What a trade fair really costs: the sum nobody does
How to work out the real cost of a trade fair per new customer, with a fill-in template and what to check before deciding whether to go again.
Almost every industrial company knows what it paid for the stand. Very few know what each new customer from the fair actually cost. That second sum decides whether to go again, go to a different one or add other channels. You do not need to be a finance person to do it.
The formula
Real cost of the fair ÷ new customers that can be attributed to it. The first number is longer than it looks; the second, shorter.
What goes into the real cost
- The stand and set-up: rent, design, decoration, shipping of materials.
- The trip: travel, accommodation and meals for each person who goes.
- Team time: preparation hours, days at the fair and the follow-up afterwards, multiplied by each person's cost.
- Materials and samples: catalogues, giveaways, sample shipping and displayed product.
- What you did not do that week: the visits, quotes and calls left waiting.
What counts as an attributable new customer
A contact you collect at a fair is not a customer. To attribute honestly:
- Count only customers who did not know you before and who buy within the following twelve months.
- Note where each new customer came from. If it came through a referral that happened to coincide with the fair, it does not belong to the fair.
- Log every fair contact in your CRM the same day. What is not recorded is forgotten.
A template to fill in
Before the next fair, fill this in with your own numbers:
- Total cost of the fair: ______ (the sum of everything above).
- Contacts collected: ______.
- Follow-up meetings that came out of it: ______.
- New customers after 12 months: ______.
- Cost per new customer: total cost ÷ new customers.
How to read the result
A fair can look expensive per customer and still be worth it: it helps close relationships, see the competition and let customers meet you in person. What you should avoid is its being the only channel through which new customers arrive, because then your growth depends on the fair calendar.
What to do with the result
- If the cost per customer is reasonable, go again and improve the follow-up afterwards.
- If it is not, ask which part failed: poorly qualified visits? too little follow-up? the wrong fair?
- Whatever the result, open another channel so you do not depend on a single one.
Where what we do fits in
We do not replace trade fairs. We build and run the system that opens conversations between one fair and the next, with the companies that fit you and the person who decides the purchase. That way, when the fair arrives you are no longer cold-calling anyone. To see how we approach your sector, look at our pages for manufacturers.