Trade shows and events have witnessed significant changes over the last decennia. Some events have seen attendance dramatically fall whilst others are riding high on record levels of participation. Tapping into the digital era is a key opportunity to make your trade show a place where people go to meet rather than go in the hope of meeting.

Creating vibrant on-line communities will be a hallmark of events that can count on attendance. Likewise, trade shows who can optimise the use of online content to connect members and create an urgency to meet will become the successful trade shows that can’t be missed. In the past, attendees may have visited trade shows because it was ‘that annual thing you had to do’. The chance of meeting someone new that would significantly improve your business was mostly down to serendipity. Today, with sophisticated software like the platform Exospect offers, matching attendees and visitors by linking promising capabilities with compelling needs creates relevant new introductions bringing valuable benefits to each other’s business, resulting in a more useful & valuable guest experience at the trade show.

The Exospect platform uses the SRM methodology to create visibility of the capabilities (and needs) across a large number of companies and matching them as appropriate. This visibility is the valuable content that can be optimised to give more value, before, during and after the event. SRM gives the trade show organiser the ability to truly orchestrate a network by being able to monitor the dynamics of delegates and exhibitors prior to the event. Areas of new interest can be highlighted as well as areas where interest has declined that can then be aligned to promotional material and key activities.

The Exospect Trade Show App gives attendees real-time matchmaking suggestions to connect with exhibitors based on specific and changing needs. Networking opportunities are optimised with the option to extend far beyond the tradeshow..