Events
Get the Best ROI from your Event
Written by Sara Belkowitz
As part of an overall integrated campaign, a successful event presents an opportunity to engage your target audience and translate a brand into a tangible experience. However, the return on investment (ROI) is not always easy to define.
The key to producing an event that measures up to other campaign tactics is to approach its planning like any other project. Before you mark that meeting or event date on your calendar, it is crucial to define and prioritize your objectives. Are you launching a new product or creating brand awareness? Are you positioning an emerging technology or spurring adoption of a more mature technology? With clear objectives, you can then assign corresponding success metrics to track ROI.
The following are common success metrics used in event marketing:
- Expense vs. revenue calculations
- Financial savings during the planning process (discounted rentals, negotiated savings, etc.)
- RSVPs generated from the invitation list
- RSVPs vs. actual attendance
- Pitched briefings vs. actual appointments with press/analysts
- Qualified lead generation and converted sales revenues
- Traffic flow analysis and handout/giveaway inventories
- Pre/Post show surveys to measure reaction, satisfaction, change in awareness level and planned actions of participants
- Message, content and amount of media coverage
Once you have calculated the ROI of your event, extract insights about your target audience(s) that can be used to improve future events. Keep in mind that there is no single standard benchmark that will apply to every event. If, for example, a virtual event is an ideal fit for your audience and objectives, you can leverage the latest technology to track a wide variety of analytics that would not be available from a face-to-face event. Most importantly, don't lose sight of the intangible results of event marketing. Nothing says a successful event more than smiling attendees and requests to keep the party going longer!
