05.30.19
By Lisa Major
Data-driven decisions are crucial for businesses to be successful, and the same goes for event marketing success. It would be crazy to spend money on something that could have a profound impact with no real way to prove its value. As live marketing campaigns continue to take up a large portion of marketing budgets, measuring the success and return on investment (ROI) of events should be a top priority. Unfortunately, when it comes to measurement, many event marketers don’t know where to begin or they make critical mistakes.
Setting specific, data-based goals is essential in determining event marketing ROI. It is important to sit down with your team early in the planning stages to determine what your goals are, both long-term and short-term, and how they can be achieved. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Drive sales? Obtain mobile app downloads? Or maybe a mixture of several things? Once you have defined your event goals and objectives, choose the best and most appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) for each one.
Many marketers rely on the overall atmosphere of an event to determine if it is successful or not. If an event appears to be going smoothly, attendees are happy, and everything is going off without a hitch, sure, it’s a great event…but can you prove that it’s impactful? Instead of falling into the trap of everything looks good on the outside, make data collection a top priority and focus on the metrics that matter the most for your company and for each event. From event engagement to social media activity to lead collection, there are plenty of metrics to consider and methods for capturing data.
Not all event marketing metrics are based on tangible factors. Return on engagement and return on experience (ROE) are fairly new measurement tools that marketers use to measure emotionally driven data. ROE refers to the impact a brand experience or event has on building long-term relationships. When consumers actively participate, engage, and share content at an event, your ROE grows and strengthens. ROE can be measured in several ways including social media interactions and shares, mobile app downloads, and how long consumers linger at a physical event or stay on an event-specific landing page.
You have planned and executed your event and it’s time to move on to the next idea, right? Wrong. The post-event period is just as important as the actual event. Now is the time to follow up with any leads, respond to social media interactions, gather consumer feedback from your event staff, and so on. It’s also the time to analyze the results of your KPIs. Go back to your original goals and carefully evaluate your metrics to get a clear picture of what worked and any areas that need improvement.
By collecting data and evaluating the results, brands can build even better consumer experiences in the future. Start with a clear and actionable plan early on to determine what you want to get out of your event marketing efforts. Once your goals and KPIs are in place, you’ll be well on your way to successfully measuring your ROI.
ATN understands that the people representing your brand have a direct impact on your goals and ROI. For that reason, we work tirelessly to provide the right event staff for our clients’ specific needs and challenges. As a result, ATN is the event staffing agency of choice for countless marketing agencies and brands. Click below to learn more about our event staffing services and how we can help you achieve event marketing success.
