This post is certain to generate some controversy about a long-standing, big investment marketing tactic  that I believe is increasingly irrelevant.  At the worst, if you read this and at least think about scrutinizing your investment in this marketing approach, I’ve done my job.

The thoughts were prompted by a recent article in BtoB magazine entitled: “Exhibition industry sees growth slowing.” What a shocker.  And while the economy is identified as the primary culprit for this slowdown, I submit that this tactic is a carryover from another era when people gathered information and insights about prospective suppliers or service providers in a very different way, and when lead generation was more about trolling and interrupting than pinpointing.

Now before I have every marketing executive and trade show manager climbing all over me, some clarification is in order.

First, I’ve been a card carrying member of the B2B marketing VP club that invested a fair chunk of its budget in trade shows.  I had the same “wrong, tired” feeling then that I do now, and undoubtedly I made my team crazy justifying their investment plans and challenging them to find ways to extend and leverage our investment in temporary real estate.  (This team did remarkable things and we absolutely drove leads, increased visibility, met with influencers and analysts, scoped competitors, wrote business, identified new partners and strengthened relationships with old partners as part of the programs.)  However, over time, we dramatically reduced our investment in shows while improving results and importantly, freeing up budget for investment in on-line and highly personalized activities.  At least my cynicism here helped drive performance improvement.

Second, I’ve written quite a bit about trade show best practices, including: Sales and Marketing, It’s Time to Improve Your Performance on the Trade Show Floor and believe very firmly that if you are going to attend the darned things, you better work them like you own them.

Third, my beef is likely more with what I describe as mass market events versus highly focused, targeted and often more intimate events.

Finally, I strongly value personal contact with the right people and one of the big arguments in favor of trade shows is that the people who attend are pre-qualified because they took the time and spent the money to be there in the first place.  I don’t find that to be the case, but that’s the argument I hear.

OK, then what’s my problem with this long-standing marketing tactic?  Here’s the short-list:

1. It’s time, talent and budget inefficient.  The true investment is far in excess of the base show costs and the opportunity cost for the people involved is staggering.

2. If you are dependent upon expensive, time inefficient exhibitions to identify and meet prospects, you should be worried about all of the things that you are clearly not doing in your marketing program.

3. It is impersonal at best.   It’s difficult…maybe impossible to forge any type of a bond with the individuals in the endless stream of attendees.

4. It’s worse than a shotgun approach for targeting.  The notion of waiting for someone who fits the right profile to happen by your booth is disagreeable.

5. Buyers don’t generally make decisions based on a trade show presence or presentation.  Granted, some buyers use shows as a tool for market research and validation, but the impact of attending a show on a buying decision is negligible.

6. We as marketers use dubious data and questionable assumptions to evaluate trade show impact on overall company results and to justify trade show investment.

Now that I’ve skewered trade show marketing, what are the alternatives you ask?

My short-list of better things to do than attend most/many trade shows:

  • Cull the mass market events and invest in creating your own customer and/or  focused gatherings in their geographies or even in their businesses.  It can be a transformational experience for a team to focus on developing and executing a focused event around specific customers or a single customer or a group of highly sought after prospects.    This is true “high touch” where you have a remarkable chance to create and strengthen bonds, generate insights and build value. Once your team learns how to do this efficiently, it is a repeatable, adaptable process.
  • Integrate your on-line program with your customer/prospect focused events.  For example, in one very targeted regional event with over 100 of the right people in attendance, we brought in a guest speaker for a portion of the program and simulcast (is that still a legitimate word?) the keynote over the internet where we had hundreds of additional prospects in attendance at a webinar.  We polled the on-line audience and took questions from them as well as the guests in attendance.  Of course, the keynote was captured on video for additional rebroadcast at later dates.
  • Create an in-house exhibition and workshop at your customer’s place of  business (or yours) and focus solely on them.  It’s a much bigger impact and much better for creating and strengthening relationships than the fleeting visit on a trade show floor before they visit your other 4 competitors.
  • Create virtual conferences.  This is not the still unproven virtual trade show experience, but a series of carefully developed web seminars offering valuable content from industry experts, customers and partners.  Integrate your digitial content offerings with the events to provide even more value to your audience members.
  • If you are worried about the “signal” that it sends to not attend a major industry event, reduce the scope of the event, eliminate duplicate activities and develop an alternative “industry-intimacy” strategy that doesn’t involve large investments in leasing pricey floor space and laying down bad carpeting.
  • Consider “walking shows” versus exhibiting.  Set up key briefings with industry influencers, media, analysts etc. and focus your efforts here versus trolling for unqualified leads on the show floor.
  • If you have to exhibit, consider participating with or in a partner’s booth.  This can be dicey so be careful, but it may be an option with the right partner.

The bottom-line for now:

If nothing else, I hope that my likely unpopular (in marketing circles) opinion stimulates some ideas about achieving a better balance between trade show and potentially more focused and powerful ideas.  There are too many options today and the world gains their information in new ways.  Relying on past tactics to achieve your results is a bad strategy.  However, if you have to attend select events, make sure you read my note on how to win on the show floor and remember to “own the show.”