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Marketing Room: Sales

	Transportation Companies Struggle With Trade Show Marketing

	The National Industrial Transportation League ... IANA ... NASSTRAC ... there are a number of events in the horizontal transportation industry available to companies as a marketing platform. Not to mention the countless venues in vertical markets. Yet, many companies that exhibit at trade shows each year face a conundrum. Finance departments look at exhibits as a sales tool, use them for several years and measure their effectiveness in terms of new business leads. But that leaves marketing departments, which oftentimes refine their messages every year, using outdated marketing tools and unable to easily quantify the results. "Many transportation companies change their ad program every year or two," says Brian Everett, CEO of TMCA and Senior Partner of MindShare Strategies, a full-service marketing agency specializing in the transportation industry. "Yet markets shift so quickly now that your trade shows have to keep up with it all through the movement of the Web, blogging, and other marketing and communication tactics that change at a moment's notice. As a marketer, you're caught between a rock and a hard place." The biggest crux of the disconnect between corporate management and the marketing department: Most companies say they go to trade shows with one set of goals in mind, yet are dissatisfied with the events and sometimes pull out if they don't achieve a different goal. Recent studies show that a majority of companies say they exhibit at trade shows to generate sales leads and increase brand awareness. But when companies are asked how they measure their ROI from events, most say it is the number of sales leads generated, with others saying it's the number of people visiting the booth. So what's the real goal? "Many companies go to a show for awareness, but they leave the event for a lack of ROI," says Everett. "Exhibiting and sponsoring events is about impact, and awareness and getting senior executives involved in the marketplace. Yet the ROI focus seems to be predominantly on lead gen. That can be important - but that should not be what it's all about." Trade shows also can be costly. In fact, a recent survey showed that trade shows account for the largest part of the corporate marketing budget (23.6%) yet nearly two-thirds of companies invested less than 20% of their time developing and implementing a strategy for trade shows. In addition, the trade show exhibit should represent a given place in time for a company - and this changes year to year. Another challenge for marketers: How can you have an exhibit that represents your company at that place in time if you have an exhibit that never changes? It's like running the same ad - with the same tired messages - for five years.
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