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soft land and scale

Exhibitor Tips, Participant Tips

Improving B2B Prospect Quality at the Top of the Funnel

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In B2B marketing, lead volume is important, but quality matters more than quantity. Better prospects early in the funnel translate to more successful sales down the line, so enhancing the quality of these leads can significantly impact the overall success of the sales process. Here’s how to improve B2B prospect quality at the top of the funnel by refining your approach to prospect profiling, messaging, valid business reasons (VBRs), and iterative improvement. 1. Develop a Specific Prospect Profile and Buyer Persona The cornerstone of any B2B lead generation strategy is a well-defined prospect profile and buyer persona. While a prospect profile is generally focused on firmographics—characteristics like industry, company size, and location—a buyer persona dives into the demographics, pain points, and motivations of the individuals within these companies. Steps to Create a Prospect Profile and Buyer Persona: Having a clear and accurate picture of your ideal prospects ensures that your lead generation efforts attract quality prospects aligned with your solution, improving conversion rates from the outset. 2. Develop Messaging that Speaks to Your Target’s Pain Points Once you understand your audience, it’s time to develop targeted messaging that addresses their specific challenges. Good messaging is empathetic, speaks to the core issues that your target faces, and demonstrates how your solution resolves them. Rather than talking only about your product’s features, focus on the outcomes it can deliver. Creating Targeted Messaging: Effective messaging not only resonates more with your audience but also attracts higher-quality prospects who are genuinely interested in solving their specific problems. 3. Create a Valid Business Reason (VBR) for the Prospect to Take Action A Valid Business Reason (VBR) is an impactful way to communicate why a prospect should engage with your company. A VBR should go beyond basic value propositions and connect directly with a prospect’s business needs or immediate challenges, making it clear why they should act now rather than later. Developing an Effective VBR: A strong VBR can substantially increase the chances that your messaging will resonate and that the prospect will respond, leading to higher-quality engagements. 4. Measure and Iterate to Optimize Results Even with a well-developed approach, improving prospect quality requires ongoing optimization. By measuring the effectiveness of each stage in the top-of-the-funnel process, you can make data-driven adjustments to maximize success. Steps to Measure and Improve: By treating the top of the funnel as an evolving process, you can continuously improve the quality of your prospects. As a result, the sales team spends more time with leads who have a genuine interest in your solutions and are more likely to convert. B2B Prospect Quality Improving B2B prospect quality at the top of the funnel requires a thoughtful, targeted approach. By developing a specific prospect profile and buyer persona, crafting messaging that resonates, presenting a compelling VBR, and measuring and refining your strategies, you can build a robust lead generation process that attracts high-quality leads. With time, these optimizations can help drive higher conversion rates, greater efficiency, and ultimately more profitable business outcomes. Additional Resources For more on this topic, we suggest reading Prospects Have Their Own Language. About MEET helps international B2B & B2G companies gain traction and scale in the U.S. through trade shows, events, and strategic connections. Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation:  bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Market-Entry

Who Wants a 50% Solution?

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In the world of problem-solving, innovation, and startups, there’s a common notion that a 50% solution just isn’t good enough. But ask someone facing a life-or-death situation, like pancreatic cancer, if they’d want a 50% solution, and the answer would likely be an enthusiastic yes. This analogy points to the real value of creating solutions that provide immediate, albeit partial, relief—especially in business. The Value of Partial Solutions When facing a pressing, painful problem, people generally don’t care if the solution is only halfway there. They want immediate relief, something to mitigate their issue today rather than waiting years for an ideal, but elusive, solution. For someone diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, even a 50% improvement could mean extended time, better quality of life, or more peace of mind. So why, when it comes to business, do we shy away from launching a minimally viable product (MVP) or an imperfect solution? Many entrepreneurs hesitate to bring an MVP—a simpler, partial solution—to market because they believe it needs to be “perfect” or close to complete before it’s worthy of their customers. They resist releasing a product that might only solve half of the customer’s problem, fearing it won’t sell or will receive negative feedback. But what they fail to see is that often, those customers are desperate for any meaningful relief, no matter how partial it might be. Why Waiting for Perfection Wastes Time and Money Instead of embracing the MVP mindset, too many entrepreneurs waste time, energy, and resources on crafting a fully comprehensive solution. They keep building and refining, convinced that they’re getting closer to the “right” product. But in reality, they’re often moving further away from what their market truly needs because they haven’t engaged with their customers soon enough. The assumptions driving their development are just that—assumptions. Without customer feedback, they’re building blindfolded. Take the medical analogy further: what if a doctor kept researching and testing, hoping for the perfect cure while a patient with pancreatic cancer waited in pain? That delay could cost the patient their life. In business, this lag can have similar consequences. Markets change, customer needs shift, and competitors race to fill the void. By the time an entrepreneur perfects their product, the problem might have changed or, worse, a competitor may have stepped in with a simpler solution that meets enough of the need to win the customer’s loyalty. Find Your “Pancreatic Cancer” Problem The key to creating a valuable MVP is finding a market that has a “pancreatic cancer” problem—a critical pain point that demands a solution immediately, even if it’s partial. Look for customers who are experiencing pain or frustration so great that they’ll take any meaningful relief, even if it’s not a complete cure. Once you’ve found this market, you’ll know that a 50% solution is not only acceptable but might be all they need to get started. For instance, a business dealing with high employee turnover might desperately need a tool to streamline onboarding and improve retention. While an all-encompassing HR solution with modules for payroll, scheduling, and performance reviews could take years to develop, a simple onboarding tool could alleviate their primary pain point now. This MVP would bring immediate relief, and with feedback, you can later expand it to cover other HR areas as your understanding of the market’s needs deepens. Build with Your Customers Launching an MVP isn’t the end of the journey; it’s the start. As you put your initial solution into the hands of customers, take their feedback seriously. This feedback will guide you in refining and expanding your product in ways that actually meet your market’s needs. Customers who are already experiencing the benefits of your 50% solution will be more likely to provide valuable insights and remain loyal as you improve. By working with your customers, you’re not only building a product; you’re building a relationship and a reputation as a company that understands and prioritizes real needs. This approach transforms your MVP into a solution that’s not only market-ready but also customer-approved. Start Simple, Aim for Real Impact In a world that often prizes complexity and perfection, remember that the greatest value lies in addressing real problems right now. Don’t be afraid to put a 50% solution into the hands of your customers if it provides meaningful relief. Your business will grow not by chasing an unattainable ideal but by solving urgent needs one step at a time, with an MVP that does what your customers need most. As they say in the medical world, “A partial cure is better than no cure at all.” The same holds true in business. Start by solving real problems, however imperfectly, and you’ll find that a 50% solution is often more valuable than you ever imagined. Additional Resources For more on this topic, we suggest reading Prospects Have Their Own Language. About MEET helps international B2B & B2G companies gain traction and scale in the U.S. through trade shows, events, and strategic connections. Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation:  bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Market-Entry

Myth vs Reality for Life Sciences Companies Entering the US Market with Mark Lesselroth, BioPort USA

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Link to video HERE  Podcast Transcript  Bill : Hi and welcome to the next episode of Belly to Belly. It is great to have you here with us today. So today we’re actually going to spend a little bit of time in the life sciences space and we’re joined by Mark Lesselroth from BioPort USA. Welcome, Mark. Mark : Thanks for having me, Bill. Bill : It’s great. So the title of this conversation is around the myth versus reality of life sciences companies entering the US market. We certainly want to kind of dive into that conversation. And just as a for context here, our listeners are both companies, b2b companies that are looking to enter the US market plus also a variety of Trade Representatives that are helping and support organizations that are helping these companies come into the US. Just for a moment before we hop into that really interesting conversation. It’d be great to know more about you and about Bioport. Do you mind just kind of giving us a little thumbnail of your background and also what you’re what you’re doing today with bio port USA. Mark : Absolutely. So first of all, I want to thank you. I appreciate this opportunity. You know, anytime I have the chance to spread the word so to speak, or spread the gospel, if you may. It’s a wonderful thing. So I am the president and CEO BioPort USA. Which was established in April of 2018. And the impetus behind it was, I wanted to identify innovative life science technologies, be a biotech medtech pharma in vitro diagnostics for around the world that could really improve our healthcare system. I know it sounds somewhat altruistic, but I’ve been around the world for a number of years. I was originally born in Germany, and lived throughout lived almost 15 years throughout my life in Germany. So both as a child as a student and then work there and as a result I you know, I not only learned the language, thanks to mom, who’s German but is also experiencing a lot of different cultures, not just the German culture. I was traveling a lot and I was exposed to a lot and and I recognize that while I love the United States, I think it really is a great country, that there are some amazing things happening outside and, you know, I don’t know how much longer I’ll live but I thought with the remaining years here, I want to do something good and, you know, find a way to introduce this technology just to make it easier on patients and make it easier on health care providers. Bill : That’s really cool and amazing. So oh, you know, I guess I’d start with our thesis here, which is the myth versus reality so I guess what, what’s the sort of paradigm that where you see companies that are life science companies are coming into the US? What are the myths that they’re is sort of holding closer or embracing that are challenging Mark : I’m glad you asked. I think one of the number one miss is that they know the US market. After all, we are a Western nation. Many of the International life science companies speak English. Many of them have traveled here either for pleasure or business. Some of may even studied here and work here. And so you know, the thought of well, if I went out to business here, how hard can it be? versus you know, China for example, I’ve met many people who think oh my god, I don’t speak the language. I don’t understand the culture. I definitely need help. There’s no way I can do this on my own. And with us, they think no problem. We can do it. And frankly, nothing further could be from the truth. They really don’t understand the US market in terms of how we make decisions, whether it comes to buying something, selecting something, the nuances associated with the regulatory process, they sure as heck don’t understand our reimbursement system, because most of them come from a country that offers universal health care. So that’s a big one in terms of a mess. Bill : That makes a lot of sense. So yeah, I would venture to say that many people in the US don’t understand the reimbursement system. So the idea that someone from outside the US would understand it would be difficult. So when companies, you know have these challenges where they maybe don’t understand this the sales process or the regulatory system, what challenges does it create for them? Well, how does that handicap them? Mark : Well, you know, it’s problematic because if they think they know the system, and then they go through and go about doing business as they’re used to in their home country, many of them will invariably fail. You know, they think it’s good enough to, let’s say, exhibit at a trade show and industry trade show, find a sales rep or distributor, sign an agreement and pay we’re off to the races, and nothing further could be from the truth and that holds true for American companies as well. But I think American companies for the most part, know better. Now those companies that are more successful United States are the ones that understand what you need to do in terms of developing a sales strategy, what you need to do to support a distributor how important your brand is in terms of influencing the purchasing decision. These are all concepts that for the most part are extremely foreign to the international life science community. And so many of them either fail outright or they do not achieve the success that they had anticipated. Because they weren’t prepared to adapt and adopt the US way of doing business. Bill : So, in sort of thinking about that, which would you say

Market-Entry

Q&A with Bill Kenney on the Future of Trade Shows

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Are in-person trade shows gone forever? That’s a good question. It seems pretty unlikely that in-person trade shows and events are gone forever. We’ve already seen some events come back on the calendar and believe that the advent of a widely available vaccine will be a big milestone in the general return of large in-person gatherings. That said, the industry may forever be altered with so many more virtual platforms now on the market. What type of new opportunities exist in virtual trade show platforms? Virtual trade shows are an interesting space. We just surveyed about 35 platforms to get a sense of the industry. Some have been up and running for 20+ years while others haven’t been around for 20 weeks. From a functionality standpoint, there are definitely some differences. Some platforms offer many of the same functions as a typical trade show – main stage, breakout rooms, exhibit booths, sponsor promotion, and networking functionality. Others are more focused on specialty functions such as networking. These platforms typically emphasize matchmaking and reduce much of the trade show functionality and capacity. Has anything been lost? There are some really good platforms today but it’s hard to imagine that anything will replace meeting people face-to-face. Shaking someone’s hand and looking them in the eyes, for most people, is a fundamental part of relationship building. What’s the best way to adapt an in-person trade show strategy to virtual? We wouldn’t necessarily suggest adapting an in-person strategy to virtual. Rather, we suggest looking at an integrated strategy. As much as we are confident that in-person events will come back, we believe that virtual events are here to stay and believe that many organizations will need to augment their in-person schedule with more frequent, more targeted virtual events. The efficiencies are just too great. When looking to develop an event marketing strategy, we suggest three basic steps: Identify your target and be super specific – the more narrow, the better Identify the events and/or create events that attract your target Identify the value proposition and offer that attracts and converts your target How can MEET help? MEET can handle the process from A to Z, from strategy to execution to measurement and continuous improvement. For about half of our clients, we are their first employees in the U.S. so we are adept at operating independently to establish early traction and a sales system. The other half of our clients have existing U.S. offices and operations and we come in much more as an accelerant and force multiplier to help the company scale quickly. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Uncategorized

The Less Obvious Benefits to Measuring Trade Show ROI

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There are many reasons for measuring trade show ROI. The most obvious: to improve marketing performance. After all, without baseline metrics of your returned value, it’s impossible to know where and how to make improvements to maximize the results of your in-person event strategy. At MEET, we’ve identified a number of benefits to measuring trade show ROI for our clients, some of which are less obvious. In this post, we’d like to share two rarely considered benefits to measuring trade show ROI and nailing a performance-based strategy for growing your company. The ROI calculation Calculating ROI is a critical measurement for any marketing strategy. On the surface, it’s a fairly easy equation with two variables. ROI = Gains – Costs / Cost In other words: ROI = Delta / Costs Efforts to maximize trade show ROI boil down to decreasing costs and/or increasing gains or both. (For more on the intricacies of calculating ROI, including the multiple ways to understand gains, check out this post. ) ROI as a relative performance tool Once you understand ROI as a set of variables, it becomes easier to see how this data can be used as a relative performance tool. In the beginning, all trade show ROI data will be abstract measurements of an individual event’s performance. Overtime and year-to-year, period-to-period, or event-to-event, this data can be used to evaluate ROI comparatively, informing how your marketing strategy is progressing (or failing to progress). For more on how to develop a metrics toolkit that works for you, check out our recent webinar: Benchmarks, Goals, Metrics and ROI, Everything You Need to Know About Measuring Trade Show Results.   Use data to empower your team A rarely considered benefit to calculating trade show ROI is how this data can be used to empower your event team. Performance without goals is like a race without a finish line, i.e. impossible to measure success. Optimizing your event team’s results requires clear expectations and benchmarks that both guide and inform their unique function within a broader marketing strategy. We recommend using trade show ROI data as part of your pre-event training activities. You’ll be surprised by how motivating and affirming these metrics can be, particularly at trade show events that require sustained focus and physical stamina. Help event hosts improve your trade show ROI Once you’ve developed a comparative trade show ROI database: Note which events are at the bottom of your performance ranking Make some assumptions about why this might be the case. At MEET, we do this assessment on a quarterly basis for our clients. We then take this data and approach the hosts of these events as partners. After all, trade show success is a win-win for exhibitors and hosts, making trade show ROI a shared goal. On behalf of our clients, we ask hosts how we can improve our performance at their event. Assuming you’ve done your event selection research and determined the most effective booth strategy to attract your target prospects in attendance, improved performance may only require a few simple adjustments. Back to our ROI formula, these adjustments will either reduce costs or create higher gains. Whether it’s by discounting exhibiting fees or moving your booth to a location with higher floor traffic, there are a variety of ways that event hosts can, and are willing to, work together to improve your trade show ROI. In our experience, event hosts are extremely open to making these adjustments when met with an exhibitor who is approaching their participation strategy from an analytical versus emotional perspective. Measuring trade show ROI removes the elements of chance and surprise that many assume are part and parcel to any marketing strategy. The truth is, there’s more to know than you might think. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About
 MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Return on Investment

A Lesson in Maximizing Trade Show ROI from Great Bakers

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  What is there to learn about trade show ROI from great bakers? The answer: ratios. For example: Bread = 5 parts flour : 3 parts water Cookies = 3 parts flour : 2 parts fat : 1 part sugar The beauty of understanding baking from the perspective of ratios versus recipes is that it opens the baker up to a world of exploration and a higher likelihood of success. At MEET, we like to use this baking analogy when making the case for maximizing trade show ROI. In fact, we like the analogy so much, we’ve designed two cookbooks for our clients: The Sales Management Cookbook and the Exhibitor and Trade Show ROI Cookbook. Here’s a preview of how they work. The Sales Management Cookbook MEET’s Sales Management Cookbook is a great tool for establishing baselines for your existing marketing and sales strategy. Through simple calculations, the Cookbook empowers Managers with key data points such as the average value of a customer, and the ratio of suspects and prospects to new customers. Critical Definitions: Prospect – has a need, money, and is urgent Customer – someone who pays you money For example: to understand the average value of a customer, take your total revenue for the most recent 12-month period and divide it by the number of customers you invoices. No need to over-complicate it—it’s just that simple. To figure out the ratio of how many suspects are needed to deliver a new customer, you’ll need a variety of inputs from within a discrete-time period, including: # of suspects engaged (for example people who approached your booth at a trade show) # of suspects qualified as prospects # of prospects who agreed to a first meeting # of proposals submitted # of contracts signed # of 1st orders From there you’ll be able to determine how many suspects were needed to deliver a new customer. You’ll then be able to use this benchmark data to inform your sales and marketing strategy with knowledge-based decisions around where investments are needed. (For a visual, step-by-step demonstration of how we did these calculations and others, check out our recent webinar: Benchmarks, Goals, Metrics and ROI, Everything You Need to Know About Measuring Trade Show Results or feel free to reach out and we’ll send you a sample.) The Exhibitor and Trade Show ROI Cookbook What makes the Exhibitor and Trade Show ROI Cookbook unique is not simply the math but the science. In measuring for trade show results, it’s critical that you understand two things: The variety of functions in and outside the booth that contribute to trade show ROI. The target of your marketing strategy, which is roughly 1% of trade show attendees, i.e. quality/quantity. Remember, prospects have to have a need, money, and urgency. For more on MEET’s approach to trade show staffing in and outside the booth, check out this post. For more on narrowing your target prospect, check out this post. Understanding the science behind trade show ROI strategy will dictate where and how you measure success. Our Cookbook will help you break down your strategy into a series of activities, goals for each of those activities, and how to incorporate basic data inputs from your Sales Cookbook, e.g. average revenue per customer. For a quick tutorial of how to calculate trade show ROI using this tool, we recommend that you tune into our recent webinar or set up a call. We’re happy to walk you through it. What do MEET Cookbooks spit out? Management gold. Your Cookbook results may indicate that each member of your booth team needs to find one new, qualified prospect every 15 minutes to meet your trade show ROI goals. The beauty of having a clearly defined objective like this is that it makes the work more rewarding, easier to manage and incentivize. Boiling down the practice of marketing to a numerical science opens the doors to a world of results-driven innovation. What’s amazing is how many scaling companies operate without the slightest idea of how their marketing investments are helping (or hindering) to achieve their goals. Cookbook tools have the ability to inform every aspect of your marketing and sales strategies—from goal-setting and event selection to staffing and management. So throw on an apron and get baking. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About
 MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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Navigate Your Marketing ROI GPS-style

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It’s hard to imagine driving these days without GPS. The experience of getting lost or struggling with oversized maps has all but disappeared…and no one is mourning the loss. GPS has fundamentally changed the experience of driving by putting valuable real-time data in the hands of the driver—whether to avoid traffic, find the closest pit stop, or make a drive more scenic. And when it comes to getting from point A to point B, that knowledge is power. At MEET, we like to use the analogy of a built-in GPS system when designing a B2B marketing strategy for our clients. In many of the same ways that GPS systems make smart drivers, building in regular opportunities to collect data and measure results can lead to smarter growth and fewer wasted resources. Not sure what we mean? Try calculating your marketing ROI. The marketing ROI calculation Calculating ROI is a critical measurement for any marketing strategy. On the surface, it’s a fairly easy equation: ROI = Gains – Costs / Cost Essentially, the top of your equation measures what you gained from a marketing activity minus what you spent. As trade show and in-person event specialists, we’ll use these for our example. Placing this delta over your total investment will uncover your ratio of profit to loss. The costs that are entered into your equation fall into two categories: direct and indirect. In the case of a trade show, direct costs are inputs such as entry/exhibiting fees, travel, hotels—basically any and all initial and obvious outlays. Indirect or softer costs include time designing collateral and employee training. Whether direct or indirect, coming up with a total sum of your investments in a particular event should be relatively straightforward. If not, talk to the folks in your accounting department. Calculating gains is a little more complicated There are a number of ways to define success and as such, a number of different ways to calculate it. Fundamental to any approach you take is a clear rationalization of why these metrics are true indications of success for your company. Pitfall alert: trade show marketing managers often think the number of business cards collected is a sufficient measure of trade show success. While this exercise can be useful for anecdotal data, it’s not going to tell you much about ROI. Determining how many people your team engaged (e.g. number of cards) is good to know. To truly inform your trade show and marketing strategy, however, you’ll need to find ways to measure the quality of those individuals as prospects. In the B2B world, first appointments are a great gauge At MEET, we like to use the number of new prospect appointments as a key metric of ROI gains. Recognizing the time it will take to set these appointments, you should aim to collect this data 15-30 days after an event. Note: The criterion for this metric is that these are first appointments with new prospects. We do not count follow-up meetings with existing prospects engaged at a show, though the number of existing prospects who are moved further down the sales funnel is also valuable data. The beauty of this data point is that it’s calculable in a relatively short timeframe, again 15-30 days. The faster you are able to gain a handle on marketing ROI, the better and more empowered your marketing team will be at making smart investments. At MEET, we aim to make calculating marketing ROI as fundamental as getting in your car and throwing on your GPS. By integrating a variety of simple ways to collect valuable data, our clients eliminate the unknowns in their marketing strategy. And with little mystery comes little reason for excuses. So jump in the driver’s seat. For more on how to identify and incorporate metrics into your marketing strategy, check out our recent webinar: Benchmarks, Goals, Metrics and ROI, Everything You Need to Know About Measuring Trade Show Results. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, visit our YouTube Channel. About
 MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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How to Ensure Your Trade Show Strategy is Complete

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  If you follow our blog and webinar series, you know that trade show strategy is a big focus of our work. For one, it’s because we truly believe that a well-crafted, well-executed strategy is critical to maximizing trade show ROI. Second, we’ve noticed that many B2B marketing strategies stop short at goal setting and lack the type of validation measures to justify the time and resource commitments therein. Assuming you’ve jumped into 2020 with a trade show strategy in place, how can you guarantee that your plan is complete? Will it deliver sustained ROI? Beyond setting goals and selecting events, what are the indicators of a complete trade show strategy? Start by asking these questions. What will I learn? Let’s assume that you’ve followed our advice and identified a minimum of one event per month for the next 12-months. Remember, none of these events should be place-fillers; each presents a unique audience and opportunity to achieve your marketing goals. It’s critical that every commitment of resources be understood not only in terms of ROI, but as an opportunity to learn. Testing, specifically A/B testing, is one of the easiest ways to learn about the effectiveness of trade show strategy plan. At MEET, we typically recommend that our clients test the effectiveness of at least one of three areas at every trade show: Buyer persona Have you identified the right persona? Value proposition Are you using the right value proposition for this particular audience? Call to action Does your call to action trigger high-quality prospects to self identify and opt-in amongst the sea of trade show participants? We recommend performing these A/B tests by breaking down a full or multiple-day event into half-day segments. Test one assumption in the morning, and a different assumption in the afternoon. For more on A/B testing, check out this post. The goal of testing is to provide greater insight into which technique produced the most value. You can then use this knowledge to inform your trade show strategy for future engagements, hence adding significant depth to your overall marketing plan. Orienting yourself toward learning is a simple and effective way to implement a feedback loop into your strategy, in turn ensuring consistent opportunities for iteration and improvement. Who will lead? The key to actualizing your trade show strategy is identifying who will take the lead at each event. Simply allocating staff to events (i.e. bodies to marketing goals) is unlikely to deliver sustained ROI, if any at all. Identifying a leader for each event in your plan and viewing these responsibilities as professional development opportunities is an important indicator of a well-crafted plan. At MEET, we emphasize the importance of event staff training and preparation prior to each event. That means ensuring that team members know their roles and responsibilities and understand how their unique function, whether it’s prospect identification, engagement or enrollment, contributes to the team’s larger goals. For more on how to prepare your event team for success, check out this post: Help Your Event Team Help You. Identifying one onsite leader for each event is a great first step. Developing a curriculum for team orientations, and a schedule for multiple pre-event engagements is also important for encouraging shared ownership and clean lines of communication. Finally, focusing on leadership helps build sustainability as the next generation of leaders is developed. Accountability What’s the best indicator of a complete trade show strategy plan? The answer is never letting it hit the shelf. Because whether your bailiwick is marketing, sales, communications, or partnerships, every measure of success boils down to an accountable process. Building opportunities for testing and training will get you there. For more on how to ensure trade show success in 2020, check out our recent webinar on this topic. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Return on Investment

The Best 2020 Event Selection Strategy

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You might be thinking: “Wow, they’re confident!” In fact, we are. Because when it comes to developing an event selection strategy for our clients, we focus on a results-centered process rather than specific events. Get the process right, and failure becomes nearly impossible. Tell us if you agree. Step 1: Determine your buyer persona In order to begin the event selection process, you need to identify a target or buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. Using whatever technique’s necessary, you should be able to answer the following questions: Age and demographics Role and responsibilities Interests Concerns (What keeps him/her up at night?) Most pressing needs Obtaining answers to these questions will help you to: Make decisions about which events to participate in and how Develop messaging and offers to attract these buyers based on their concerns Step 2: Map event opportunities The next step is to search for events that will put you in contact with this buyer persona. At this stage, don’t worry about perfection—for the time being, more is better. How do you collect this information? Google (use a range of keyword searches to find relevant events) Network (ask friends in the industry which shows they attend) Exhibitors (people who have exhibited at the shows on your list). Ask them which other events they go to and how these events compare in terms of ROI, the organizers, and the audience. Competitors (see questions above).  You can do this anonymously. Partners (who may be able to identify additional events, not on your list) Now it’s time for analysis. Step 3: Create an event scorecard There are many different types of scorecards and the variables used within them may vary based on your objectives. (For a preview and explanation of the scorecard we use with our clients, check out this webinar) The basic criteria, starting with the benefits, include: Quality Score: target audience/total audience %
Because this input is substantially more important than the other factors you’ll be accounting for, we recommend weighting this score. For example, consider making it three times more valuable than your other variables. Quantity, i.e., number of projected attendees Duration (days) Exhibiting floor location as a measure of audience exposure. On a 1-5 scale, how would you rate the projected exposure opportunity with target prospects? Now moving onto the costs: Exhibiting versus sponsorship Travel and staffing Feel free to contact us for more details on how to create a weighted event selection scorecard for your company. Step 4: Make your decision It’s time to decide which events will be entered into your annual strategy. At this point, you should have a ranking of high to low priority events. But you’re not quite finished. Next, you’ll want to overlay this ranking with additional data, such as the date and duration of each event, prioritizing the highest-ranked events within each quarter. Note: your goal is not to create an unlimited number of prospects. Rather, your goal is to create a steady stream of as many prospects as you can handle at one time based on your capacity. There is no reason to create more prospects than you can manage. That is just wasted potential energy. Because marketing and sales do not happen in isolation, it is also important to overlay sales goals. Whether it’s at the end of each event, month or quarter, you’ll want to know the number of prospects needed to reach your sales goals, taking into account the 6-12 month sales cycle. Creating an even flow of events throughout the year is optimal for helping to achieve these goals. Step 5: Embed your event selection strategy within your broader marketing plan While we believe trade shows and in-person events to be the best content marketing opportunity for B2B companies, it’s critical that your strategy is embedded in and integrated with additional modes of marketing. Whether it’s a Lunch and Learn, an executive briefing, or a new product release, make sure that your event schedule complements and leverages these opportunities within your existing marketing cycle. Updates and iterations Congratulations! You’ve completed your event selection strategy. Now don’t go putting it on a shelf to collect dust. You’ll want to refresh your strategy based on measured results and new events that pop up. At MEET, we recommend adjusting your plan once a quarter, extending the projection from that point on so that you always have a 12-month strategy on hand. Have we convinced you? There’s only one way to find out. Let us know if you have questions. For more on how to ensure trade show success in 2020, check out our recent webinar on this topic. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About
 MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Exhibitor Tips, Return on Investment

The Four Biggest Stumbling Blocks to Trade Show Success

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A report by PwC values the B2B trade show market at $14.3 billion. By 2021, that figure is expected to reach $16.8 billion. Renowned as the best content marketing strategy for B2B companies, these figures come as no surprise. By offering face-to-face exposure to large numbers of high-quality prospects, there are few if any comparable B2B marketing opportunities than trade shows and in-person events. But just because trade shows have the capacity to deliver ROI doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed. Critical to achieving trade show success is identifying and removing the most common pitfalls and stumbling blocks. Fortunately, we’ve come up with the top four challenges that every B2B company should be sure to avoid. 1. Lack of focus Whether a company has misidentified their target prospect or failed to identify one at all, lack of focus is a serious risk. In the absence of a clearly (and narrowly) defined buyer persona, it is impossible to develop a well-aligned, effective marketing strategy to attract, engage, and enroll future customers. For more on developing a clearly defined buyer persona, check out this post. 2. Persona creep In the presence of 1,000, 10,000 or even 100,000 people at a trade show, marketing professionals have a tendency to widen the scope of their carefully conceived buyer persona in hopes of attracting more prospects. At MEET, we refer to this tendency as persona creep—the dilution of marketing and messaging in hopes of broadening reach. The problem with persona creep is that it attracts too many suspects—picture people on the trade show floor looking for a free pen or to Enter to Win your free I-Pad. The result is that high-quality prospects are crowded out, wasting valuable resources in the process. 3. Opportunities are not refreshed With so many complex growth strategies in place, many B2B companies let their trade show plan run on autopilot, failing to refresh and analyze new ways to reach target prospects. Beyond that, many companies select trade shows based on what’s been done in the past or by following the industry crowd. At MEET, we recommend basing your trade show selection on a range of criteria, all of which enhance your overall engagement strategy. The obvious place to start is with shows that feature your target persona and your industry. But don’t stop there. Remember that it’s also important to go to shows that are only relevant to your prospect, i.e. not relevant to your industry. Sitting in the audience alongside prospects allows you to build relationships, learn their language, and gain further insight into how to address their concerns. Events such as these may also help you find additional, even unexpected partners. Keeping tabs on all kinds of in-person event opportunities available to you and your customers is fundamental to maintaining a successful trade show strategy plan. Need help identifying a range of high-value opportunities? Reach out to us today. 4. The Lazy Susan Approach If you’re familiar with a Lazy Susan, you can picture a device that rotates for the purpose of conveniently delivering content. The problem with a Lazy Susan approach is that in exchange for convenience, your view is limited. You don’t see the entire picture of what is available to you. As each opportunity pops up you are left to decide – do I take it or do I leave it? When a client asks us whether or not to attend an event, our response is always the same: let’s look at how it fits within your annual trade show strategy. At MEET, we strive to help our clients approach each decision from an analytical rather than emotional perspective, utilizing formulas that allow for good decisions to be repeated and optimized. What’s the best approach to overcoming the four most common stumbling blocks to trade show success? Four words: trade show strategy plan. And while building and managing your trade show strategy plan may seem like a large investment, the ROI is incomparable. For more on how to ensure trade show success in 2020, check out our recent webinar on this topic. To check out all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About
 MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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