Horizon Works delivers communications campaign to support EMCON promotion

Engineering and manufacturing showcase EMCON celebrated its 15th edition on September 14th by welcoming more than 800 people to Rainton Arena in Houghton-le-Spring.

And we were delighted to have supported the event’s organiser, Engineering and Manufacturing Network (EMN), with an integrated communications campaign to attract hundreds of delegates and exhibitors to the event.

EMCON, which took place at its new home of Rainton Arena, was known as Durham Oktoberfest until 2017 and was previously held at Glow (formerly Excel Centre) in Newton Aycliffe. The event is delivered annually by EMN.

Showcasing engineering and manufacturing companies, capabilities and opportunities in North East England and beyond, EMCON saw 118 exhibitors demonstrate products and services to delegates from the private and public sectors. Sectors such as advanced manufacturing, advanced engineering, fabrication, processing, robotics, software, plastics and training were all represented at the event.

Our work for EMN included delivering a public relations campaign which engaged regional and national trade press in the run-up to the event, creating social media content and running LinkedIn advertising campaigns, developing case studies on past exhibitors, and keeping the engineering and manufacturing community up to date with developments surrounding EMCON 2023 – including announcements on its Meet The Buyer programme and fringe events.

In addition, we worked closely with EMCON’s sponsors to support EMN in the delivery of its sponsor marketing packages, and helped to promote the benefits of EMN’s membership offering.

Headquartered in County Durham, EMN supports businesses from small scale SMEs to PLCs and its membership base stretches across North East England.

Horizon Works has a long association with EMN. We have been a member of the network for several years, have supported EMCON as a silver sponsor and in 2021, we joined its affiliate programme.

As an affiliate, we have delivered a series of popular Marketing Lunch and Learn events at engineering and manufacturing facilities across the North East, including Komatsu UK, Gestamp Tallent Ltd, AkzoNobel and The Expanded Metal Company.

And in partnership with EMN, we are now hosting Engineering and Manufacturing Marketers’ Meet-ups – regular peer to peer specialist networking events for those working in marketing, sales, PR and brand within the engineering and manufacturing sectors.

Samantha Vassallo, Managing Director of Horizon Works, said: “We greatly enjoyed working with the EMN team on developing and implementing a communications plan for EMCON, in a year which saw the event move to an exciting new venue and introduce a number of new features.

“As an EMN affiliate and regular exhibitor, we have a real passion for EMCON and it’s been very exciting to be part of the event’s evolution!”

Ailsa Anderson, Director of Development at EMN, said: “Working with the Horizon Works team has been a game changer for us.

“They have guided us through our marketing investment increasing our ROI significantly, freeing up our time to focus on other elements of the show’s development and implementation which has been invaluable and has meant we retained our sanity during an extremely busy time.

“The Horizon Works team have been proactive throughout our engagement with them and it’s really shown dividends.

“It’s great to have Horizon Works as an affiliate of EMN too and we look forward to continuing to build on that relationship.”

Horizon Works has a long track record of working with trade organizations and businesses on events promotion and organisation, and we have delivered communications campaigns for workshops, awards events, press launches and major annual conferences.