Tracking Event ROI
And no, it’s not all about the money (though that helps, right?!)
Ensuring your events provide a return on investment.
B2B events can be a great way to generate leads, build relationships, and increase brand awareness.
However, without the right approach from the start, it can be difficult to really monitor a return on investment for events. This is partly due to the nature of many B2B businesses with lead times beyond a simple off-the-shelf transaction. It’s also often due to a lack of real clarity on an events objectives – beyond making a splash or even gaining X amount of new leads.
So, how can businesses ensure that they are getting a return on their investment?
Step 1. Set your goals
You can’t begin to think about ROI unless you understand what makes up the R – the return. What are you looking to achieve from your event?
Do you want to generate leads, build relationships, or simply raise awareness of your brand?
Once you know your goals, you can start to think about ways to measure your event success.
Step 2. Track Results
During and after your event you need to be able to effectively track your results.
This means tracking the number of leads you generated, the number of relationships you started or built upon, and the amount of brand awareness created.
There are a number of different ways to track these results, such as using event registration software, surveys, and social media analytics. Whatever method you choose, ensure you have buy-in from the relevant people in your business, before the event. Otherwise you may find unhappy faces when you state your results later on, however good you feel they are.
Step 3. Compare your results to your original goals
This may seem obvious, but it’s all too easy after the event to chalk everything up as a big success, without actually reviewing what you set out to do in the first place.
Comparing what actually happened with what you were hoping for is the only way to see if your even has achieving the desired results. If not, you’ll need to make adjustments to future events or marketing campaigns.
How do you measure success?
What you count as a win is really up to you to decide as part of your planning process. Discussion of your objectives should happen in advance and with all interested parties to ensure everyone is on the same page. Typical measures mights include…
Brand Awareness
This ones for the strategic marketers out there. Building your brand takes time, effort and exposure – and events are a great opportunity to get your brand in front of lots of new people.
You can showcase your company’s products and services to a large – potentially brand new – audience. This can help to raise awareness of your brand and generate interest in your products or services. You might track this by looking at whether your event generated new downloads from your website or a spike in your web of social analytics. You could even run brand sentiment surveys to understand what direct impact it may have had. Brand awareness is all about the long-term.
A consistent approach over time will deliver.
Relationship Building
Relationship building is probably your medium to longer term win. Events are a great way to build relationships with potential customers and prospects.
When you meet people in person, you can build rapport and trust. And while they may not be in a position to be considered a lead right now, it can lead to more sales, and referrals, in the future. You might consider measuring the overall health and temperature of your pipeline – how many cold/warm/hot leads you have.
And remember, people still buy from people!
Lead Generation
The sales team will love this one, and it’s the “easiest” to track. You got a new lead? Chalk up your sale on the board (or at least add one business to the pipeline).
Events are a great way to generate leads as they give you the opportunity to meet potential customers and prospects face-to-face, learn about their needs and challenges, and position yourself as the solution.
At the end of the day, money talks.
These are just a few things to think about when it comes to tracking event ROI. You could also consider how your events could generate positive media coverage or help to position your company as an industry leader, or even improve employee morale and productivity as ROI measures.
The good news is that whatever your event, we’re able to support you in understanding how to achieve event ROI, where savings can be made and how to maximise your budget, whatever that may be.
So get in touch if you’d like to find out more!
Experience is Everything
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