Article actual date: Jan 3, 2017

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As I look back at 2016, with new technologies and changes in the events industry, I asked myself a simple question. Are organisers collecting relevant networking data and analysing it? It’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed by trying to collect everything.

Here are the 3 top questions to be answered with data -

1) Are you attracting the right people to your event?

Let’s face it. As nice as it is to report huge attendance numbers, it boils down to the quality of these visitors and exhibitors. It’s vital that you are able to track these group of people and their networking potential to identify opportunities for retention and to attract a similar segment for future events. Quality versus quantity. This brings us to the next question.

2) Do you know the networking preferences of your stakeholders?

Being able to identify the reasons why stakeholders want to network provides valuable data and trends to be used by your Sales and Marketing teams. Having data on the most demanded products or industries, equips your Sales team with the insight to approach potential exhibitors / sponsors to the next event. Marketing teams are able to use this data to segment and target specific groups to attend the next event.

3) How successful are the networking experiences created at your event?

Through the usual rounds of post event feedback / surveys via a physical questionnaire or on the phone, you’ll gather information to be keyed back for the usual post event pie charts. Through this, you’ll have one side of the story, but what about the other person they met? Honest and transparent data should be tracked for each individual based on the actual meetings that have taken place, and this allows for better planning of future business matching design.

The above are simple questions and there are many ways to skin a cat (in this case, there are many ways to present data). As we usher in the new year expecting new technologies, be honest with yourself and I hope that you won’t clutter yourself with collecting everything and analyzing nothing. It’s time to go back to the basic purpose of attending a trade show — Buy & Sell, Collaboration & Partnership, Knowledge Sharing — connecting people.

Feel free to get in touch with myself or anyone from the Jublia team if you have any comments, thoughts or questions. We’d love to hear from you.

Written by Aidan Chan, BD Lead

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