Trade shows have long been a popular marketing strategy for energy and industrial companies. These events provide a platform for networking, showcasing products and services, as well as generating leads. However, in the energy sector, where sales cycles are longer and the price tags for equipment and services are higher, buyers find the real information that impacts decision making in the series of interactions that take place before and after the event. Traditional trade shows, on the other hand, often require significant financial investments in terms of booth rentals, travel expenses, and staff resources.
Here are some of the challenges and their solutions.
- Changing Marketing Landscape:
The business landscape has evolved significantly with the advent of digital technology and the internet. Companies can now connect and engage with potential customers through various online channels. In fact, buyers now perform more than 2/3rds of their decision making research online without first speaking to sales now. This discrepancy between the changing business landscape and the cost of trade shows has led to a decrease in their effectiveness.
Solution: Use trade shows to demo rather than start a sales cycle. And use digital to line up those meetings and demonstrations.
- Limited Time and Attention:
Trade shows are often packed with numerous exhibitors vying for attention. Attendees have limited time and attention span, making it challenging for companies to effectively communicate their value proposition and differentiate themselves from competitors. It can be even difficult for attendees to locate your booth. In such a fast-paced environment, it becomes increasingly difficult to establish meaningful connections and convey complex messages about products or services.
Solution: Use digital technology to communicate technical specifications before and after the show. And use digital marketing to help attendees have a reason to, and locate your booth.
- Difficulty in Measuring ROI:
One of the critical drawbacks of trade shows is the difficulty in accurately measuring return on investment (ROI). Companies invest significant resources in participating in trade shows, including booth design, shipping and travel expenses, setup, marketing collateral, and especially staff time. Quantifying the direct impact of these investments on lead generation, sales, or overall business growth can be challenging. Without a clear understanding of the ROI, companies may struggle to justify the expense of trade shows.
Solution: Use digital technology to create and measure lead generation, generate followup inquiries, add to email lists and generate visits to your website, where you can identify who they are.
Improve Trade Show Success with Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Software
Using ABM software gives exhibitors the opportunity to better understand their leads and their sales cycle to ensure they generate a measurable ROI.
Beyond showing you which leads are interacting with your brand, conversion software can also score your leads based on their ongoing activity. You can use this score to follow up with the most qualified leads from the event, while continuing to nurture less qualified leads from the trade show while they continue to move towards a purchase decision.
Specialized software will also help you attribute sales to the trade show long after it’s over – enabling you to form a more accurate understanding of your total ROI. Most industrial sales cycles can last anywhere from three months to over a year, so it can be difficult to determine which marketing activities directly impacted the customer’s buying decision. ABM software solves this problem by tracking your leads activity through their entire buyer’s journey, from initial contact to closing the deal.
ABM software takes online interest from your marketing, advertising, and trade shows and turns it into actionable sales intelligence.
Conclusion:
Trade shows can be a powerful channel to increase business, but there is a lot you can do to ensure more of those leads end up becoming sales. Implementing a few (or all) of these activities will help you to get far more ROI from your trade shows than ever before.
ActiveConversion has helped hundreds of energy and industrial companies reach their goals including measuring their ROI on trade shows, improving effectiveness and increasing revenue. Find out more at: https://activeconversion.com/