Trade Fairs Effectiveness & Trade Fairs Effectiveness & Evaluation By Pakistani IT Evaluation By Pakistani IT Companies – A Managerial Companies – A Managerial

PerceptionPerception

Danish Ghazanfar

BAC/AIBA/3488/2007

A10731012

Introduction

• Trade fairs are an effective marketing tool used by executives to achieve their sales target.

• Today Trade fairs Industry is multi billion dollar industry in United States and Europe but unfortunately not much studies is done on this particular area of marketing.

Background

• Trade fairs are market events of a specific duration, held at intervals, at which a large number of companies present the main product range of one or more industry sectors and mainly sell it on the basis of samples.

• Trade Fairs predominantly attract trade and business visitors.

Common reasons for exhibiting include

• Generating sales leads.

• Generating actual sales at the show.

• Enhancing your image and visibility.

• Reaching a specific audience.

• Establishing a presence in the marketplace.

• Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts.

Common reasons for exhibiting include

• Personally meeting your customers, competitors, and suppliers.

• Prospecting for new customers.

• Introducing new products and services.

• Demonstrating your product in ways not possible using other marketing channels.

• Recruiting distributors or dealers.

• Educating your target audience.

Trade Fairs in Pakistan

• Trade show phenomenon in Pakistan started in 2000 when the first international trade fair related to defense industry was organized in Karachi.

• From there onwards the only venue for trade fairs Karachi expo center has seen numerous shows including business to business and consumer ones. On average 35 – 40 fairs are held in Pakistan including both B2B & consumer shows.

Problem Statement & Objectives

How the Pakistani firms in Information Technology sector of Pakistan view trade fairs as an important marketing tool.

And to find out how IT managers evaluate the effectiveness of their participation in trade shows.

Conceptual Framework

• When companies participate in Trade fairs they set objectives of there participation accordingly. These objectives could be qualitative or quantitative based or

could be both.

• Previous researches and studies done on this topic have shown that even qualitative objectives could be quantified

to calculate the ROI on trade fair participation.

Conceptual Framework

Quantitative objectives can classified into

• Contact targets.

• Communication/information targets.

• Presentation targets.

• Sales & distribution targets.

Conceptual Framework

Qualitative objectives can be classified into

• Presence at industry sector get together.

• Positioning to competition.

• Quality contacts.

• Business networking etc.

Data Analysis

• The result shows that out of twenty five companies that took part in the research nine of them participate in one trade fair in Pakistan and one in Dubai.

Trade fair as an effective marketing Tool

Marketing Budget for Trade Shows

• The data analysis shows that more than 50% of the IT companies in the sample allocate between 5 %- 10% of their marketing budget for trade shows.

Objective of Participation

Media Comparison

Snapshot Of Findings

• Most of the companies in sample participate in one of the trade fair in Pakistan and one in Dubai.

• More than 50% of the IT companies in the sample allocate between 5 %- 10% of their marketing budget for trade shows.

• All the 25 companies have specific objective of participation.

Snapshot Of Findings

Sales & distribution & Communication/Information are the main quantitative objectives set by IT companies for participation in trade fairs.

Business Networking & quality contacts are the main qualitative objectives set by IT Companies for participation in trade fairs.

• Personal selling & trade fairs are considered as the preferred medium by majority of IT firms executives to achieve their objectives.

Recommendations & Suggested Areas for Future Research

Based on this study I would like to recommend the following:

• There must be a universal model for evaluation of effectiveness of trade shows.

• Further research should be done on companies from other sectors of economy in relation to their trade fairs participation.

Recommendations & Suggested Areas for Future Research

• Research on Effect of trade fairs on economy of Pakistan.

• Research on trade fairs could be done from visitors point of view.