So, that’s the Southern Manufacturing and Electronics Exhibition done for another year, and what a year it was.
2018 marked the fifth year in a row that we’ve chosen to exhibit at the Southern Manufacturing and Electronics Exhibition and it’s arguably been our best year at the expo yet.
Here’s our own personal review.
Brand new exhibition space
As we mentioned in our previous blog about the Southern Manufacturing and Electronics Exhibition, the expo made the shift this year from temporary marquee to purpose-built exhibition Hall 1 – an amazing space right at the heart of Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre.
Warm, spacious and suitably impressive, Hall 1 combined exhibition and hands-on demonstration areas with break-out zones and spaces for seminars.
It’s a huge improvement on previous years and reflects Southern Manufacturing’s status as the UK’s largest regional manufacturing, electronics and subcontracting exhibition perfectly.
Increased leads year on year
One of the things that makes Southern Manufacturing so worthwhile for us is the number of engaged attendees who are there actively looking to do business.
This is not a mooch-around-looking-vaguely-interested kind of expo – we’re talking thousands of visitors and exhibitors looking to get up-close and hands-on (tricky for a team as gorgeous as our own).
Attendance this year was even better than expected. The show welcomed 7658 visitors, almost 60 per cent of whom were directors, managers and engineers – great for talking serious B2B business.
We went back to Edmo HQ with our reputations as salesmen intact: we enjoyed more than a 20% increase on warm leads from last year’s exhibition.
Video content was a hit
We launched our new website at the start of this year, incorporating expertly shot video content to really bring to life what Edmo achieves for its customers.
We’ve had some great feedback on our video from visitors to our website, so we decided to see how it’d work at an expo.
And, sure enough, it was a hit – it can be difficult to explain exactly what we do to non-experts, but video has bridged that gap, enabled us to show off our capabilities quickly and clearly, and given us a great talking point with folks who stop off at the Edmo stand.
Diverse attendees
This years Southern Exhibition expo welcomed a wealth of visitors from every trade and industrial sector imaginable.
Mechanical and electrical engineering dominated in terms of sheer numbers, representing a total of 70.2% of all visitors to the show. Numbers from the aerospace and automotive sectors followed closely, with 64% of visitors identifying themselves as belonging to these industries.
The range of attendees who visited our stand was incredibly diverse in terms of industry and size, with guests from the following sectors stopping by:
- Electronic Signage
- Specialist Lighting
- Refrigeration
- Fan & Motor Products
- Engineering
- Medical Instrumentation
- Defence contractors
- Precision Machinists
- Scientific Instrumentation
- Auditorium Seating
- LED Lighting
- Construction
- Commercial & Industrial Heating
- Aluminium Facades
- Communication masts
- Electronic Enclosures
- Product Designers
- Wind Renewables
- Barrier Companies
- ATM Manufacturers
- Manufacturers of cash and asset protection systems
- Lifts/Elevators
- Alpaca Farming (we don’t ask, we don’t judge)
Despite the wide array of industries (we admit alpaca farming is a bit of an outlier…), all our visitors had a common extrusion requirement, or were interested in interested in substituting their current substrates for aluminium.
All in all, brilliant quality leads.
See you at Southern Manufacturing Exhibition 2019?
So was Southern Manufacturing Exhibition 2018 worth the money? After all, that’s what this all comes down to.
Our verdict? No doubt.
We’ve already booked our place at Southern Manufacturing Exhibition 2019 (right down to the same position, so if you saw us this year, you’ll know where to find us…).
And, we’re already planning new ways to show attendees what Edmo can do for them – either as a partner or a supplier.
If you can’t wait until then (and who would blame you?), contact us directly: you can drop us an email at darren@edmolimited.co.uk or call us on 01989 768 307.