After a prolonged period of virtual meetings and online events, the world is finally witnessing the resurgence of in-person gatherings, with events and trade shows making a huge comeback.

For businesses, this presents an exciting opportunity to reconnect with customers and establish new partnerships whilst showcasing your products and services to live audiences.  

However, it’s crucial to ensure that the events you attend yield a profitable return on investment.  After all, successful event participation entails more than establishing a great looking booth—it requires strategic planning, targeted promotion, effective lead generation, and comprehensive follow-up. These critical aspects intertwine to form the foundation of an effective event strategy that can catalyse business growth.  

In this blog post, we’ll explore how to maximise ROI from events you attend, so you know how to make the most of your participation. 

Pre-Event Planning: Setting the Stage for Success
The old adage “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” never rings truer than in event planning!  Whilst events are making a big comeback, people’s diaries are still very busy.  It’s important that you begin planning well in advance of your event and support your attendance with a robust marketing strategy.  For your marketing strategy to succeed, clearly defined objectives and goals are a must.  Without them, you’ll find it harder to select the right event or trade show to attend, and struggle to identify your target audience.  This will also help ensure that you allocate your budget wisely, focusing on the most promising opportunities, and ensure that you can adequately resource the event and execute your plan effectively.  Following this up with direct outreach to generate meetings on the day(s) will also massively increase your success.

Lead Generation Strategies
Whilst increasing your brand’s authority and credibility is a key factor of event and trade show attendance, lead generation is usually one of the primary objectives, so it’s essential to capture high-quality leads that have the potential to convert into customers. Conducting pre-event outreach can ensure prospects actively search for your booth, and it can also help you achieve a number of appointments and meetings at the event itself.  Leverage social media platforms and networking opportunities to widen your reach and generate interest in your offering.  Lead scoring and qualification mechanisms will ensure you are able to prioritise and focus on the most promising prospects. Equally important is ensuring a prompt and personalised follow-up with leads post-event to nurture these relationships further.

Post-Event Follow-Up and Nurturing
Don’t finish an event and congratulate yourself on your success without following up on all of the important engagements and attendances from the occasion, as a successful event doesn’t end when the show is over! The post-event follow-up is just as crucial as the event itself. To convert interest into appointments, it’s imperative to engage with leads in a timely and personalised manner to keep the momentum going. Nurturing these leads through tailored communication and value-added content will help build trust and strengthen the potential for future partnerships and ultimately – sales opportunities. Follow this with direct outreach and you have a winning formula.  Where possible, it’s also good practice to measure and analyse the performance of your event strategies to identify areas for improvement and future success.

As events and trade shows make their long-awaited return, businesses must seize this opportunity to capitalise on the potential for growth and success. By carefully planning and conducting effective lead generation and post-event follow-up, you can ensure that your event participation delivers a significant return on investment.

However, this level of activity is complex, time consuming and can be costly to achieve, especially when your internal sales and marketing teams are already maxed out on day to day activities.  Let Broadley Speaking take the pressure off.  Our integrated approach extends your reach beyond the trade show or event floor through targeted direct sales outreach and compelling marketing. Using engagement measurement tools, intent data, and predictive analysis, we focus on early-stage prospects to ensure you receive engaged visitors at your booth. Then, our experienced Business Development Managers use multi-touch outreach activity to generate high-value and highly qualified appointments post event, keeping your sales pipeline filled with new business opportunities well after the event is over.

To learn more about how to maximise ROI from events, contact us for a no obligation discovery call. Our experts are ready to assist you in navigating the complexities of B2B trade shows, helping you secure measurable and valuable outcomes.