Event Marketing for Exhibiting Companies
You’ve done the hard part. You’ve identified the optimal show, booked your stand, organised logistics, briefed the team and turned up ready to talk business. But when you return to daily work life afterwards playing serious catch up, the leads sit in a spreadsheet, the follow-up is patchy and the impending ROI conversation is uncomfortable.
Sound familiar? The problem isn’t the event. It’s every missed opportunity for what should have happened around it.
At Patch, we work with B2B companies who are done treating trade shows and conferences as expensive branding exercises. We build exhibitor marketing strategies that create demand before the doors open, keep your brand at the forefront across the show floor and turn your collected leads into a robust, qualified pipeline post event.
If you’re looking for an exhibitor marketing agency that understands the complexities of how B2B events work and how to make them pay, you’re in the right place.
Marketing support for exhibitors
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The real cost of showing up without a strategy
Exhibiting is expensive. Stand space, logistics, staff time, travel, collateral, kit… attending a typical B2B trade show can run into tens of thousands of pounds before you’ve even had a single conversation. Most exhibitors invest most of their budget in the stand itself and very little in the marketing around it.
The result is a familiar pattern: a busy couple of days on the floor, a contact data download, a few promising conversations that go quiet, and a budget review where no one can tangibly demonstrate what the event generated.
This is the event marketing gap. And it’s where Patch comes in.
The brands consistently getting measurable return from events aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest stands or the best interactive attention grabber. They’re the ones who treat the event as one part of a wider campaign, with deliberate activity before, during and after, that turns attendance into a revenue channel.
Demand generation starts before the show
By the time the show opens, the best conversations are already half-started. The exhibitors seeing the strongest results aren’t waiting to be discovered on the floor, they’re building interest, booking meetings, and warming up prospects weeks in advance.
Pre-show exhibitor marketing is not complicated, but it does require consistency and the right mix of channels. At Patch, our pre-event activity typically covers:
- Targeted email campaigns to your existing database, segmented by intent and relationship stage
- LinkedIn content and paid social that positions your brand in front of decision-makers attending the show
Win before the show even starts
- SEO-optimised landing pages built around the event, capturing search intent from attendees planning their visit
- Paid search activity targeting event-specific and sector-specific terms in the run-up
- Meeting scheduling campaigns that give your sales team a diary to work from before they set foot on the floor
The objective is simple: arrive to the show with warm leads, not cold ones. When your team walks onto the floor already in conversation with the people they need to meet, everything changes.
On-site: Making every conversation count
Great exhibitor marketing doesn’t pause when the show opens. The onsite phase is about reinforcing your message, capturing the right data and making sure every interaction is the start of something, not the end of it.
We help exhibiting companies get more from their time on the floor by:
- Building content and social strategies that amplify your presence to a wider audience beyond the show floor
- Supporting live campaign activity including LinkedIn posts, stories and real-time engagement that keeps your brand visible to people who couldn’t make it
- Advising on lead capture processes that give your team the context they need for meaningful follow-up (not just a badge scan and a blank record)
- Creating event-specific content, including thought leadership, interviews, product spotlights and more, that can be repurposed across channels after the show
The onsite window is short. We make sure you’re effectively using it to build pipeline, not just collect contacts.
Post-event: When the real revenue generation happens
Most of the value in trade show participation is lost in the two weeks after the show ends. Leads go cold. Follow-up gets delayed. The momentum from good conversations on the floor dissipates while your team gets back to business as usual.
Post-event marketing is where exhibitors consistently leave money on the table and where Patch adds the most immediate impact.
We build post-event campaigns that are structured, segmented, and designed to convert:
- Fast-turnaround email sequences that follow up while your brand is still fresh
- LinkedIn retargeting and nurture campaigns that keep you visible to prospects who aren’t yet ready to buy
- Content follow-up: event wrap-ups, insight pieces and case study amplification, giving people a reason to re-engage
- CRM-integrated lead workflows that route contacts to the right place and give your sales team a clear brief on next steps
- Attribution reporting that tracks which leads came from which event, so you can build the ROI case for next year’s budget
The goal? To build a pipeline that converts and equip you with the data to prove it.
Measurable pipeline, not marketing promises
We know the pressure on exhibiting budgets is real. Marketing spend at events gets scrutinised and the people signing off on next year’s stand space want to see more than a headcount and a handful of business cards.
From the outset, Patch builds measurement frameworks that connect your event activity to business outcomes. That means defining what success looks like before the campaign launches, factoring in lead volume, cost per lead, pipeline contribution, influenced revenue and other metrics and reporting against them in a way that makes sense to your stakeholders.
Our event marketing reporting covers:
Pre-event demand tracking and meeting pipeline
Onsite lead capture quality and volume
Post-event conversion rates by channel and campaign
Revenue attribution – connecting event contacts to closed deals
Year-on-year benchmarking across your event programme
An exhibitor marketing agency that understands B2B events
At Patch, we’ve been working in the events industry since 2010. We’ve spent more than 15 years building digital marketing strategies for event brands, venues and exhibiting companies, so we understand how the industry works, how buyers behave and what it takes to get attention in a crowded show hall.
We don’t need a lengthy onboarding process to understand your market. You’ll work directly with the people doing the work, with reporting that’s transparent, honest and focused on the numbers that matter to your business.
Whether you exhibit at one or two flagship shows a year or run a full conference circuit, we’ll build a model that fits your programme and your budget, based on a retained partnership or project-based, we work both ways.
We’ve supported clients including at International Confex with full-funnel campaign work.
Things we’re proud of
187%
Average web conversion increase
113
Brands we’ve supported across SEO
86%
Our clients have an average site health of
38%
Clients have reported a increase in website
Our team
Meet the team
Jackson Clark
Managing Director
When Jackson founded Patch in 2010, he envisioned a company that would support the events and venue industry through effective marketing. Known for his magnetic personality and extensive network, he has built Patch into a trusted name in the sector, combining a passion for collaboration with a clear focus on delivering impactful results.
Melissa Tyler
Account Director
Since joining Patch in 2018, Mel has redefined how data and creativity come together in marketing. Her expertise in social media and omnichannel strategy, combined with a talent for fresh, results-driven ideas and strong industry relationships, has made her a key part of the team’s success.
Tony Hill
Account Director
Tony has an unrivalled understanding of SEO and a talent for simplifying complex marketing goals. Since joining Patch in 2020, he has built a reputation for his methodical approach and commitment to delivering results, making him a key part of Patch’s client success.
Sam Seymour
Account Director
Specialising in PPC and paid advertising campaigns that deliver measurable impact. With a focus on precision and long-term strategy, Sam brings an analytical edge to every campaign, helping brands achieve sustainable growth and measurable ROI on marketing spend.
Case studies
Featured work
Testimonials
Great people, saying great things
Jackson, Melissa and the whole Patch team are absolutely brilliant. Always up for a challenge and with the skill and know-how to drive it to
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We love working with the Patch team. Their extensive industry specific knowledge means they understand how the busy event industry works and how to best
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We can’t recommend Patch highly enough for their incredible work in transforming the way our consumers engage with our digital platforms. From web development to
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Jackson and team Patch are, to quote Tina Turner, ‘simply the best’… If you are a business that wants a strong industry presence, which ultimately
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Jackson and the team are just amazing. We worked with them for our SEO on the website and during the period of their support, our
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The vision for growth for the Westminster Venue Collection required a fresh direction in a digital marketing partner – one that was creative, transparent, innovative
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I have had the pleasure of working with Jackson and the Patch team across a number of my roles, and they are always fantastic to
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Jackson, Tony and the whole team did a fantastic job helping us conceive then design and execute a new website and comprehensive marketing campaign to
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We have worked with patch for close on about 8 years now. All I can say is that they are an incredible team to work
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What a team! For more than 10 years Patch have supported our venue in all aspects of marketing, including creating our fabulous new website for
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Patch have an exceptional knowledge of the UK events industry, and a proactive and innovative approach to marketing and digital services. Highly recommended.
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FAQ'S
Curious about something? We’ve got answers
What is exhibitor marketing?
Exhibitor marketing is the activity surrounding your trade show or conference participation, including campaigns, content and multiple channels you use before, during and after an event to maximise the return on your exhibiting investment. It goes beyond stand design and badge scanning to build a real pipeline from the people you meet.
Why do most exhibitors get poor ROI from trade shows?
The most common reason is a lack of structured activity outside the event itself. Showing up is not a strategy. Without pre-event demand generation to warm up prospects, on-site content to amplify your presence and a disciplined post-event follow-up process, most of the value from an event is lost before it can convert into revenue.
How far in advance should we start pre-show marketing?
For most B2B trade shows, we recommend starting pre-event marketing activity six to eight weeks before the show opens. This gives enough runway to build awareness, drive meeting requests and warm up your database before the event floor gets busy. For flagship annual events with significant investment behind them, starting earlier, up to twelve weeks out, can make a meaningful difference to the quality of conversations on the day.
Can you support our post-event follow-up specifically?
Yes! This is one of the highest-impact areas we work in. Post-event campaigns are often the most neglected part of an exhibitor’s marketing plan and the fastest to show results when done well. We can build and execute follow-up email sequences, LinkedIn nurture campaigns and CRM lead workflows, either as a standalone project or as part of a wider event programme.
Do you work with companies exhibiting at multiple events a year?
Absolutely. We work with B2B companies who exhibit at anything from one or two key shows annually to a full conference circuit across the year. For clients with busier event programmes, we build always-on exhibitor marketing frameworks that adapt to each show’s audience and timing, rather than starting from scratch each time.
How do you measure the ROI of event marketing?
We define success metrics at the start of every engagement. For exhibitor marketing, that typically means tracking lead volume and quality, cost per lead, pipeline contribution, and (where CRM integration allows), revenue attribution from event contacts. We build reporting that connects your marketing activity to commercial outcomes, so you have the data to justify your exhibiting budget and make better decisions about your event programme.
What’s the difference between working with Patch and a general marketing agency?
We’ve been working in the events industry for over 15 years. We understand how B2B event audiences behave, how to reach them on the channels they use and what the buying journey looks like in your sector. You won’t spend the first month explaining the industry to us. You’ll spend it building campaigns.
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Ready to make your events work harder?
Let’s look at your event calendar and identify where revenue is being missed.