Is the Sales Funnel Anemic without Trade Shows?

Sales, marketing and business owners have always had a love – hate relationship with trade shows. While trade shows have remained a traditional means of generating sales leads, trade shows are making great strides to move the educational segment of the trade show online. There are sponsors of the event, however, are they generating the sales leads they were hoping for? That answer is still to be determined.

Trade Shows – What Do We Do About Them?

Traditional trade shows, where we take a flight, stay at a hotel and stand on our feet for the next 3 days, are what we are used to. As exhibitors, we enjoy the conversations with prospects, develop relationships with other exhibiting vendors, and catch up on what competitors and others are releasing into the marketplace. There is an air of excitement and possibilities at trade shows.

But there’s the other side of exhibiting. Does it pay for itself? Are we going to the show because my competitors are there? Do we have the budget to send 2 or 10 people to work the show? How much of the marketing and/or sales budget represents trade shows?

Now that we have a chance, although forcibly, it may be time to take a step back and determine which trade shows are profitable and which one’s do we eliminate for 2021’s budget. However, we also need to explore other sales lead generating channels, and determine what existing channels do we build upon.

Work from Home

We have yet to determine how working from home will be a factor. Companies are right now trying to figure that out. Somewhat because of Covid-19, but they have also found out that collaboration can successfully be done digitally. This can be a huge cost savings for most companies. However, this makes it difficult to create a direct mail campaign. You can send it to the office, but will it be forwarded to their home or will it sit there for a month before they come into the office.

Cold calling has proven to be a 50 / 50 split, but getting better. At first it was difficult to reach the decision maker or recommender as there was no way to contact them directly. Lots of messages were left with little return. However, companies and their IT departments are starting to catch up with forwarding office calls to their cell phones or another means of contact. As a result, calls are going through AND getting answered.

What About Trade Shows

We can certainly say trade shows in 2020 is just about gone. There are a few fully open States, such as Texas, that are continuing to hold regional or State trade shows with some modifications. That’s great for Texas, but what about the remainder of the States.

This is where looking at other channels is critical. Many are finding resources like SalesLeads. Instead of putting cold or unqualified sales leads at the top of the funnel, Project Reports are further down the funnel. Why’s that? It’s because Project Reports are identified projects. The researchers have already identified and verified the project with the right contacts. Our job is to get the information to you, so you can act on it right away. This is a sales lead generation channel that hasn’t been acted upon or qualified. If you haven’t evaluated SalesLeads’ Project Reports, why not? If you open an account, which you will not need a credit card, take a look at the information and decide if you want to go to the next step. It’s the best way, and most cost-effective way to determine how this service can become a new channel for sales lead generation.