I recently attended an exhibition specifically designed to help small to medium businesses to market their business to other businesses and to large corporate and public sector buyers. I was there to promote my telephone numbers business (0800, 0844, 0845 etc.) and my internet business, WordPress Websites to the business sector.
The exhibition was funded by our regional development agency in the UK East Midlands as part of their assistance to business during the present recession, which meant the entire event was free of charge for both exhibitors and visitors. There were several events throughout the region, but the one I attended was in Lincoln, where I have my own businesses.
The exhibition followed a familiar but successful format consisting of a large exhibition area containing some 50 exhibitors and a seminar room hosting short business presentations throughout the day. The seminars brought in a lot of visitors who may well not have been attracted to the exhibition on its own and, being business seminars, they brought in a very specifically targeted audience. This ensured that exhibitors had to deal with very few ‘gawpers’ and ‘time wasters’.
The format was also useful in that during the seminars the exhibition hall was fairly quiet. This gave exhibitors the time to network with one another and gain business that way.
I was next to a local video production company run by a friend of mine and during one of these quiet spells we took one of his video cameras and an outside broadcast microphone and I interviewed a number of exhibitors about their business. It was a spontaneous opportunity to network in a new and different way and, at the same time, promote the idea of marketing with web based video.
You can see the results here –> Lincoln Showcase
Can you think of a novel new way to network or promote your business?
