Survey finds nearly 50% of trade show exhibitors don’t measure ROI

Display Wizard have recently released the results of their survey which shows a staggering number of exhibitors weren’t sure if their exhibitions were profitable.

Despite the potential rewards involved in exhibiting, when asked if they saw a positive ROI from their recent trade show activity, 44% said they didn’t calculate their ROI.

In a survey of 100 business owners and marketing managers, 77% said they had exhibited at one or more conferences in the last year, although it seems most are in the dark when it comes to the profitability of this type of marketing.

Diarmuid Beary, co-owner of Display Wizard, expressed surprise at the findings:

It’s crucial for businesses to have a good understanding of the return on their marketing spend in order to sensibly assign budgets for the following year.

The fact that so many companies are unable to measure the ROI of a huge opportunity like trade show marketing could lead to marketing spend being placed in the wrong areas, which directly impacts the performance of the business as a whole.

However, some exhibitors were clearer when evaluating the ROI of their trade shows. 39% of those surveyed claimed that trade shows were a profitable way to market their business. Satisfied exhibitors reported that the benefits of a trade show were being able to reach out to many potential customers in a short space of time and giving consumers the opportunity to see the real people behind the company.

To further highlight the popularity of trade shows amongst exhibitors, just 17% of the interviewees claimed trade shows were not profitable, with people citing the cost of exhibition stands to and a need to underprice products to appeal to customers as reasons for little success.