The Booth or the Buzz: Is Your Marketing Budget Better Spent at a Trade Show or on LinkedIn?
One of the best ways to meet potential B2B contacts and showcase your new product or service is by renting a booth at a large regional or national conference or convention. If you’re thinking about dipping your toes into the world of trade shows, two major events immediately come to mind: the International Builders Show (IBS) and World of Modular (WoM). These events provide an opportunity to meet industry leaders, scan attendee badges, and build your “warm call” list for post-event follow-ups.

But what really happens when you’re manning that 10’ x 10’ booth? Let’s break it down.

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The Booth Experience: Smile, Scan, and Hope for Gold
Picture this: you’re standing at your shiny, well-decorated booth at IBS, ready to make connections. Someone strolls up, you scan their badge, and the fun begins. What happens next is a game of chance:
The Browsers – These attendees glance at your setup, smile politely, and walk away.
The Curious – They stop, ask a few serious questions, and might genuinely want to know how your product fits into their business.
The Challengers – These are the ones who want to test your knowledge, keeping you on your toes. We all know who they are within a couple of seconds and want to grab a baseball bat and hit them out of the park!
The Chatty – They’re not interested in your product but are happy to chat your ear off about anything and everything. They are a total waste of your time and they actually keep you from talking to true prospects.
Every interaction is unique, but the real challenge comes after the event.
Post-Show Reality: Sorting Through the Chaos
When you’re back at the office, the booth excitement fades, replaced by the task of organizing business cards and scanned leads—sometimes thousands of them. Questions swirl:
- Who genuinely wanted to hear from you?
- Do you still have the right contact details?
- How do you sift through 3,000 scanned leads to find the golden opportunities?
Then comes the financial reckoning. You crunch the numbers and realize the cost of the booth, giveaways, travel, accommodations, and team expenses easily hit $10,000—or more. Suddenly, those free pens and fridge magnets don’t seem like the best investment.
Enter LinkedIn: The B2B Powerhouse
Here’s where things get interesting. For the same $10,000 spent on a trade show booth, you could have launched a robust LinkedIn marketing campaign. LinkedIn is the world’s top B2B social site, offering targeted ads, direct messaging, and engagement tools to connect with your audience. Unlike standing at a booth, hoping someone wanders by, LinkedIn lets you take a proactive approach, building connections and generating qualified leads in a much more cost-effective way.
So, Booth or Buzz?
While trade shows have their place and can deliver value, it’s worth asking yourself if that investment would stretch further on LinkedIn.
If you’re not sure where to start, consider reaching out to the Modcoach for tips on leveraging LinkedIn’s potential for your business. Because when it comes to marketing, it’s all about working smarter, not harder.