Reallocate Your Trade Show Marketing Dollars

If you haven’t reviewed your company’s cost savings as a result of trade show cancelations, look now! Even though your total investment depends on the size of your booth and frequency of events, it’s safe to say you’ve saved thousands of dollars. If trade shows have traditionally been a positive investment for your organization, your sales pipeline might be missing some new prospects. Here are some budgeting tips for the end of 2020 now that we are knee–deep in budget season. 

Are you using this money to grow your pipeline? If so, how? 

The unfortunate cancelation of all in-person trade shows and conferences have none-the-less opened countless opportunities for other marketing tactics to be utilized. Now more than ever, marketing and sales are working hard to ramp up business development. How is your company supporting them? Is your company pursuing B2B phone outreach tactics, email marketing, direct mailers or other lead generation techniques? On the digital side, do you allocate funds to paid advertising, for example Google Ads, LinkedIn Sponsored Ads, or Facebook Ads? What accounts for your biggest marketing costs? From a ROI perspective, if you’ve tracked results, which are most successful? 

Depending on the answers to those questions, consider reallocating your funds to another source of lead generation. What better way to qualify prospects in real-time than to engage in phone prospecting? B2B Prospect Qualification and Appointment Setting guarantee two-way communication, which isn’t always the case with all marketing methods. Company profiles have changed this year, so requalifying your prospects to determine who now makes up the best prospects is more important than ever. Consider dedicating more hours for your salespeople to do prospecting in-house or outsource it altogether. If you or your salespeople have kids home, barking dogs, and plenty of distractions – that’s all the more reason to outsource your prospecting! 

We used the money already, now what? 

From the start of the pandemic to present day, companies have experienced some of the following: lay-offs, pay cuts, budget cuts and re-allocation of funds, applying for government loans, or loss of revenue. It has certainly been a tough year. Budget planning for 2021 is happening NOW. Make sure you plan in advance for the uncertainty of future trade show events. Adjust your budget to account for other forms of marketing, so the gap in in-person networking doesn’t leave your sales pipeline empty. Create a budget that allows for some experimentation for the uncertainty in the new year.  

The year ahead 

Based on the start of flu season and the current up-tick in COVID-19 cases, a second wave may be on the horizon. As a result, virtual networking events will be the new normal for months to come. Unfortunately, a switch cannot magically turn the world back to normal when the New Year’s ball drops on December 31st. Even with a vaccine, it will take time to see the impact nation-wide. 

Luckily, there are other ways of marketing and networking that can be utilized to build your sales pipeline without relying on in-person events. Take the steps now to be proactive in incorporating a budget for these other business development tools. Allocate your marketing dollars to new areas you haven’t tried in a while. 

Use this opportunity to invest your saved money from trade shows into a strategic telemarketing campaign with MarketReach. Your prospect list will be pre-qualified, and targets will be primed with your features and benefits. Once an appointment is scheduled, your sales representatives will meet with decision makers in the buying cycle. Imagine filling your pipeline with new sellable sales opportunities!