There are literally hundreds of thousands of companies that can’t reach their customers or prospects at live and in-person events right now.

Covid has been a major disruption in the world economy, but few industries have taken a beating quite like live and in-person marketing events.

Since trade shows and conventions are one of the main marketing channels for B2B companies to build and grow their distribution by meeting new faces and making new contacts, I wanted to find out what these companies are doing now that the rug was swept out from under their trade show feet.

We recently put out a survey to hundreds of exhibiting companies and requested their feedback.

We posed the question:

With B2B Trade Shows on hold, what marketing activity have you focused on the most?

The results were really interesting and not what I expected. I anticipated there would have been at least one clear standout but the results were quite mixed.

Here is a video discussing the findings:

While we can’t wait for live and in-person events to return in masse, hopefully the 2nd half of 2021 will start to look more promising.

In the meantime, B2B companies have been resourceful in reaching their core customers and connecting with new ones through a variety of marketing channels-

Here is where they have focused the most however since Covid:

~15% Organic Search/ Content Marketing

~15% Paid Search (aka Google & Facebook Ads)

~17.5% Email Marketing

~15% Virtual Trade Shows

~12% Social Media

~7.5% Outside Sales

~9% None-of-the-Above

~8% Other

As you can see it’s pretty evenly spread without any one clear standout. I think there is still a lot of new strategies being born out and time will tell where those efforts will go.

Follow along as we track the return of B2B trade shows with our Status of Upcoming Shows spreadsheet updated regularly.

Stay safe and happy marketing!

-Jeff Andrews