Learn How to Organize a Successful Matchmaking Event

Getting big name speakers and high end production are all important parts of a memorable event experience, but the real value lies in the people attending the event. It’s all about who you know and it couldn’t be more true when it comes to participants and exhibitors. Networking, mingling, discussing business opportunities - this is what brings participants back to your b2b event year after year. This desire for a meaningful networking experience means that content and entertainment are no longer the biggest priority.

Now, how do we create that experience? Some event organizers assume that a few coffee breaks throughout the day are enough when it comes to event matchmaking. However, that’s definitely not the case.

By using an event matchmaking software, you get a tool that guides your participants toward goal-oriented and efficient networking interactions that ensure everyone gets the most out of your event. Plus, it is a huge timesaver for event organizers, as well as attendees, and helps reduce stress around the event planning process.

How does an event matchmaking software work?

Event matchmaking software is a tool that you can use to stay organized and, more importantly, help your participants connect with one another. It gives your attendees the opportunity to identify, cooperate, and develop business opportunities before, during, and even after the event. On a website created with a b2b event management software entrepreneurs and business professionals can create profiles, marketplace opportunities (services, products, project cooperation offers), and pair up with people who have complementary interests. It also lets participants plan their agenda early so they can maximize their time spent at your event.

If you want high-quality event matchmaking, it is worth the investment. Our clients at START Summit made the decision to use b2match’s event matchmaking tool for the second year in a row. START Summit 2022 delivered amazing results with more than 3500 participants and over 22 000 minutes of b2b meetings. If you’re intrigued, read on how START Summit utilized b2match startup investor event platform.

What are the best practices in planning and executing a matchmaking event?

Carefully created registration and filtering. You should keep your registration form clear, simple, and intuitive. Lengthy registration forms will often scare people off. Create participant types so that you clasify your participants depending on your event goals. For example, if you run an event about smart cities, you can categorize your audience into city representatives, entrepreneurs, researchers, urban planners, architects, etc. Using these categories, you can then focus on setting up the rest of the registration such as the areas of activities. Areas of activity enable participants to classify their business in detail and they contribute to the useful filtering and advanced search options on the participant list. Good filtering improves the entire participant experience making it faster and more efficient.

Rich participant profiles. One of the most important things is to encourage your event attendees to add valuable information to their participant networking profiles before the event starts. That way, your attendees can do some research and choose their meeting partners more efficiently ahead of time enjoying more quality time once they meet. They can skip the small talk and get right down to business. Sending email reminders is a great way to engage your participants. With the help of b2match premade email templates, you can quickly customize the messages and send them out. Based on our experience, we recommend doing it at least 2-4 weeks before the event. By that time, participants should have optimized their matchmaking profiles and start scanning the participant list. Start a countdown (e.g. “Only 12 days to go until you can book meetings!”) to add a level of suspense.

AI event matchmaking. There are many novelties in the event tech industry, but one of the hottest topics is the use of artificial intelligence. However, not all event platforms use actual machine learning algorithms. The b2match AI Meeting Recommender system uses artificial intelligence to process large amounts of data in order to recommend interesting profiles to every participant, all while remaining GDPR compliant. Attendees naturally produce this data through their profile details and by simply using the platform. While gathering data, the algorithm is also processing it at the same time. This continuous cycle allows it to find out what each participant is interested in. Once the recommendations are generated, they are ready to be presented to participants. This give a strong boost of engagement and interactions on your event.

Table management tool. Managing onsite and especially hybrid events can be exhausting and confusing at times. However, with an organized, automatic event table management system, all of the stress around this issue can be avoided. As the meetings are being booked, tables are automatically assigned according to their availability. The system even recognizes the need for a table on a hybrid meeting, even though the other participant is joining online. This leaves the event organizers with plenty of time to focus on other, more complex matters.

Meeting feedback and reports. Of course, without proper analysis, it is hard to know how successful the matchmaking really was. This is why, with an advanced event matchmaking software, you can enable your participants to give ratings in the form of stars from 1 to 5 after each meeting. This gives you more information whether the meeting took place and how interesting or successful it was.

Filling the needs of your attendees, sponsors or exhibitors means they will see the value of attending your event in the future. A professional b2b matchmaking platform will be the backbone of quality networking, which is essential for creating a memorable event experience.