Looking for Buttonwood at Vegas?
We decided to give exhibiting in Vegas a miss this year…Here are the three reasons why.
1) We’re Lost in the Chaos
There are over 1,200 exhibitors on two floor in Vegas. While the idea of 13,000 potential customers is attractive, the reality is that most people have time to visit somewhere around 75 exhibitors. Since everyone stops by the big guys and their friends that eliminates around 50 or so…which leave us fighting for traffic with 1,150 other exhibitors to be one of the remaining 25 booths they visit. Statistically speaking we have about a 2% chance of you visiting our booth which translates into about 250 new visitors. The reality from past years would suggest these numbers are high.
2) We Get A Poor Return on Our Investment
With our 250 projected visitors we start to look at the ROI. For us to go to Vegas costs around $10,000. Between booth space, pre-show marketing, collateral, hotels and other stuff it all adds up quick. So for our projected 250 new leads we will spend around $10,000…which gives us a cost of $40 per lead. The reality is most of those leads are unqualified so the true cost is closer to something between $80 and $100 per lead. This a VERY expensive was to generate unqualified interest in our product. Email marketing for example is closer to $50 per lead and those leads are from qualified distributors who are interested in learning more about and evaluating our product.
3) Exiled to Siberia
PPAI puts all the business service companies way up in the back of the second floor exhibit hall. By the time a distributors makes it back to see us they have already used up a lot of their ability to take in information. Most of the interactions we engage in are with tired people who are looking forward to the end of their day. When we try to have a conversation about eCommerce and Internet strategy they look at us with a kind smile and eyes that say “I agree this is important but I’m just not going to understand it right now.”
I wanted to explain why we’re not exhibiting in a public and honest format – I hope our reasons make sense and that no one feels slighted or unimportant because we’re not on the floor this year. I’ll be in Vegas and I have a ton of fun and exciting meetings with suppliers and distributors who really want to learn more about Buttonwood. If you want to meet up in person for any reason shoot me an email and we’ll try and figure something out.
Good luck and have fun!
As a Distributor, I quite going to the show many years ago – We have been in the industry for 30 years as Distributors.
If you do the stats on the show you have less than a minute to vist each booth which explains the “Scan Me Crowd”.
In Europe, the booths use to be built with meeting rooms in them and you we expected a to sit down and place orders atthe show. Now this does not fit the North American plan but if you created an area for a couple of meetinng rooms and do as you did this year, send out invitation to book a time to meet with you. This may give you better (more qualified ) results.
In the past I have also met with service companies in a hotel suite that was setup for meetings as well.
Hope these comments are helpful.
Garry
Great insight Gary. Thanks!!