As with any other marketing or sales campaign, actions you take ahead of the upcoming trade show—whether you rent the booth or buy the booth—play the biggest role in goal setting. Setting goals is an important step in preparing perfectly for a trade fair. The right goals and objectives will drive your booth design process, help your team stay motivated throughout the show, and serve as an important barometer of your success. You might be interested in exhibition stand Dubai.
However, setting these goals can be a complex process. Should you aim for the stars with a very ambitious sales target - and the associated risk - or keep the sales targets of your exhibition stand more modest and realistic?
First trade fair participation? Focus on being profitable - not on being highly profitable
Your first trade show is always a learning experience for your company. Therefore, it's more important to focus on making a little more profit than the total cost of the show, rather than expecting a gigantic return on investment. So expectations of your first trade fair should be modest. Focus on earning enough to cover your expenses and leave the high ROI numbers for future events. This way you will ideally complete your first trade show without a loss, all with the knowledge and experience you need to turn future events into growth opportunities for your business with the right trade show booth ideas. Know more about exhibition stand design.
Set an appropriate budget - because higher costs require higher goals
The more you spend attending the trade show, the more you need to earn through sales, contracts and new business to make a profit. For this reason, when planning a trade show, it's best to keep the budget as low as possible and focus on getting a "feel" for trade show marketing.
The lower your budget, the more leeway you have to achieve a profitable outcome. This approach not only saves money but also takes the pressure off your sales force, helping them get into the flow of the show and get results. Learn more about exhibition stand design Dubai.
Put the expectations in relation to comparable events in the past
Having exhibited at several trades shows you will have a good understanding of how well your team functions in a Munich trade show venue event environment. This allows you to use previous events as a basis for future events. Because now your goals are based on past experience—not predictions. As you gradually increase your goals, you will develop stable, realistic, and achievable goals over time. Get to exhibition stand builders in UAE.
Consistently track your lead generation and sales efforts
One of the most common ROI and goal-setting mistakes in trade show planning is not tracking all the leads your sales team generates during the event. Without accurate tracking, it's impossible to accurately assess team performance to determine if you've met goals. Because: "You can only manage what you can measure". Sometimes you can't miss a single lead - especially one that converts into a profitable, lucrative deal - to change a trade show's assessment of its potential from high and useful to utterly useless. To ensure you can accurately track your trade show results, make sure that all your leads, deals and prospects are captured in a centralized CRM software during the event. Are you looking for exhibition stand design ideas?.
Monitor ROI over the long term - not just right after the event
A common measurement objective and ROI measurement error are to only measure the return on investment, i.e. in short the ROI, in the short term - often immediately after the end of the event. Because trade fair leads, in particular, can still be converted into lucrative deals weeks, months or even years later. It is therefore extremely important that you follow the results of each exhibition over the long term. Often a prospect you write off as "inactive" can become your best customer a year later.
Compare results from past trade shows to predict future ROI
Finally, after attending trade shows for several years, you can calculate an approximate value per prospect and convert it into a customer for future events. With this knowledge, metrics such as Average Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be created to calculate the profitability and sales performance of future trade shows without the usual time constraints. But remember, predictive metrics aren't perfect, and few will give you an accurate picture of the results you should expect from a trade show. However, they can be very useful to help you quickly determine ROI. This is how you can assess the value of future trade fairs.
