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Tradeshow and conference leads are expensive – there’s no way around it. Compared to direct response, social media your own events and even PR, you’re going to drop a hefty portion of your budget for what amounts to a small number of business opportunities. For some IT solution providers, the notion of skipping these conferences entirely is not an option, so if you’re going to attend, you should at least tip the odds in your favor as much as possible. The biggest – and costliest – mistake you can make is completely preventable, and it happens on the convention floor.

Here are five ways you can reduce your tradeshow cost per lead, drive higher quality and increase your marketing ROI:

1. Choose your tradeshows carefully: do you really need to invest in every tradeshow on your list? Take a hard look at the results you gained from each, and think about how you could use your marketing budget more effectively. Be prepared to make some tough choices.

2. Have a game plan: market to key people you want to see in advance of the tradeshow. Make sure you can get them to your booth for a meaningful conversation. This increases the odds of a deeper, more productive appointment later.

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As you’re planning your marketing budget for next year, stop to think about what worked in 2010 – and what really didn’t. This can be a tough process, since you need to take critical look at the decisions you made and how they performed. Needless to say, it took me a couple of years to get used to this, but the end result has been far better for enter:marketing’s clients. You’ll probably find the same to be true for yours.

When you step through your list of marketing initiatives and decide what to keep for 2011, make sure you spend some extra time exploring your tradeshow investment. This is often your most expensive source of leads, and it can result in lots of time spent chasing dead ends. Instead of assuming that you’ll have the same tradeshow obligations in 2011 that you did in 2010, consider your ROI on each, and how you could redeploy your marketing dollars for greater returns.

To maintain the face-to-face interaction of tradeshows but avoid the substantial hard-dollar costs, consider hosting your own marketing events. With this approach, you’ll:

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