The cost of attending an exhibition far outweighs outsourcing sales to a lead generation company
Traditional exhibitions have always been a great marketing opportunity for businesses to help generate leads. You can meet important decision makers, directly engage with your target market and potentially even earn media coverage.
However, multiple businesses have recently reported poor returns in comparison to the cost of attending exhibitions. These businesses are instead deciding to use that money to outsource with lead generation companies like EQL.
What are exhibitions in sales?
Exhibitions are events in which multiple businesses attend to exhibit and demonstrate their services or product to the public or other traders. They’ve been loved as an influential marketing tool for quite some time now, with a big selling point being that you can engage directly with people who are interested in what you can provide.
However, as trends and the market changes, so do marketing tactics. It’s unclear whether it’s because less people are attending or there’s more competition in general, but businesses are seeing less returns from attending exhibitions.
Why are people starting to choose to outsource their sales instead?
One of the main reasons companies are choosing sales outsourcing over traditional exhibitions is the financial cost. The cost of exhibitions can easily cost £50k upwards, which can be a steep cost for smaller businesses – especially if they’re seeing minimal returns.
When displaying at exhibitions as a business, many businesses only consider the cost of the stand itself (which alone includes the location, design/build, and logistics). They later realise it becomes a huge expense when they add in the cost of the staff on the stand and them being away from their jobs, hotels, travel, food and entertainment.
Outlaying a big amount of cash for marketing purposes can be a great investment – as long as the return justifies it. We’ve spoken to multiple new clients who have recently seen poor returns from attending exhibitions, especially in comparison to the expense they’ve spent.
Another reason businesses are deciding to readjust their marketing budget away from exhibitions is the time-cost. It can be underestimated how much preparation is needed for an exhibition. It takes a lot of work, from physically organising your stand (finding the right spot, selecting exhibition stand contractors) to the logistical side of it (moving staff away from their day roles, running the stand itself).
For many companies, this time is valuable and could be instead used more wisely on sales and alternate marketing efforts. Smaller businesses may not even have the staff capacity to successfully run a stand at an exhibition.
These clients have now decided to use their budget on outsourcing to us, instead. If you’re in a similar situation and are struggling to see returns on your investments, get in touch to find out more about what we can offer you and your business.
