I am always looking for new ways to find qualified leads for sales and will typically try anything once.  Each quarter we try to add something new to the mix.  For next quarter we looked at couple of virtual tradeshows.  We sponsored one last year and found it pretty interesting even though we didn’t get many real leads from it (lots of international visitors).  It was a good place to cut our teeth on something new.

In the last week or so, we were contacted to sponsor another virtual tradeshow being put on by a major industry publication that seems to be in transition with both their events and their publication, moving everything online.  I was intrigued and wanted more details.  I inquired further about this new event to find out what the cost would be and how many/what kind of attendees they expected.  I got back a very interesting reply.  Sponsorships ranged from $10K to $25K.  Little surprised here since this is typically the cost of live events.  I was still interested…then I found out how many people they were expecting.  I figured thousands, right?  Nope, they’re only expecting about 2500 people.  But how targeted are these people visiting?

With this economy travel budgets are definitely being cut but aren’t tradeshow budgets too?  Not sure about you, but it seems like a hefty pricetag for a very broad tradeshow.  I can think of a lot of things to spend $10K – $25K that will result in more targeted, qualified leads.  What about you?