If you’re not focused on exhibitor ROI at your show or expo, you should be. Why? It’s simple: Exhibitors that recognise your event as high value are more likely to return and invest more in their event presence — resulting in a more profitable event for you.

As exhibitors become accustomed to metrics-driven digital advertising, businesses who invest in expos today are under increased pressure to track spend and show returns on any investment. If you’re unable to prove that your event can deliver strong returns, you’ll miss out on a share of their marketing budget.

Free Download: The Secret to a Successful Expo

Here are 3 ways your expo can measure and prove results for your exhibitors:

1. Define what success looks like for your exhibitors

When an exhibitor pays to be at your event, they should feel that they’ve made a smart investment when they pack up at the end of the day. Encourage your exhibitors to define what success means to them before they step on the floor. Help them set measurable goals, such as:

  • Collecting a certain number of new email addresses
  • Hitting a dollar amount in sales
  • Passing out branded swag to a predetermined number of attendees.

Defining success will not only help your exhibitors prepare for the event, it will keep them focused when they get there. When attendees approach a stand, exhibitors will know exactly what to pitch them.

When it comes time to review the results, you’ll both be in a better position to know what was achieved — because you’ll both know what to measure.

2. Help exhibitors capture leads

To keep exhibitors coming back to your event, they need to know that their stand is driving business. For many exhibitors, that means generating not only engagement with their display, but also leads.

You could ask exhibitors to collect their own leads, but that cuts you out of the loop and creates a disjointed experience for attendees. By implementing a single solution for all exhibitors to capture leads at your event, you’re providing a high-value service — and getting better visibility into your event’s performance.

For example, let’s say you have a great exhibitor with an excellent product, but they’re not making enough sales on the day. There’s a chance your attendees are buying from them after the event, but if they’re not capturing leads or running follow up marketing, they may never know. Instead of losing their business next year, you could run a promotion using lead capturing to collect customer details and set them up for success with a post-event promotion.

Looking for a single lead capture solution for your exhibitors that works on any device? Check out Eventbrite’s Onsite Experience Suite, powered by Entegy.

3. Use an event app to gather rich data

Mobile event apps are more accessible than ever, to expos and shows of any size. These apps can collect better data on your event, putting you in a position to offer exhibitors more than just a head count.

Examples of data you can uncover from event apps include:

  • Number of active users — how many people are engaging with exhibitors?
  • Top interests — what topics and exhibitors draw the highest crowds? Can you expand on these topics further at your next event?
  • Event flow — which sites and session times receive the highest foot traffic?

Modern app functionality, such as Entegy’s Attendance Tracking, allows you to  collect rich data on the movement and habits of attendees. This can be used to create attendee segments for pinpoint accuracy when targeting future events or campaigns to your audience.

Let’s use a pet expo as an example. If you wanted to build a profile of your dog-loving attendees, you could use Attendance Tracking to show how many attendees checked in to your dog sessions and engaged with dog-focused exhibitors.

In that example, creating a segment of dog lovers from your audience would allow you to:

  • Deliver high quality data insights to your dog-focused exhibitors
  • Let these exhibitors know what topics attendees engage with the most — improving your event and exhibitor results
  • Run a targeted campaign with post-event exhibitor offers to dog owners (targeted emails generate 58% of all email marketing revenue)

Deliver a more successful expo

To learn how technology can be used to measure and maximise ROI for both you and your exhibitors, download the free guide: The Secret to a Successful Expo.