Back in June 2012 I wrote a blog about how to decide on the best types of networking meetings to go to. I covered a number of options and you can click here to see what they were. In this blog, I?ll explain another couple of options, to help you find the most efficient meetings to attend.

Industry Specific or Not? If you work with businesses within a specific market sector, it can be worth finding out where they network and going along to their meetings. Chartered Institutes and Associations are a good place to start.

Or your target clients may be spread across a range of industries. If this is the case, look at the type of businesses they run. Are they small or large businesses? If so, are there specific networking events they go to?

At Appletree we work with a lot of small business, so we look for networking groups where small businesses hang out. We also love working with Coaches, so have found a number of groups for coaches on LinkedIn were we regularly give advice on marketing their businesses.

Meeting Your Competition. Some networking groups allow anyone to attend their meetings, while others only allow one person from each industry. There are pros and cons to this. If you can get into a group as the only person representing your type of business, others in the group will be encouraged to use your services and refer other people to you. However, you?re not guaranteed to get the business. The rule of chemistry still applies and you may need to work hard to build up a relationship with some people in the group.

One of the disadvantages to this sort of group is that you don?t get to find out what your competition is doing and what sort of marketing they are trying. Healthy competition can actually be good for your business. Another disadvantage is that if you can?t get into your local group because your services are already represented, you may have to travel to find a group that will allow you to join.

I really like going to meetings where there are other Marketing Consultants. It helps me think of different things to say and I like hearing what they have to say, so see how we?re different.

At our monthly Networking Lunch meetings in Oxford, we welcome people from the same industries and many of our members pass work between their businesses, depending on what they specialise in. Take a look at our membership list here to see who you could meet.