Hello Laura,

I've been to a lot of networking events over the last few months.  One of my favourites is the Brampton Mastermind group for entrepreneurs.  They have a great speaker and attendees are from diverse backgrounds and industries.  I don't think you need a gimmick to get people to attend.  It's about the type of attendees you attracted and the quality of the networking experience.

There are groups that I attended once and didn't go back.  It's usually because I felt like it was one-sided with people trying to sell me.  Also known as premature solicitation.  It's not about collecting business cards but having meaningful, open-ended discussion at the event.   Sometimes that's only with one or two people.  The value in networking are the follow-up one-on-one meetings and who in your network you can introduce or people in their network they can introduce you to.  As with all relationships it starts with trust, commonality and who you "connect" with.

The key is to have a point of differentiation that appeals to the people you would want to network with.  Lastly, networking isn't one and done, it's about maintaining relationships and looking for ways that you can add value for your connections.

Great question and good luck.