waypoints for Sessions & Scavenger Hunts, Player Profiles, and more with over 3,000 integrations for all common CRM and Marketing Automation platforms.

To see how Lead liaison’s growing library of digital activations (games), universal lead capture, and reward-based solutions can help your company generate more leads at your trade shows, contact us today!

tracking event ROI
Lead Liaison

How to Evaluate Event ROI from Your Trade Show

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How can you execute an event, spend the money, and not know what you got out of it? Let’s say you are the CEO, and someone comes to you asking for a budget for an event. You’ll likely want to know your previous event ROI so that you can make the right decision. 

Did you know that 23% of marketers can track event ROI (source)? That means 77% of marketers cannot. Yikes.

To download this infographic, click here.

Top Challenges for Tracking Event ROI

  1. Calculating Cost is Difficult – With expenses coming from every direction, it’s hard to keep up with it all. You’ve got to consider the cost of your booth space, travel and expenses of the team, sponsorships, and any other miscellaneous costs. 
  2. Deals Don’t Happen on the Show Floor – To calculate the ROI, you need to know the return you got. That’s from the deal itself. The average sales cycle in business is 102 days (source). It might be a while before you can give an accurate event ROI.
  3. Too Busy to do the Math – There is a lot to do immediately following an event; the first of which being executing the necessary follow-up. 
  4. Nobody Asks! – There is so much work leading up to an event, during an event, and after an event, that the biggest considerations are easily overlooked. 

Popular Ways to Measure Return

Here are some popular ways to measure return, in order from most helpful to least helpful. 

  • Revenue
  • # Meetings Set
  • Engagement
  • Forecasted Revenue
  • # Opportunities

After calculating success, consider these important numbers:

  • Cost of event
  • Cost per lead
  • Cost per opportunity

Software Systems Help Calculate Event ROI

Software systems help connect the dots between your campaign efforts and your end result. For example, in Salesforce.com you have a lead that starts as a contact, then onto an opportunity, then to closed/won. When that deal closes, for $10k for example, you should be able to tie that revenue back to the campaign (and more importantly, the cost of the campaign). Where did that lead come from? How did they find out about you? Having software in place that either tracks all information within one system, or having a few that integrate (communicate) with one another, can help you attribute those deals and make better decisions for your organization going forward.

Hard Event ROI vs Soft Event ROI

Don’t forget to consider both the hard ROI and the soft ROI. 

Hard ROI is more about the direct benefits to your company. This can include how many leads you were able to collect, or how many deals you were able to close. The concept of hard ROI is more about financials.

But, there’s also a Soft ROI that you shouldn’t overlook. Indirect benefits like facetime with customers, increasing awareness of your brand, and any success you had networking should all count for something when evaluating the success of an event. Just because you didn’t close a deal, it doesn’t mean that you weren’t able to familiarize the industry with your product or solution. The more they see you and hear about you, the more likely it is that they will come to you when their need arises.  

In Conclusion

Calculating event ROI can be tricky, but is an essential part of the event process. The process of calculating your event ROI will be specific to your business and your goals. There is no magic equation. What might be helpful, though, is setting yourself up to be able to easily track as much of this data as possible so that answering the question, “What was our event ROI?” is achievable. 

Choose a software solution that helps you build event campaigns, captures exactly the data you need onsite, supports immediate follow-up, and tracks ROI. Lead Liaison’s event lead management solution, GoExhibit!™, does all of this. To learn more, click here.