Get Connected create great events that bring business people together. A good business expo can provide businesses with opportunities to speed up their sales cycles, raise their profile and get noticed, discover useful partnerships and suppliers, and build their network. And it can do all of these things simultaneously. That's why many businesses see Expos as a major opportunity to grow their businesses.
We focus on creating busy, vibrant events that attract hundreds of regional business people, both visitors and exhibitors.
As part of their local marketing business which they still run, they have organised relaxed, sociable evening business networking events in their home town (Bath) since 2008.
Some of the things they learned from this include the importance of building credibility for an event, the location of the venue, and the effort that needs to go into promoting an event to make it successful. Every event was treated as a direct reflection of their business brand so had to succeed, or risk mortal injury to the business’s good name. The events, though a lot of hard work, were always successful and well received.
What really made them think one day was the experience recounted by one of the attendees of a networking event. He was an electrical contractor who had chatted to a chartered surveyor at the event. Several days later the contractor had passed a building with the Surveyor’s board on it, and being now a ‘warm’ contact got in touch. It quickly turned into a contract worth £100,000. It made James and Anne understand the commercial value of building business relationships at events.
In 2014 they hosted their first Business Expo, which was a sell out and attracted almost 400 visitors in the space of 4 hours. Their next Expo was even larger and also a sell out and was generally very well received, although they are not complacent and are always looking for the improvements that can be made. The plan is to build the brand into one that is recognised as being a champion for business growth.
People need to know, like and trust your business before they buy from you, and an Expo can help to achieve all 3 stages in just one event.
Attending an Expo as an Exhibitor helps people to become aware of your business for the first time, or remind people that you are around, raising your profile .
At an Expo you are no longer a faceless business, you can let the personality of your business come out and give reasons for people to like you by talking and interacting with them face to face. It's much easier to communicate directly.
You can begin to build trust by demonstrating, in a 2-way interaction, what your business can achieve.
A good business event brings awareness of the exhibiting business to a wider audience, which can even begin before the event with a listing and businesses’ website link and branding on the event’s website. The lead up to an event will see thousands of views of the event website, and this pre-event brand awareness can be useful.
A good event will also have exhibitor listings in an exhibition guide available which many will take away with them and keep for some time as a useful business directory.
Business Expos can help to build the important business relationships that sooner or later pay dividends. If a business is new to the area then it can be one of the fastest ways of building a network of contacts.
If a business is more established, it can be so useful and rare to have some time to chat and network with other business people from the area.
It is easy to overlook the opportunities for business right on their doorstep. Getting to know people, and their businesses better can mean more opportunities for business and referrals.
Building a database of contacts for a business and then keeping in touch with them regularly can be an important generator of business, and a business expo provides the opportunity to gather these contacts.
Data capture at events can be straightforward and quick, and the lifetime value of the data to the business can compound over time, making it a very worthwhile objective for the exhibitor.
