What is the real cost of attending industry events?

 The recent economic weather storms have made us all do some wallet-gazing and think twice before making any large purchasing decisions. For our clients, and indeed for every vendor, a cautious approach had to be adopted.  Return on investment (ROI) has been the mantra, everything we do should equal to value and tangible results. So as we draw nearer to the heady days of MWC 2010, I pause once again to reflect on what the ROI is on industry events and how can we really prove the value in financial terms? 

 Every year, vendors set aside enormous marketing budgets to exhibit at key industry events.  Huge investment on time, money and resources are required, indeed planning alone generally can start as far back as five to six months prior to the event itself.  Coupled with that you have to take into account your team and who will represent your company at the event . Now you’re adding to the pot, sales, marketing, senior level execs, product specialists, analyst relations and PR representatives. By now, that’s a lot of hidden financial investment.

 If we had the time, it would be a great exercise to take all these factors into account and do a complete audit on what these events cost in real financial terms. What would be even more interesting is to do a comparison to gauge if the ROI and more importantly, sales generated purely from the event actually align versus costs of investment in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s generally the case that its usually something that is briefly pondered on post event, a perceived judgment is made on whether there was any real ROI or not, before we have to stop, change gear and move swiftly on to start planning for the next industry event. Easier said than done, but wouldn’t it be great, if there was a simple but effective model that could make a real judgment in financial terms.

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