strategic plan

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.

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.

  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.

  As 2019 comes to a close, many CEOs of scaling ventures are taking stock of the year’s marketing investments. They’re looking at their budgets and sales pipelines, and asking the ultimate question: what was our ROI? This time of year is not only about reflecting back—it’s about projecting forward. Setting goals and benchmarks, and determining new definitions of success based on well-situated growth strategies. At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. We believe these opportunities are crucial to most any B2B marketing and sales strategy and work in every way possible to guarantee trade show success for our clients. With 75+ years of experience, we feel confident in our assessment that approximately 90% of trade show exhibitors fail to maximize ROI. There are a number of reasons why this is the case and while some are more obvious, others may come as a surprise. Here are three ways of guaranteeing trade show success in 2020 that you may never have expected. Engage the minority The primary purpose of trade shows is to connect with and enroll volumes of high-quality prospects. Whether there are 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 attendees at an event, your goal is not to engage as many of them as possible. Your goal is to engage the minority who are actually prospects. Many companies either miss or fail to identify their target prospect persona before participating in an event. As a result, they cast an overly wide marketing net and waste time and money engaging people who are not viable prospects. There are three qualities that we have found best define a prospect for any company: 1. They have a NEED for your solution 2. They have MONEY or the resources to satisfy that need 3. They are URGENT We call it NEED, MONEY, NOW. If a company presents only two of these qualities, they are not a prospect. At least, not today. The percentage of attendees who meet all three criteria may be less than 1%. This is ideal as it helps focus your energies on the highest potential opportunities as opposed to clogging up your funnel with “suspects” that will never close. Therefore, your first step to achieving trade show success is to develop a marketing strategy to engage the minority of trade show attendees who are true prospects. Don’t even try to make B2B sales from inside the booth At MEET, we work closely with our clients on booth strategy and have written a number of posts on our staffing philosophy.  We firmly believe that the best role for salespeople at a trade show is in pre-set 1-on-1 meetings with prospects who are already in the sales funnel, customers, partners, and centers of influence. In essence, salespeople should not expect to make sales from inside the booth. As such, they shouldn’t be inside the booth at all. In the booth, you want transaction experts—those capable of delivering your offer to qualified prospects within 1-2 minutes. A well-crafted offer will ensure that the stacks of business cards your team collects by the end of the event are those who have a need, the money to satisfy that need, and urgency for a solution. Events are not only about you While enrolling high-quality prospects remains your number one goal, trade shows and in-person events have other valuable assets besides filling your pipeline. We encourage all our clients to use trade shows and in-person events for competitive intelligence. In addition to doing competitive research prior to the event, it’s important to leverage the full scope of learning opportunities. For example: Make sure your sales team has time to walk the floor, observe and even engage with competitors Make time in their schedules for event content and hospitality, underscoring the importance of noting who is in the room and what is being said. The factors that contribute to trade show success are no mystery. That said, some of the best techniques could come as a surprise. 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.

At MEET, we talk a lot about the critical link between clearly defined buyer personas and marketing ROI. But for international scaling companies, developing the right marketing strategy also requires a careful account of the unique cultural ways of doing business in each foreign market. India’s vast size and gateway access to Southeast and East Asian markets represent enormous opportunities for scaling firms. As such, insight into how to “make it” can be extremely useful. For advice on how to succeed in achieving marketing ROI in India, we sat down with Nilesh Gopali, Founder and CEO of AAVOR. AAVOR provides international business advisory services for cross-border growth of ventures, especially those where the Internet plays a significant role in their expansion. Getting into the marketing mindset for India Depending on one’s experience with similar scaling endeavors, Nilesh’s first tip for maximizing marketing ROI is to let go of preconceived notions about your target prospect. “In many developed nations, you’re marketing directly to the customers you want to buy your products and services. Hence your marketing message is centered around them—how they will benefit.” Nilesh explains that in India, your marketing audience is almost always a third-party distributor or channel partner and not the end-user customer. “Never in your life, will you interact, meet or do anything with the end-user in the Indian market.” “You have to think in a completely different way when marketing in India.” As a result, your target persona is your channel partner, which in turn directly impacts your marketing message and strategy. “Your messaging should reflect both how good your product is for their customers and how good your company will be as a financial partner.” Keep in mind: in India, there may be multiple layers of intermediaries involved in selling your product nationwide. As a result, a highly effective marketing strategy will help to ensure that your first channel partner will subsequently sell your product to the next one, who in turn will reach the end-user. Don’t try to beat the system To put his recommendation into context, Nilesh provided an example of what happens to scaling firms that try to side-step channel partners and market directly to their customers. “I have seen companies that come to India with plans to do online marketing to our population of 1.4 billion. To their surprise, they do not make a single sale, despite the price being in-line with other Indian products and services.” The problem, as Nilesh points out, is that nobody may want to buy that kind of product online. The culture dictates that this type of product is best bought in a shop with customer service. International scaling firms don’t have that perspective and therefore run the risk of sinking millions into a failed marketing strategy. Third-party distributors, on the other hand, specialize in this knowledge. Who are potential channel partners? In India, Nilesh describes a potential channel partner as anyone with access to well-trained talent and resources. Depending on the sector you are in, this may be a bank, an educational institute or an engineering college. What is convenient for scaling firms is the fact that channel partners will collaborate and synergize with you to determine the best working relationship. “Ultimately they know they are talented resources and may even be open to forming a joint venture.” The added value of marketing to India Despite the time, resources and mindset shift required to maximize marketing ROI, many international scaling companies chose India for one simple reason: they believe that what works in India will work with 40% of the global population. And they’re right. Nilesh suggests that for those who are looking to develop their product or services for India, the probability of it being replicable across Asia Pacific and Africa is very high. “That’s where the talent, the resources, everything comes into focus. Because you’re not just marketing to India, you’re marketing to about half the world’s population.” For more insight into India market-entry, check out our full interview with Nilesh Gopali titled: Capitalize on the India Growth Story for Market Entry.  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.

At MEET, we help international companies soft-land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. Many of the companies we work with are not new to international scaling. In fact, it’s their success—both at home and abroad—that has led them to explore U.S. market entry. One thing we emphasize with all our clients is that successfully landing in one market does not guarantee a smooth or even viable landing in another, especially with different terrain. With its vast demographic and geographic diversity, India is a prime example of a high-demand market that requires different landing gear for international scaling firms. On November 12th, we sat down with our good friend Nilesh Gopali, Founder and CEO of investment and business advisory firm AAVOR, to explore India market-entry, and in particular, some common pitfalls that international scaling firms face. Success is a double-edged sword for international scaling companies India’s distinct culture and large population are a few of the obvious challenges that scaling firms anticipate. But that doesn’t stop them. “If you look at the companies that are coming to India, they have done exceptionally well in their home market. Many have experience with fast growth, which is why they are looking to scale abroad.” Nilesh points out that sometimes the success that builds confidence in scaling ventures can be a double-edged sword in the Indian market. “The senior management team is thinking about India and assumes that they’ll need a couple of months to get to know the market. Then, based on a proven history of success in their home market or others, they prescribe a familiar scaling tactic.” According to Nilesh, the biggest mistake that India market-entry firms make is to underestimate the amount of time it takes to successfully gain traction. Within three months these companies expect to be able to reach a conclusion about the India market and, by the fourth month, begin operating on those assumptions in an effort to reduce costs. This truncated timeline is where Nilesh feels the biggest mistake lies. Setting a realistic timeline Nilesh suggests setting aside the first six to eight months for learning. “You should expect to have a steep learning curve during that time, followed by very fast implementation.” He believes that operating with anything less than that significantly limits your understanding of the market, and leads to other challenges. “You might get the first 10 or 15 customers—the tip of the iceberg—but you will never get a large chunk of the Indian market. And once you establish your brand identity you become typecast as a particular company and it becomes impossible to reposition yourself.” Underestimating the power of cultural, regional and language differences are common pitfalls any international scaling endeavor should anticipate. Accurately estimating the time it will take to overcome them requires additional skills. Making friends in the sandbox Nilesh describes the Indian market as one that is very open for international companies, especially when compared to other Asian countries. That said there are two aspects that Indian market-entry firms must consider. The first involves positioning, to ensure there is a clear benefit to Indians. While the Indian government is keen to help international scaling firms, that support comes at the price of ensuring there is added value for the Indian population. The second is to recognize the importance of building relationships with Indian counterparts—as opposed to transaction partners—and the amount of time that will take. “In India, a meeting that might take one hour in the West will take two, and you might only get as far as exploring each other’s personalities. But you need to go through that process.” There is more than enough support for international scaling companies in India, Nilesh advises, but they need to play by the rules of sandbox. For more insight into India market-entry, check out our full interview with Nilesh Gopali titled: Capitalize on the India Growth Story for Market Entry.  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.