The Deal Room Events experts have written this article to give you a comprehensive overview of everything you need to know about business matchmaking events and practical guidance on organizing a successful one.
These days, networking and matchmaking are the primary purposes for exhibitors, sponsors, and attendees at business events. Business networking and matchmaking events are becoming an essential part of the business world, allowing exhibitors to promote their services and products, sponsors to gain visibility and access to potential customers, and visitors to network with industry professionals.
Business matchmaking is a B2B networking technique that is very targeted and has grown to be an essential component of many business conferences. Suppliers, investors, and representatives from international organizations can promote and sell their services or products to foreign buyers during a business matchmaking event.
One of the main reasons why people attend events or trade shows is to find new connections. Matchmaking and networking are the foundation of every successful business transaction. Meeting the right people at a business event is critical for the ROI generated following a business matchmaking session.
Due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, online business matchmaking events have become increasingly popular and much needed. The virtual mode of business matchmaking events allows for better networking and outreach potential. Moreover, it has proven to be a well-liked and captivating alternative to in-person events.
For instance, Midwest Tech was a 2-day pure matchmaking and networking event in the USA. The Deal Room Platform served as the host for the events in 2021 and 2022. Over 800 attendees participated in this virtual matchmaking event, which resulted in over 4000 meetings.
We can summarize the matchmaking process in five steps:
Registration and profile setup: Participants sign up online by completing their profiles and the event registration form.
Transferring attendees to the event platform: Organizers can simply select and move all attendees to the matchmaking platform. By doing this, organizers are able to benefit from an automated process that helps them manage their events more efficiently and effectively.
Search and find potential matches: By browsing profiles, participants can decide who they want to meet and create a list of potential partners before the event starts.
Schedule meetings or use AI to schedule meetings: Attendees can set up meetings with one another. The system can assign each meeting to a numbered table automatically or notify the participants.
Event day: Participants can enjoy their pre-arranged meetings!
The main difference between matchmaking and networking is that the latter occurs by chance, whereas the former is more structured, with the attendee already knowing who they will meet with. Matchmaking is often more beneficial than networking, as it allows attendees to introduce themselves to someone with whom they may share many interests and objectives. Matchmaking will also enable attendees to research the people they will meet before the event, making them better prepared for the conversation and more likely to build meaningful relationships.
Digital B2B matchmaking platforms match suppliers and clients based on their objectives and preferences. B2B matchmaking is a networking dynamic that considers participants' specific expectations to achieve the best match between supplier and consumer, investor and startup, or sponsor and participant. Based on the user profiles of both providers and consumers, a matchmaking platform enables the search for promising contacts. Additionally, meetings between attendees of events are scheduled before, during, or after a B2B event using this matchmaking platform.
B2B matchmaking is now a strategic tool for businesses looking to forge new connections. It aims to save attendees time by avoiding the mind-numbing search for potential clients. But what exactly are the benefits of a business matchmaking event?
Aside from improving the quality of networking within the B2B matchmaking event, which means satisfied participants and brands, the matchmaking aims to create new collaborations and synergies through market expansion and information exchange. These collaborations and synergies, in turn, help increase the return on investment (ROI) for participating brands and improve overall customer satisfaction.
The first and most important feature of a business matchmaking event through an app is obvious: connecting exhibitors with potential leads. Through an app, event organizers can facilitate the matchmaking process by providing event attendees with a more efficient way of finding and connecting with exhibitors. Attendees save time when they match with exhibitors, and exhibitors generate meaningful leads while they remain engaged throughout the event,
Creating personalized meeting schedules for your attendees based on their job titles, interests, registration level, or other criteria increases engagement and creates customized event experiences. By creating personalized meeting schedules tailored to each attendee's preferences, you can provide an enhanced event experience that keeps your attendees engaged and happy.
We suggest reading our blog post, "The Most Effective Strategies to Improve Event Audience Engagement," to understand better how to improve attendee engagement.
We've heard that event data is a gold mine. Matchmaking software can provide insights like never before. The app allows event organizers to track attendees' interactions and learn about their preferences. Event organizers can use this data to create detailed reports with insightful information to understand their target audience better.
Making genuine connections between business owners, potential partners, and investors is the most efficient way to plan a business matchmaking event. At B2B events, business matchmaking software assists organizers in facilitating attendee networking. Your attendees create profiles, selecting their area of interest, and the AI analyzes thousands of data points in seconds, bringing all the top matches together.
Today, you can find information using various resources, including search engines, social media, big data, etc. However, the data or information is complex and dispersed, making it nearly impossible for businesses to find helpful information. As a result, many marketers have begun to use AI-based matchmaking platforms to obtain the most relevant information. These platforms take networking and matchmaking at B2B events to a new level.
Attendees can use business matchmaking software to create professional profiles, present their businesses, and connect with potential business partners in just a few clicks. Your attendees will no longer have to search hundreds of profiles to find the right networking opportunities. The business matchmaking software handles that, and all new matches need to do is initiate a conversation.
The Deal Room’s Al-matchmaking algorithm identifies and recommends the relevant matches for attendees based on learnings from thousands of events.
A business event matchmaking tool provides a win-win outcome for event organizers, attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors. Visitors can find the contacts that they are interested in without wasting time. They can ask for appointments, confirm them, and accept them if they fit into their plans. By helping to connect attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors quickly and efficiently, business event matchmaking tools help to ensure the success of any event.
With the help of Deal Room's matchmaking engine, event organizers can easily handle any meeting and simplify even the most complex matchmaking events. Our matchmaking software enables participants, exhibitors, and partners to meet and develop professional relationships at matchmaking tables and areas.
Attendees can schedule appointments and arrange their meetings using the event platform well in advance of the event. By doing this, attendees arrive at the event well-prepared and avoid leaving networking to chance. With a matchmaking platform, visitors can plan their visit and make appointments long before the event starts. In this way, visitors come to the event perfectly prepared and don‘t leave networking to chance. Exhibitors can also prepare themselves, plan for the event, and brief the necessary sales staff in a targeted manner because they already know beforehand who they can expect at the event.
With the help of Deal Room, after finding a relevant match, attendees arrange a meeting at a time convenient for both participants. The Deal Room matchmaking software then assigns them a table or an area to hold meetings in.
Business matchmaking app, which typically operates through a platform, is an intelligent way to keep exhibitors and attendees happy. In the current business environment, matchmaking apps ensure that both parties interests are taken into account. These apps offer a tried-and-true approach to generating more qualified leads and producing events that people will remember. Additionally, these apps facilitate communication between exhibitors and participants, allowing both parties to easily and quickly share information and establish relationships.
Matchmaking activities must be carefully planned before the event, including the types of activities, the duration of those activities, and the concept of business-to-business matchmaking meetings. For instance, attendees are divided into groups of four or five and distributed among various break-out rooms to plan a roundtable. It's also a great idea to include interactive games to help break the ice at the very beginning.
Based on our experience, we recommend activating software-based matchmaking 2-4 weeks before the event. It is essential that all attendees install the matchmaking application on their devices and create profiles before the event. By giving participants enough time to update their profiles and get familiar with the software, organizers can increase the efficacy of matchmaking. This not only ensures that participants have enough time to craft profiles that reflect their professional aspirations, but it also gives them time to network with others and explore all the features of the matchmaking application.
Before choosing the event date, it is crucial to keep several considerations in mind. If you already have a specific date, double-check whether there are concurrent competitive events in the same industry. A basic search can have a significant impact on your participant numbers.
Sending personalized messages encourages matchmaking users to log into their profiles and actively use the platform. Another good strategy is to make appropriate event announcements, such as "John Smith joined the platform. You appear to share interests! Sign up right away to connect." If registered participants still need to schedule any meetings through the platform, send reminder emails to them.
The registration forms should be short, and the first step shouldn't require too much information. The ease of registration is essential to the customer experience. Gather data for matchmaking later on or via social login. The ideal registration process should include a brief form asking for crucial information such as an email address.
The likelihood that the participants will want to interact with one another significantly increases when you bring them together in a specific field. Furthermore, if you focus on new topics, there is a greater need for participants to meet with one another. When all the participants have a mutual interest in a specific field, they have common ground to build upon and can quickly form meaningful conversations.
The stories you present about your brand or business are crucial because they have the potential to pique the interest of more people. It is important to remember that stories create an emotional connection and help develop a stronger bond between a brand and its customers. Always be prepared to actively position your product during a business matchmaking event, especially if you sell a physical product like food or clothing.
Organize competitions or create a pleasant atmosphere. Allowing people to do what they enjoy in their spare time and giving them a place to do it among other attendees will help them get acquainted naturally. Games and competitions can be a great way to bring people together. Not only can people come together and connect in shared fun and excitement, but it is also a great way to foster communication.
A pitch session is a high-energy approach to matchmaking in which people lay out exactly what they're looking for on a public stage. For example, this could be project funding, and you could allow panel pitches similar to the television show Shark Tank. You could also give everyone three minutes to pitch the audience.
Reaching out to event attendees afterwards to express gratitude or gather feedback can provide insight into your event planning and marketing effectiveness. Guest feedback has the additional benefit of increasing the loyalty and lifetime value of each event attendee, making them more likely to attend future events you plan. This stage is critical for event planning, forecasting, marketing strategy, and audience expansion.
Every effective post-event strategy needs to contain a few specific components. Your guests made time in their busy schedules to attend your event. Send a simple follow-up email immediately following the event. Let those who were supposed to attend but couldn't make it know you missed them, and then show them everything they missed. Send them the event's post-event page and any additional relevant event content.
Your exhibitors' desire to return to your event next year is based on their return on investment from their attendance. To ensure that your exhibitors receive a positive return on investment, you should provide detailed reports demonstrating their success. Matchmaking software allows you to run reports on networking and messaging activity to understand the matchmaking activity better.
In the blog post "How to be efficient at networking: before, during, and after an event," Deal Room has created a list of the most critical action points that will improve your event networking performance.
Deal Room is a comprehensive event management platform. We offer various tools to help event organizers coordinate their events and improve communication. Deal Room helps you with hassle-free any-kind-of event management to boost audience engagement, ease networking, and foster relationships.
The following are a few of Deal Room's valuable features that can help you plan a successful matchmaking event:
Relevance Matchmaking Algorithm: Deal Room’s AI-powered matchmaking algorithm will find and suggest attendees based on how well they match the profiles.
Rich Filtering: You can customize attendee onboarding questions to acquire the data needed to understand diverse attendee groups and attendee filtering comprehensively. The various customizable filtering options based on several significant criteria provide participants with more effective networking.
Easy Meeting Scheduling: Exhibitors and participants can create and schedule meetings with each other weeks before the event and turn it into a huge success.
Visibility Matrix: All participants can send meeting invitations unless event organizers prefer to segment using Deal Room’s Visibility Matrix feature. As the event organizer, you can decide which participants can see, chat with, or network with whom.
Apply Your Own Matchmaking Rules: You can create your own rules and values, apply them precisely and conveniently with the Deal Room platform, and collaborate with your attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors to create the best event and outcome possible. Event organizers can modify meeting time slots and areas for participants and exhibitors using the Event Builder.
Set Participation Types: Three options are listed in the event organizer's Event Builder. When entering the platform, you can allow participants to specify their participation type.
Meetings on the Go: To achieve effective event management, event organizers can keep track of the number of meetings organized and attended, the participants involved, and other essential details.
One-on-One and One-on-Many Meetings: The ability to schedule one-on-one and one-on-many meetings improve the matchmaking process for both participants and exhibitors.
Pre-Scheduling Meetings: Plan your meetings ahead of time to maintain control over the matchmaking and networking process.
Networking even after the Event: Making meaningful connections is one factor; keeping them is another. Leave your events open if you don't want to close them!
There are several steps you can follow to organize a business meeting:
If you are an organizer using a matchmaking service, the process may involve the following steps:
Business matchmaking events are networking events designed to facilitate business connections between companies. If you are interested in participating in a business matchmaking event, here are some steps you can take:
January 9, 2023
About me:
After seven years of translation experience in the management-related field and a passion for digital marketing, I was given the opportunity to work with the Cloud Markethink Agency and CloudTalk Global, the largest cloud computing event in Eurasia, as a team member to manage business events.
Additionally, working with Deal Room Events has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to reflect on and expand my experience as a content event marketing professional.
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