Exhibiting at Airmic 2018

Two months have passed since we exhibited at Airmic 2018 in Liverpool. So I thought it might be useful to summarise our thoughts after a period of reflection. As a startup with a limited marketing budget, we have to think very carefully about the exhibitions we commit to. There are many risks associated with exhibiting, especially at events we have not been to before.

After meeting with their events team and taking advice from a number of their members and exhibitors, we made the decision to give Airmic 2018 a go.

For those who are unfamiliar with Airmic, it is the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers in Industry and Commerce. Their membership is made up of risk managers in large businesses, as well as their service providers (insurers, brokers, consultants). For more information visit: www.airmic.com

What we learned from our attendance at #Airmic2018  

Attendees

As a SaaS startup we really didn’t know how a large audience of corporate risk managers would react to our ‘Risk & Compliance Document Control’ proposition. We needn’t have worried as the majority of Airmic attendees were curious to learn more about how we could help them. Despite the complexity and scale of these large businesses, many of their risk management processes (especially document control) do not currently benefit from specific software solutions.

Organisation

The Airmic team is small and as such they were all involved in different aspects of the conference. From an exhibitor’s perspective this gave us reassurance that they fully understand their audience. As it turned out, that would translate into an ability to react quickly to any concerns on site. In essence there was a different, dare I say friendlier, atmosphere from most of the shows we attend.

Outcomes

The acid test for investment of time and money in any trade show is the pipeline generated as a result. In short, our mix of pre-event social media activity, event demos and post-event follow ups worked. The event has already delivered signed customers and several new prospects in our sales pipeline. On that basis, we are confident our attendance at Airmic 2018 will show a strong return on investment before the end of the year!

We hope this post shows that small companies can make a big impression at trade shows. Our advice to startups would be to choose your events carefully. Work closely with the organisers and put as much resource into pre and post event outreach as you do during the event itself.