Matchmaking turns time into tangible opportunities
At a trade fair, buyers never have enough time to visit the stands and assess what is on offer: three days are not enough to meet regular suppliers and seek out new ones. That is why, for its recent edition, which has just drawn to a close, MICAM introduced a new tool, completely free of charge: the Matchmaking platform designed to help visitors identify the companies most relevant to their business and plan their visit as effectively as possible, turning time into tangible opportunities, and to give exhibitors a virtual shop window in which to tell their story to visitors.
For exhibitors, Matchmaking is a genuine digital space in which to boost visibility before, during and after the event. Each company can create and customise its own area, adding its logo, company information and description, products and events, and enriching the content with images, videos, documents and links.
The platform also lets exhibitors manage appointments with buyers and clients, arranging the dates and times of meetings, and choose from the events scheduled during the fair. Exhibitors can also give their staff access to the platform, involving more members of the team in managing the activities, contacts and opportunities generated during MICAM.
HERE IS A VIDEO FOR EXHIBITORS.
For buyers, Matchmaking means being able to prepare a visit before even arriving at the fair. Through the platform, they can find exhibitors, discover new brands, browse company pages and the products on show, start conversations via chat and book appointments in advance. They can also consult the hall maps, locate stands and plan a more efficient route around the fair, making the most of their time there.
The experience has been designed to be simple and immediate, even on the move: Matchmaking is in fact easy to navigate via the app, meaning that companies, appointments, contacts, maps and useful information are always to hand during the visit.
A further point of integration concerns access to the event. Buyers authorised on the platform will find the QR code in the app, ready to use as their entry pass to the fair. The same QR code can be scanned by exhibitors through the app, simply and instantly turning a contact made at the stand into data that can be used afterwards, too. Exhibitors can collect contacts by scanning and, once the event is over, download the data captured, making commercial and follow-up activity easier.
Matchmaking thus supports the B2B relationship along the entire journey: from the search for a potential partner to the planning of the meeting, and from the visit to the fair to the collection of contact details before and during the event.
In this way, MICAM extends the trade-fair experience beyond the physical and temporal boundaries of the event: three days of meetings become the starting point for relationships that can be prepared beforehand, developed at the fair and go on generating business opportunities long afterwards.