Events, Tradeshows, Party’s Oh My!

Ah, the never ending debate in the value of events, tradeshows and customer parties.  Sales swears they are critical, management questions the value and marketing gets stuck resourcing and paying the bill.

Let me start out by saying:

• -          I believe they are important.
• -          However, the actual sales which result from participation can be questionable, but keeping your sales staff in front of customers is typically a good thing.
• -          The cost of an average sales call is around $500.  It makes sense to get as many customers together under the same event as possible – by increasing the number of customers you reduce the cost of a sales call.
• -          Sales MUST do their part and create meaningful sales conversations.  Just slapping someone’s back and getting them a drink doesn’t count.
• -          Marketing must create an environment which allows for Sales to have meaningful conversations.
• -          Measurement of success is everyone’s responsibility.  It’s not enough to just say everyone had a great time and customers were happy.
• -          For the most part, prospective customers should always be part of the event attendees.

A couple of thoughts on tracking

• -          Capture a customer’s name when they enter the event – the best way to do so is to do this electronically, an iPad is great.  Capture name, address, company, email, phone, etc.  I recommend having all of this populated in a database prior to the event so you’re just checking them off as they walk in.
• -          Upload that list of attendees as a marketing campaign, create a campaign code, smart list, etc.
• -          Ok, here’s where it gets a bit tricky – you’re going to create an A/B test scenario

o   Begin tracking the campaign code/smart list, etc. for sales. 

o   Take an nth sample of those who did NOT attend the list and use that as your control group.  I prefer a 10% sample (so the naysayers can’t complain that the sample was too small) but you can typically use less.

o   Track A vs. B and determine results associated with:

§  Net new product sold

§  Retention rate – both products and customers

§  New customers brought in

§  Average sales dollar amount

§  Increases in margin that sales produces as it relates to price increases

§  Do a simple ROI based on the cost of the events, etc. vs. sales

§  Tracking could take a year!  Yes a year. 

-         Now there are always different ways to approach this – adding in number of sales calls made, customer satisfaction scores, where they are in the buying cycle, whether a nurturing campaign is engaged, etc.  And let’s recognize that a single event doesn’t make a sale… but if you do an A/B test you can get close to representation.

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      But, for a down and dirty method I like to use the above.

Now, have the honest conversation with Sales and Management – whether the results are good, bad or indifferent.

Good Luck,

Scott