The power of fairs & trade shows

(based on the UFI, Global Association of the Exhibitions Industry)

In 2015, almost 40% of B2B companies marketing budget fell into fairs & trade shows participation. It is still the best way for this segment to collect leads, meet people, organize meetings and close deals.

This trend remains stable across the years and places. Interesting data here: North America (24%) and Europe (48%) being the leading spots to do business, with the highest number of business events organized per year. Asia (20%) stands as the fastest growing place for exhibitions.

Asia, a fast growing spot

With approximately 2,000 exhibitions organized per year, Asia for B2B is the perfect place if you’re looking to build fast business relationships.

Let’s take a deeper look at a city like Hong Kong, one of the highest population concentration in the world, for its number of exhibitions. Why choosing Hong Kong as an example? A great place for entrepreneurs and manufactures, at China’s doorstep, Hong Kong is a great opportunity for B2B companies to access cheap production costs on one hand and meet potential customers in a most dynamic business spot on the other.

More than 108 major exhibitions per year, an average number of visitors equal to 2 million and a constant growth of 6% visitors increase YoY are good indicators of the dynamism of the region. Oh, and by the way, did you know the world global number of visitor was 260 million? So quite a decent score at a city scale!

So, that said, what are the main objectives for B2B people attending such events?

According to our observations and researches, , with 70 out of 100 people questioned. Brand awareness and customers’ retention comes after. What does it mean? Well, taken into account the budget allocation stated above and the level of leads collections expectation, it better be worth the effort. Nevertheless, .

Let’s go a little deeper: what pain points did we highlight?

Indeed, preparation and forecast can be improved: budgeting and having a clear checklist is only considered well done by 70% of attendees. . What a waste!

Improve, improve, improve!

At the end of the day, what matters is the revenue generated by the events you will attend. Why not start using proper tools helping you plan ahead, collect leads more efficiently and analyze your results.  Such tools can be found on the market. myfairtool is a great example of a designed software made for exhibitors with unique objective continuous improvement of tactics and methods.

Last but not least, we found out that in average, around 80% of trade shows attendees travel more than 400 miles to participate and more than 81% of them have an actual “buying authority”. Don’t waste your time or theirs, get the best of your next event, start making profit!

based on the UFI, Global Association of the Exhibitions Industry and ad-hoc studies

Access the infographic here.