Strategic Consulting and Optimization

Ongoing strategic evaluation ensures that your trade show demand generation efforts evolve with your business. This section focuses on building a feedback loop and optimization roadmap.

Why it's Important

Keeps your strategy aligned with changing business goals
Uncovers improvement opportunities after each event
Drives better performance over time
Fosters innovation through retrospective analysis
Increases ROI from long-term event investment

How to Implement

Conduct quarterly strategy reviews with cross-functional teams
Analyze trends in lead quality, booth performance, and ROI
Benchmark against industry and previous event cycles
Use win/loss analysis on event-sourced leads
Audit tech stack, workflows, and lead handling processes
Create an optimization backlog for enhancements
Revisit event selection criteria annually
Align future events with evolving product launches or campaigns

Available Workshops

Quarterly Event Strategy Review
Retrospective Planning Workshop
Conversion Funnel Audit
Event Value Reassessment Session
Competitor Benchmarking Analysis
Continuous Innovation Brainstorm

Deliverables

Strategic Optimization Roadmap
Quarterly Performance Review Decks
Process Improvement Tracker
Updated Event Tiering Model
Recommendations Summary for Leadership

How to Measure

YOY improvement in key event KPIs (CPL, SQL rate, ROI)
Event cycle time improvements (from planning to ROI)
Number of implemented optimizations from backlog
Team performance rating over time
Stakeholder satisfaction scores

Real-World Examples

Atlassian

Runs a bi-annual event audit that feeds into future planning and team coaching.

Dropbox

Maintains a running log of trade show experiments and learns what to keep or kill.

Zendesk

Links post-show surveys to future planning and resource allocation strategies.

Get It Right

Set recurring improvement cadences
Use hard data and qualitative insights
Involve all stakeholders in reviews
Make small, testable changes over time
Revisit assumptions regularly

Don't Make These Mistakes

Only reviewing once a year or not at all
Ignoring feedback from sales or attendees
Failing to track the impact of changes
Making too many changes at once
Sticking to a rigid strategy despite declining performance

Provided courtesy of Dawn Mallyon, Exhibitor Growth Strategies