ExpoIQ: Easy Exhibitor Sourcing for the Busy Event Professional [Review]

ExpoIQ – What Is It?

ExpoIQ answers an often talked about need among event planners: sourcing good, viable exhibitors.

With the well-known AngelPad accelerator behind it, ExpoIQ looks to assist event planners and sales professionals in identifying and booking qualified exhibitors for their trade shows.

Gathering data from events and vendors over the past two years, ExpoIQ has created a sizeable database of vendors and events (over 25,000+ entries and growing) that both planners and exhibitors can use to connect with one another.

Aimed at allowing planners to do quick research before contacting the exhibitor, ExpoIQ wants to become the most robust vendor/planner matchmaking tool on the market. While the focus right now is on the IT industry, the goal is to incorporate others, like pharma, medicine, consumers, and hospitality, so planners of all events can find and connect with vendors of any kind.

Overview and Capabilities

ExpoIQ’s global database provides access to a large searchable list of exhibitors and events so planners can find and qualify exhibitors for their events for free.

ExpoIQ’s database contains over

20,000 exhibitors

5,000 expos and their information

30,000 key contacts

MAIN APPEAL OF THE MARKETPLACE

The ability to research competing events and access their list of vendors in minutes.

Learn more about vendors from similar events, getting quick access to critical data and social media profiles.

Request introductory call directly from platform.

Review

To begin our exhibitor research, we picked a few companies and typed in their names. ExpoIQ also gives planners the ability to upload a list of their past vendors in order to see what other shows they attended and who was there with them.

The marketplace returned a list of other events where “our” companies had also exhibited. For instance, Autodesk also went to the GTC in 2019.

Clicking on the event from there, we could retrieve a list of other vendors who also exhibited at GTC to find similar prospects.

In this image, you can see the event and its specifics:

• Location
• Number of attendees
• How many of the exhibitors are new to you (not vendors included on your initial list)
• How many companies from your list were in attendance
• Total number of exhibitors

There’s also a description of the event, the types of people/job titles who attend it, the agenda or topics, and a map of where the venue is located.

Next, you can access an alphabetized listing of new exhibitors and their relevant data, which can help you sort and research the perfect matches for your event. This data includes things like:

• Number of employees
• Whether they are a company you are interested in
• How many expos they attended
• The number of attendees reached

Clicking on a specific vendor or exhibitor gives you company-specific information, like other events they attended (which you can click to learn more about) as well as the potential exhibitor’s social media profile links, and a request for an info call.

When you request an info/introductory call, a pop-up appears. This makes the request much easier, especially if you’re performing research on the run or in a noisy environment. It allows you to make the request now and schedule the call later.

While you can include a personalized message, the form is designed to expedite the process by presenting all the information a vendor needs to make a decision about whether to schedule a call in a succinct, visually appealing layout.

In addition to the essentials – the length of your event, suggested times when you’re available for contact, and your time zone (drop-down) – the form includes a space to add an incentive for booking with you, such as free tickets to the event. Including an offer can drive a more rapid response.

EXHIBITORS CAN GET 5%-20% DISCOUNT AND CONTROL THE PROCESS

The benefit to exhibitors is that it gives them an additional stream of exhibition opportunities. They have the freedom to accept or decline a call request.

Each request provides a lot of information and intelligence on the specific event, so that they can quickly decide if it makes sense for them to accept or decline the call. Planners can offer exhibitors incentives to accept the call as well, including discounts on booths. Exhibitors who accept and have calls with relevant planners on ExpoIQ can get between 5%-20% discount on their eventual booth purchases exclusively on ExpoIQ.

HOW IT HANDLES DATA

While the system connects people through an easy-to-use form, no contact information is exchanged initially (unless the vendor wants to do that after the initial contact).

When the recipient receives the request for a phone call, they can review it at their leisure and reach out or ignore the request. If the potential exhibitor declines the request, the ExpoIQ team tries to find out why and reports on that.

Why Use ExpoIQ?

ExpoIQ can shorten the exhausting process of finding the right vendor for your next event.

Currently, finding vendors is time-consuming, and time is money. ExpoIQ seeks to streamline the research process with a database that offers multiple layers of search capability. It’s easy to use and provides vendor results for companies of a range of sizes based on their similarity to vendors you’ve already indicated and the events where they have exhibited.

ExpoIQ offers an alternative to travelling to competing shows, pouring over their websites to compile a vendor list, and performing Google searches to find vendor matches in your ideal demographic.

ExpoIQ produces global search results using selected filters in a few clicks, and that data can be managed through the platform as well, making it an alternative to Keep or DropBox folders of potential exhibitors.

Finally, ExpoIQ expedites connecting with prospects by sending them an intuitive, easy-to-scan form with all the information they need to respond to your inquiry.

Who Is It For?

The marketplace is designed for event planners and exhibition sales professionals with the goal of helping them to save time sourcing new exhibitors for events in the IT technology industry. ExpoIQ works well for planners of larger trade shows and conferences that have many vendor spots to fill. By researching event competitors and their exhibitors, you can compile a list of qualified leads and make educated inquiries.

It is not an ideal solution for very small exhibition events with under five vendor positions to sell/recruit, and while the list of events and exhibitors is fairly robust, the list is not yet complete.

Pricing and Promotions

Accessing the marketplace and using it for research is free, and there is no limit to how long you can use it or how many times. The pricing aligns with the value ExpoIQ offers its clients. The current pricing is based on each booked call that actually takes place (if an exhibitor does not show up, there is no charge):

1-200 employees: $100/booked materialized call

201-1,000 employees: $350/booked materialized call

1,001-5,000 employees: $750/booked materialized call

5,000+ employees: $2,000/booked materialized call

Since you only pay for successful calls, the research is completely risk-free and doesn’t require anything but your time. We found it to be an efficient way to source quality exhibitors.

Moreover, ExpoIQ offers 100 booked materialized calls for free for all organizers who mention EventManagerBlog and provide us with average costs per show they organize across the following expense items:

• Booth
• Show Services (Wi-Fi, Electricity, plumbing, rigging, vacuuming)
• Exhibit Design & Construction
• Shipping
• Graphic Design, Production
• Promotion
• Other Trade Show Expenses (lead-gathering to unexpected maintenance and cleaning, etc.)

Finally, ExpoIQ commits to offering a 5%-15% discount to exhibitors connected with on the platform if eventually they end up exhibiting at the organizer’s event.

IN CONCLUSION

ExpoIQ is an effective tool for finding, qualifying, and connecting with vendors for exhibition events. As a global marketplace, it allows planners to research the types of vendors that would be successful at their events by looking at vendors who have exhibited at similar events.

It provides detailed vendor information and allows you to navigate through a vendor’s history of attended events to find other vendors like them. It also lets planners request a call or connect with vendors on social media.

Upon initial review, ExpoIQ promises to streamline the vendor research and selection process for event planners in the IT arena, but the intention is to expand. New industries will be included as they continue to build upon their large database of vendors and events.

If you’d like more information about ExpoIQ, visit their site and try it out for yourself. It’s easy to use and provides quick solutions for one of the most vexing problems for event planners today.

Disclosure: Reviews are paid for placements. While Event Manager Blog receives a fee to extensively look at the tool and review it in detail, the content of the review is independent and by no means influenced by the company. If you have any question please use the contact us section.