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How Do You Measure
Success?
In addition to my work running MeetMax conference software, I work with a number of non-profits that produce a variety of programs, events and conferences each year.
This year, more than ever, each company, association and organization that relies on events as a key part of the marketing mix is looking at budgets, scrutinizing every expense, and making hard decisions about which programs to keep and which ones to discontinue.
It isn't an easy task.
Because, as every event planner I have ever worked with will say:
events and event marketing are very hard things to measure.
Here are some of the approaches to measurement that I've heard about from our meeting planner clients at MeetMax and those that I've learned from my own experience producing events and conferences.
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You get partial credit just for asking.
There is a brand value to sending out invitations.
When you send out a well-design invitation it makes an impression on the recipient and the very fact that you are holding a conference enhances your company's brand.
Your measurement then might be how many invitations do you send out.
Was the invitation picked up in the media or the blogosphere?
Do a search to find out how many mentions of your event were made during the period leading up to and following the event.
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Everyone In.
Make sure you are counting all of your attendees, even those that attend remotely.
Increasingly, events are being webcast in total or in part.
If you are webcasting sessions from the event, your message will be getting out to more people than just those who physically attend the meeting; keep count of the number of downloads or accesses to the
webcast.
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Beyond Counting Attendees: What you measure should be directly related to your objectives for the event.
If you are producing a trade-show, or conference, where the goal is new sales or improved customer loyalty, you would want to count the number of meaningful connections your staff, sponsors or exhibitors made with qualified prospects or existing customers.
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Measure
Effectiveness in Terms of Dollars:
What's a good sales lead worth to your company? What does it cost you to generate one meaningful connection with a qualified prospect?
How many qualified prospects are there at the event?
Look at the demographic data you have collected during registration.
You could use job titles to identify those attendees who are in your target market segmentation.
Take a count of those attendees.
You have your next measurement: the percentage of attendees who are considered qualified prospects.
How many of these qualified prospects did you or your staff (or your sponsors or exhibitors) have a face-to-face dialog with?
Event marketing is all about creating opportunities for interactions that provide in-depth insights and establishing the trust and immediacy to move a sales opportunity forward.
Knowing how many personal meetings took place is your second measurement. How would you find that out?
Ask your staff, sponsors or vendors to self-report after the event.
Or, if you are scheduling the personal meetings on behalf of sponsors or exhibitors, generate a report with that data.
How much did each of those interactions cost?
You know how much you spent on the whole event.
You know how much your sponsors and exhibitors paid to participate.
Take the cost (to you or to your sponsor/exhibitor depending on the type of event) and divide it by the number of personal meetings that took place (overall or with each sponsor).
Use this data in marketing sponsorships for next year's event.
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Assess Perceptions and Satisfaction.
Surveys are a proven measurement tool.
Was your event memorable?
Did the attendee get the content she was looking for?
Would they attend next year?
A short survey sent out after the event will help you gauge how well your event satisfied the attendee's needs.
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Track the long-term impact.
Monitor the prospects with whom your staff/sponsor/vendor had meaningful interactions at the event.
Which of them went on to make a purchase?
This will give you a measurement of conversion -- the number of qualified prospects generated at the event that went on to purchase.
Understand the trends over time.
Are you creating more opportunities for meaningful connections for your staff, sponsors or exhibitors?
Is the cost per connection going up (because you are creating fewer connections or the cost of the event is going up) or is the cost per connection going down (because you are creating greater opportunities for business development)?
Compare your results to industry averages.
For example, Exhibit Surveys, Inc. produces an annual report, "Trade Show Trends", which you can download from the Internet.
For 2005, they report that exhibitors spent, on average, $213 for each face-to-face conversation they had with a sales prospect in their exhibit booth.
How does that compare to your cost per interaction?
Measuring event effectiveness requires an investment of time and resources.
Is it worth it?
MPI's annual "EventView 2009 North America Report" concludes that companies that measure event performance are nearly 41% more likely to expect increases in their marketing budget than those that do not.
For me, that makes a compelling case for measuring what matters in events.
Thanks for reading,
Carrie Woerner
General Manager, MeetMax Conference Software
518-691-0442
Sources:
EventView 2009 North America Report,
Meeting Planners International,
http://www.mpiweb.org/Archive/235/0.aspx
Beyond ROI and ROO: Using Measurement to Enhance Decisions
& Improve Exhibit Results, Skip Cox, President,
Exhibit Surveys, Inc. June
2003
Staging
and Gauging: Do Events Pay Off?,
CMO Council, Survey Report February 2005.
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MeetMax
