Initially launched at EuroTier two years ago, the “Match & Meet” service will once again be offered to exhibitors and visitors at the world's leading trade fair for animal production. This free and efficient online tool for initiating business will be available in advance of this year's event to allow EuroTier attendees to establish relevant contacts to better plan their visit.
Event organizer DLG (German Agricultural Society) has taken advantage of its online networking expertise, already used to great advantage at other exhibitions such as Agritechnica, to develop the Match & Meet service. It was extremely popular at EuroTier 2014, when more than 200 meetings were arranged – which is probably equivalent to a time-saving of several hundred hours. “A salesperson can spend quite a lot of time just getting to the right person,” said Matthias Lech, Digital Media Manager, DLG.
“The Match & Meet service does away with all of the door-knocking and eliminates gate-keepers because it immediately puts you into contact with someone who is also looking to meet with you,” added Lech.
The Match & Meet service enables registered participants to enter into direct discussions with potential business partners in the run-up to the trade fair, allowing them to arrange individual appointments. Exhibitors and visitors thereby achieve their goals in a straightforward manner, and make optimal use of their time at the fair. Details of this service will be available online at www.eurotier.com from September onwards.
Search for European distributors
A typical scenario might be a company from North America trying to establish a presence in Europe, and the company would be looking for European distributors of its products. The company would enter chosen criteria, such as its product range and what kind of companies would be a perfect match, into the system. For example, it might want to meet European distributors selling barn equipment to France, Spain and Italy. This information would then be visible to distributing companies looking to expand their offering, and any matches would be communicated electronically.
The Match and Meet tool, which uses the business language of English, has been developed especially for the DLG exhibition by a software team working to DLG's specifications. These include: user-friendliness; an appealing design that matches the upbeat mood of a show; and above all quality matches of people using a range of specific criteria. The service reflects DLG's role as a non-profit agricultural organization that's well known for agricultural networking and has a mission to share knowledge online, at exhibitions and face-to-face.
Buyers and sellers register online and create a profile, offer their companies and/or their products or services, and post search parameters. Based on their own profile information, participants can identify interesting contacts through the automatic matching function. This is an effective way of finding new business partners, and face-to-face meetings can be initiated, confirmed or even rejected before the start of the exhibition. The confirmed requests for meetings are saved automatically in a personal meeting diary. The agreed discussions at EuroTier can then be held on the stands of the respective exhibitors.
Participation in the international Match & Meet online platform is free of charge, and a valid admission ticket to EuroTier 2016 is all that will be required to attend face-to-face meetings on-site.
