B2B meetings: turning your trade show into a place where deals get done

Why does an exhibitor come back year after year? Rarely for the quality of the carpet. They come back because they met customers, distributors or partners they would not have met anywhere else. Organised business meetings turn a trade show into a marketplace: they give exhibitors measurable value, and the organiser a strong argument for the next sales campaign.

Why meetings change the value of a show

Without organised meetings, encounters depend on chance in the aisles. A busy buyer walks past twenty stands and stops at three. An exhibitor waits all day for the distributor they hoped to see, unaware that the distributor came the day before.

With a meetings programme, both sides know in advance who they will meet, when and where. The exhibitor leaves with a list of qualified contacts, and you can show them, figures in hand, what the show brought them.

Before the show: open matchmaking

The programme starts a few weeks before opening. Visitors and exhibitors complete their profiles: sector, products sought or offered, company size, objectives. Based on these criteria, each person receives suggestions of who to meet and can request a meeting.

Two rules are worth setting from the start:

• who can request a meeting with whom: visitors to exhibitors, exhibitors among themselves, or both ways;
• competition rules: two direct competitors should not be suggested to each other.

Slots and rooms with no double booking

Define opening windows for each day, a meeting length (twenty or thirty minutes is often enough), breaks, and a cap on meetings per person per day. Bookable slots follow automatically.

If meetings take place in a dedicated area rather than on stands, assign a table or room to each meeting. Nothing is more awkward than two meetings planned at the same table at the same time.

Fewer missed meetings

No-shows are the first enemy of a meetings programme: an empty chair means a disappointed exhibitor. Send reminders before each meeting, and keep an eye on participants who have cancelled late or failed to show up in the past. Spotting them ahead of time lets you confirm their meetings or offer the slot to someone else.

The Meetings and networking product computes a no-show risk score for each participant, based on their history.

On the stand: every scanned badge becomes a lead

Not every useful conversation is planned. A visitor stops, talks, leaves a business card. By scanning their badge, the exhibitor gets their full details, with their consent, and can add notes on the conversation. At the end of the show, they have a usable list of leads rather than a pile of business cards.

After the show: measure it, and show it

Ask for feedback after each meeting: was it worth it? These ratings, together with the number of meetings held and leads captured, make up the report your exhibitors expect. Presented at rebooking time, they carry more weight than any brochure.

And throughout the show, the conversation can carry on in the event’s messaging, on the web as well as in the attendee app.