Before talking about financial details, we must warn you there is no an exact formula to the question of how much I should invest in a business fair.It depends completely on whether it is a booth for MWC 2017 in Barcelona, or an exhibitor in a local and little fair of limited (but appreciated) range. However,it is true that once we have decided to embark on the recommended adventure of exhibiting at a business fair, we definitely must show the best of ourselves, and this would be really difficult to achieve unless we are flexible and willing to invest.
Plan your Budget According the Cost of the Fair
If participation in a trade fair costs 1.000 euros, it is even preposterous and incoherent making an investment that multiply this cost by 10. Similarly, if a place in an exhibition costs about 30.000 euros, it is ridiculous to get a simple stand for just 5.000.
In fact, the booth and the participation should comprise the highest cost of the budget, since they are the two keys of success in a fair.Therefore both costs must be almost the same or at least very similar.
On the other hand, we have to think that participation costs in a fair are fully measured and are normally in proportion to the scope of it. Therefore, if participation in a fair is expensive, it is because it has a high projection. Expenses on the other hand can be profitable through advertising and offering security to reach a significant percentage of your clients.
Make your Own Measurement of the Range and Decide in Accordance
Despite what have been said, paying 30.000 euros does not necessarily mean that we will recover this amount of money in sales.Although at the beginning the balance may be apparently negative, we redeem what we would have spent on advertising for X assistants and the investment will return slowly once we have become a strong benchmark for attendees (for this reason, a striking and well -designed booth is essential).
Example of an Approximate Budget
If participating in a fair costs 10.000 euros, we should get a 15.000-euro booth and invest around 25.000 euros in expenses resulting from this (material to offer to the visitors, marketing expenses and extra promotion, travel expenses, the transport of material to exhibit,etc.)
In total we are talking about 50.000 euros, which at first might seem excessive but means nothing if the event has an average attendance of 30.000 attendees.Such a level of participation means that we would be investing 1,66 euros in advertising “of the best quality” for each attendant.
We must admit that not the 30.000 attendees are going to bring benefits but we will be addressing to a very targeted audience (they are asking about our services, so we do not need to do invasive advertising). For this reason,there are many chances that if they do not contact us at the very moment of the fair, they will possibly show some interest in our services in the future.
Consider Other Economic Benefits and Risks
When we make an online advertising campaign, we know we are also assuming certain risks and we may set our strategy according the “practice-test-error” technique. We know our clientele is there, but we also suppose that not all of them are going to click on our ad. However, it is always wroth to study and analyze their behavior and wait until one day they become customers.
Regarding the participation in fairs we must keep this strategy in mind: we shouldn’t be afraid to invest a certain amount in a fair even if we have no security of an immediate return, because the simple fact of being where our customers are, may help us to be considered as a reference and on the other hand it will be a tool to study potential client’s behavior.