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These days, if you and your business event planning team can’t prove to a client that your work has delivered any real sort of ROI, you’ll find it harder to nab top-tier clients in the coming weeks, months and years. So, in order to keep you busy for years to come, what needs to be done on your end? How can you prove to clients that your services are invaluable to the growth of their respective brands? While there are many methods for such a task, here are seven of our favourite:
1) Potential Client Leads
This is extremely effective for measuring an event’s ROI. If you can prove that a new customer was brought in for a client through your business event, you’re bound to see more work coming your way in the not-so-distant future. However, the big trick here isn’t to only deliver an impressive quantity of business leads; moreover, your clients will want to see quality leads.
2) Total Event Attendance
Seems simple enough, right? Though total attendance should always be reported to a client once an event has been completed, the value of this number varies depending on the purpose behind a function. For example, in most cases, sales representatives are required to attend national conferences. In this case, an attendance number might not be so valuable. That said, if you’re planning a business partner event, this metric is a great indicator of how well things went.
3) Quality of Participants
As was previously discussed, though quantity is certainly important, quality will always take the proverbial cake. As far as event participants are concerned, this could never be more true when determining event ROI. There’s an old adage that claims that business is “just a numbers game.” At the end of the day, it’s not—it’s about relationships. The better event attendees fit in with what a client hopes to accomplish, the more exceptional the end result.
4) Survey Findings
When done well, survey results are an awesome indicator as to how well your business event went. The biggest mistake many business event planners make is to formulate survey questions without taking a program’s objectives into consideration. Think about what a client wants to have happen and adjust each question accordingly. By so doing, once answers have been submitted, you’ll have a good idea about how influential your event was.
5) Customer Retention
Yes, for a business to grow, it’s vital that new customers be brought in on a continual basis. Solid business event planning can help with this. But, to make your event business even more impressive, provide plenty of relevant, engaging content for your client’s current customers to enjoy and learn from. If you can help increase their commitment, you’ve done your job well.
6) Bump In Sales
This is a total no-brainer. The only problem? It can be difficult to prove to a client that your business event were the driving force behind sales growth. Regardless, if you can provide a genuinely positive experience at an event for possible customers, you’ve done all you can. Similarly, if you fail to deliver, much of the blame for a lack of growth will—and should, mind you—rest squarely on your shoulders.
7) Event Revenue
If your event is set on driving revenue—and most of the time, it should be—this has to be one of the first things you report on to a client. Comparing an actual revenue total with an initial target number is awesome for showing just how effective or ineffective your services have been.
Simply put, business event planning is all about accountability. Getting beyond the glitz and glamour that often accompanies the industry, it’s your responsibility to help a client see that your services have proven to be a wise investment. Needless to say, through each of the aforementioned methods, this can very much be done.