Exhibitions and trade shows are a major part of doing business in Dubai. However, simply having a presence at an exhibition and interacting with visitors is not enough.
To fully maximize the return on investment of attending an event, companies, and exhibition stand suppliers in Dubai must assess how successful their exhibition stand was beyond the few days of the actual show itself.
This involves carefully tracking various important metrics both during and after the event to understand the real impact it had in driving business goals.
Lead Generation:
One of the primary objectives of any exhibition stand should be to collect high-quality leads from qualified visitors who express real interest. Capturing contact details of potential customers through efficient lead collection methods like sign-up sheets, cards in a bowl, or digital forms is key.
However, simply counting the number of leads collected provides an incomplete picture of success. It is important to analyze the quality of leads in terms of factors such as:
- Job roles and decision-making authority of contacts.
- Their real needs and pain points are relevant to your products/services.
- Their stated interests and next steps in the buying process.
- Whether they would like follow-up communication from your sales team.
The success of lead generation should then be measured by the conversion rates of these qualified prospects into meetings, demonstrations, trials, or sales over the following months rather than just the quantity of raw contacts. Tracking lead follow-ups and outcomes through your CRM provides valuable insights into ROI.
Brand Visibility & Awareness:
Active branding and promotion are vital to maximizing the visibility benefits of an exhibition. How recognized and well-known your brand became after the event among attendees and the wider industry is an important metric of stand success beyond footfall. Brand tracking studies conducted before and after via online surveys can reveal the impact on key brand parameters such as:
- Name recognition and top-of-mind recall of your company.
- Favorability and perception of your products/services.
- Changes in associations with your brand values and positioning.
- Increased mentions and conversations about you on social media.
Impressions created through innovative stand designs, high-impact demonstrations, giveaways, or celebrity appearances should manifest as improved brand metrics post-show. Social listening also helps gauge visibility beyond exhibition visitors.
Thought Leadership & Authority:
Exhibitions offer a platform to establish authority and influence through thought-leadership activities like presentations, workshops, and panel discussions. Their success in enhancing your reputation as an expert should be tracked.
Monitor mentions and commentary about your sessions across reporting, blogs, and networks to understand engagement levels and credibility gains. Case studies published, new customers or media interviews secured as a result also indicate standout thought-leadership.
Customer Engagement:
For existing customers, the primary post-event metric is the level of productive engagement with them. How many meetings or calls were scheduled and conversions achieved through demonstration of new solutions at the stand?
Follow-up surveys can uncover if their problems were adequately addressed, needs accurately understood, relationships strengthened and advocacy increased. Customer feedback incorporation is key for customer-centricity.
Participant Surveys:
Well-designed surveys of attendees systematically capture perceptions about the overall exhibition as well as individual company stands and activities. Beyond standard satisfaction indices, their feedback provides invaluable qualitative insights into areas of strength along with opportunities for improvement in planning future events. Questions should focus on aspects like:
- Stand design and staff interaction effectiveness.
- The educational value of messages/presentations.
- Networking opportunities and experiences.
- Most memorable aspects.
- Likelihood of recommendation or re-visit.
Such inputs analyzed against actual conversion outcomes help quantify less tangible ROI drivers and ROI. Comparing year-on-year survey results also reveals the impact of changes made.
ROI Calculations:
To translate the above soft and hard metrics into a clear ROI figure, detailed pre-and-post expenditure breakdowns need to be maintained and discussed with your stand contractors in Dubai. Items to track include – stand construction/design costs, travel & and accommodation, lead collection tools, giveaways, creatives, etc.
Revenue impacts over the next 6-12 months attributable to the event from new client acquisition, additions, upgrades, or renewals from the direct ‘returns’. Benchmarks compiled across industries provide performance references for fair assessments.
Other than these Success Measures Factors what you can do to excessively enhance your Success?
The Answer is – Post Event Marketing:
Successful companies view exhibitions not as one-off events but as the beginning of a continuous engagement journey. Nurturing leads and enabling further qualified connections through tailored follow-up campaigns is key. As such, measuring the success of post-show communications forms an essential element of overall exhibition evaluation:
- Open and click-through rates for personalized emails/texts.
- Response levels for customized digital/printed brochures mailed.
- Attendance and qualified leads from webinars/sessions organized.
- Uptake of special offers and their conversion rates.
- Engagement in the amplification of blog posts/collaterals on social.
Consistent follow-ups over months together with on-site interactions maximize leads conversion likelihood for optimizing all ROI aspects.
In Conclusion:
Defining and tracking both quantitative and qualitative metrics going beyond the duration of trade shows themselves is important to comprehensively assess exhibition investment success in Dubai.
A multidimensional approach factoring lead quality, brand outcomes, feedback, ROI calculations, and effective post-event follow-through delivers actionable insights. This helps prioritize efforts, fine-tune strategies, and justify the budget with the exhibition booth builder.
