Are you an event professional looking to supercharge your participant experience? You might have considered 'event matchmaking' or 'business matchmaking' before as a way to do this. But how do you create a business case and get your leadership team on board to implement matchmaking and the right event networking software?
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As an event organizer, you're always on the lookout for strategies that can elevate exhibitor, sponsor and attendees experiences. You understand the importance of creating meaningful connections, long lasting business relationships and demonstrating tangible ROI. You've heard about the transformative power of event matchmaking, but there's one question lingering in your mind: "How do I demonstrate the benefits that matchmaking can bring to my event and convince my bosses that we need it?”
Well, it's time to put your worries aside, gather some evidence and get ready to pitch event matchmaking to your leadership team.
Below, we’ve outlined the tips required to make a compelling case that implementing a B2B event matchmaking strategy, with the right event networking platform, will be a growth driver for your event.
To start your pitch, it’s important to establish a common understanding of the concept at hand. Therefore, let's define 'event matchmaking' or 'business matchmaking' in a professional context.
Event matchmaking is the process of connecting participants with like-minded individuals, industry experts, buyers, suppliers and other potential business partners at events. The aim is to help your participants establish and maintain valuable business relationships between each other at your events. This enables you as the organizer to track those relationships and demonstrate ROI to those participants taking part in the matchmaking.
It typically relies on a business matchmaking software, such as Grip, to analyze attendee data and match them with other attendees to meet, based on their interests, goals, backgrounds or needs. This allows for more meaningful connections to be made at events, ultimately leading to a better overall experience for attendees and increased event engagement.
And don't worry, you don't have to manually sift through thousands of records and data fields to make the perfect match. AI-powered B2B matchmaking software will take care of this for you. We'll come back to this later in this blog…
There are multiple benefits of adding business matchmaking to your next B2B conference, trade show, confex, annual meeting or enterprise event (e.g. user conference). Here are just a few benefits which will help you prepare a business case to pitch better event networking:
✅ Increased event engagement: By connecting attendees with like-minded individuals, they are more likely to engage in meaningful conversations and sessions at your event. Your event is the hub of connections and business relationships that are just waiting to be made.
✅ Better networking opportunities: With the help of AI-powered business matchmaking software, participants can expand their professional network then make and maintain valuable connections.
✅ Improved attendee and exhibitor satisfaction: When attendees are able to make meaningful connections at events, they are more likely to leave feeling satisfied and eager to return for future events as they've received tangible value from attending or exhibiting at your event.
✅ Enhanced ROI: By facilitating connections between attendees, exhibitors and sponsors, event matchmaking can lead to increased sales for participants, resulting in a higher ROI and churn reduction for your event.
✅ Boost to event revenue: As Miguel Neves, Editor of Skift Meetings detailed in The Value of Event Matchmaking article: "Calculating the value of event matchmaking is top of mind for both event organizers and exhibitors.” With that in mind, Grip created a pre-scheduled meetings revenue calculator which estimates how much profit event organizers could generate from pre-scheduled meetings. You can try our calculator here.
Now that you've seen some of the benefits that event matchmaking can bring, it's time to convince your bosses that it’s right for your show.
Here are some tips to help you make a compelling case for event matchmaking:
Matchmaking is becoming increasingly popular in the events industry.
More event organizers are seeing the value it brings and are implementing it into their events.
There are numerous other articles to support this, which you can use in your case to demonstrate the value of matchmaking, such as:
✅ 47% of events surveyed now include matchmaking or an event networking software - American Express 2024 Global Meetings and Events Forecast
✅ 67% of event planners are planning pre-scheduled meetings in the next 12 months according to the B2B Relationships Report from DAHLIA+Agency.
✅ 71% of respondents indicate matchmaking as an: "Important or very important part of their event," according to this UFI report
By highlighting this matchmaking trend to your leadership team, you can show that using an event matchmaking app is a valuable strategy that can bring real results.
Nothing speaks louder than real-life success stories.
Show your leadership team examples of other events that have successfully implemented event matchmaking and the benefits they have seen as a result. You'll also be able to find testimonials from attendees, exhibitors and sponsors to showcase the positive experience they have had with event matchmaking.
Case studies detailing the benefits include MIP Cancun, Clarion and Playfair Capital. We have more case studies to help support your case for event matchmaking, they can be found here.
As mentioned earlier, event matchmaking can lead to a higher ROI for your event by facilitating connections between attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.
You can use our simple matchmaking ROI calculator to show your team the potential increase in revenue they could see by implementing pre-scheduled event matchmaking into your event strategy.
For example, an organizer could generate over $900,000 in additional revenue if they simply hosted pre-scheduled meetings at their event (e.g. for a financial services event with 50 suppliers and 15 meetings per supplier).
Attendee satisfaction is crucial for any successful event.
With event matchmaking, attendees are more likely to feel satisfied and find value in attending or exhibiting at your event. This results in higher NPS scores. For example, MIP Cancun’s implementation of matchmaking resulted in a record NPS of 75 for that event.
The benefit to an increased NPS is that a positive and satisfied attendee experience leads to repeat attendance, increased revenue and an enhanced reputation for your event.
You may be asked questions about AI and how it is utilised in event matchmaking platforms, quite rightly too - it's a hot topic right now.
AI-powered recommendations work in the background of event matchmaking software to analyze attendee data, preferences, and behaviors which then suggests relevant matches. At Grip this is achieved thanks to the billions of interactions happening across the platform, resulting in over 70m recommendations per year. This data, combined with over 16 machine learning algorithms and a slick participant experience, helps organizers increase the number of critical business relationships being made and maintained at their events. This not only saves time but also ensures precision in matching attendees with compatible individuals, generating more value for all involved and accelerating business opportunities for your event participants.
Of course, your leadership team will also want to know the cost of implementing event matchmaking.
With the potential for increased revenue and attendee satisfaction, event matchmaking is a worthwhile investment. At Grip, we’ve seen that implementing matchmaking is well worth the additional cost as it often results in a 20% increase in revenue for your event.
Event organizers are increasingly introducing business matchmaking as it delivers on multiple levels. Participants get more value. Plus as an organizer, you can now play that value back to them by showcasing real ROI. This is possible because your event platform tracks all the metrics on the number of meetings booked and how they went. Finally, your leadership team will be keen because it’s a chance for them to generate more revenue and improve satisfaction scores, which reduces participant churn. A win-win!
To discuss matchmaking in more detail, book a meeting with a Grip expert
