Measuring Corporate Events Success

Anybody who’s ever delivered any type of event knows just how all-consuming the planning can be. With the costs to run an event rising and squeezing budgets, measuring the success of corporate events is more important than ever. Organisations need to be able to demonstrate the impact of the event, allocate resources effectively, showcase a return on that time and cost investment and ultimately make informed decisions for future events.  

Why should I measure the success of my corporate events?

Measuring the success of an event is essential. The insights gained from the evaluation process can prove valuable for both short-term and long-term planning. Here are some key reasons why measuring the success of an event is important:      

Return on Investment (ROI)    

Events often involve significant financial investment. Measuring success helps determine whether the resources allocated to the event generated a positive return on investment. This evaluation is crucial for financial planning and future budgeting.

Continuous Improvement

Assessing the success of an event provides valuable insight for continuous improvement and allows organisers to evaluate their performance and identify areas of strength and improvement. This feedback loop is essential for continuous learning and enhancement of event planning and execution skills, providing opportunity to learn from both successes and challenges, and refining processes and strategies for future events.

Attendee Satisfaction    

Understanding attendee satisfaction provides insight into the effectiveness of the event in meeting expectations. Positive feedback can contribute to positive feelings and increased loyalty towards your brand or company, and a higher likelihood of future attendance.

Goal Achievement

Events are often organised with specific goals and objectives in mind, such as brand promotion, lead generation, or networking. Measuring success helps determine the extent to which these goals were achieved and provides a basis for refining future objectives.

Resource Allocation

Understanding the impact of different aspects of the event allows for more effective resource allocation. Organisers can identify which elements contribute the most to success and allocate resources accordingly in future events.

Stakeholder Satisfaction

Events often involve various stakeholders, including sponsors, partners, and speakers. Measuring success helps in evaluating their satisfaction, maintaining positive relationships, and fostering future collaboration.

Marketing and Branding

Positive event outcomes contribute to positive brand perception. Measuring success helps understand the impact of the event on brand visibility, reputation, and overall marketing efforts.

Accountability

Measuring success adds a level of accountability to the event planning process. Organisers can demonstrate to stakeholders, including management and sponsors, that their efforts have tangible and positive outcomes.

How should I measure the success of my corporate events?

When it comes to events, true ‘measurement’ can be hard to come by. With the help of our analytics and insight experts, we’ve developed a structured methodology to help plan events with purpose that give you measurable results.

1.Start with the end in mind: What’s the purpose of your event?

Establishing your purpose and the event objectives early empowers you to identify the necessary data, experiences, and tactics required for a successful event.

Start by taking the time to understand you, your brand, your messages and your goals.

To ensure you get the right objectives nailed and the right event solution designed, we recommend running a design conference process. This is designed to mitigate and overcome any biases that can arise in the planning process and follows three distinct phases:      

• Pre-design conference - planning and insight gathering
• Design conference itself
• Post-design conference – tailored solution and next steps

Planning and insight seek to confirm objectives and gather data from a broad range of stakeholders and event attendees around their perceptions about existing and desired behaviours or programmes aligned to your objectives. This process typically takes the form of surveys, collating historical feedback and in-person interviews.

The design conference brings key stakeholders and decision-makers together to review those insights through a series of exercises with the objective of revealing the event scope and agenda.      

Post-design conference, the findings and outputs are woven into the solution You can now. apply the right creative mechanics and content to each section of the agenda to ensure the messages are brought to life in an engaging way that will land with the intended impact to achieve the objectives. The final part is defining and agreeing the next steps, the delivery plan, budget, and roles and responsibilities.

Event success objectives

Whilst there are no hard and fast rules on what an event’s objectives should be, some events may have one focused objective; other larger events may have multiple, concurrent objectives that generally fall under these areas:

• Engagement: Revolves around defining who should attend the event and the desired actions from them.

• Sales Impact: Focuses on the event's influence on the bottom line and the desired post-event actions leading to measurable sales / savings impact.

• Brand & Perception: Aims to shape attendees' perceptions of your company and the event.

• Financial Performance: Concentrates on understanding the financial health of the event.

We distil this down into three key points; what do you want your audience to KNOW, FEEL, DO.

KNOW - Define what you want your audience to know.

This may relate to training, product knowledge, or understanding big-picture company objectives, or desired behaviours.

FEEL - Define how you want your audience to feel.

Every event has a unique tone. How would you want your attendees to describe their state of mind to friends and family?

DO - Define what you want your audience to do.

What actions would you like your attendees to take after the event? These behaviours should feed directly back into the purpose statement.

2. Determine the appropriate metrics

Now we know what success looks like and we have a clear set of objectives, we then need to establish a useful metric against these goals and how we’ll collect the relevant data to track and measure the results.

Including diagnostic metrics allows us to evaluate what worked and what didn't during the event, offering insight into the effectiveness of various elements to refine future strategies.

Using our three key points - KNOW, FEEL, DO - these metrics could look something like this;

KNOW - Attendee Comprehension

• Key message recall
• Call to action recall
• Knowledge of priorities
• Intent to use new information

FEEL - Attendee Engagement

• Satisfaction / value
• Excitement / enthusiasm
• Confidence
• Pride

DO - Attendee Action

• Intent vs. actual behaviour change
• Call to action / next steps taken
• Follow through on commitment

3. Build a timeline and plan for collecting data

Critically, as part of your corporate event planning process you need to establish how and when you’ll be able to collect the data required to properly measure success. Typically, there will be collection points pre-event, during the event, and then at set milestones which could include 0-, 30-, 60-, and 90-days post-event.

Some examples of the way this data can be collected are:

Polls, surveys and feedback    

A fast and effective way to gather both qualitative and quantitative feedback on multiple metrics throughout the event journey. Look to build consistency into this process where possible so you can track progress in metrics throughout the event period. If the event is repeated either throughout the year or annually, look to extend this consistency so you can compare impact event to event.

Business KPI data

If your event is intended to drive progress in specific business measures (sales, learning, retention) look to gather data from existing business systems to monitor changes in results pre- and post-event.

Knowledge assessments and quizzes

The easiest way to test knowledge is through pre- and post-event assessments. Depending on the intensity and depth of the information this could be in the form of simple quizzes or more detailed examinations.

Event Data, Analysis and Insights      

Analysis and insight are important! They save the trouble (and expense) of making the same mistake twice and prove the validity of a strategic approach. We use in-house Data Analysts who are experts in evaluating data, so we can support by providing you with the results you need to demonstrate the success of your activity along with recommendations for the future.

Regularly reviewing and analysing the data collected means making informed decisions for future events and continuously improving the overall event strategy.

Using the KNOW, FEEL and DO metrics, what data can we gather to analyse and gain insight into the impact and success of corporate events, under the areas previously mentioned (Engagement, Sales Impact, Brand & Perception, Financial Performance)?

Event engagement metrics:

• Actual vs. Expected Attendance: Compare the number of attendees who participated in the event with the initial expectations or targets.

• Session Participation: Measure the attendance and engagement levels in different sessions, workshops, or activities.

• Audience Interaction: Evaluate the level of interaction through Q&A sessions, polls, and other engagement features.

• Post-Event Surveys: Collect feedback from attendees through surveys to gauge their satisfaction and gather insights into areas of improvement.

• Speaker Ratings: Evaluate the performance of speakers and presenters through participant ratings.

• Business Connections: Evaluate the success of networking opportunities and the establishment of new business relationships.

• Partner and Sponsor Feedback: Gather feedback from partners and sponsors on their experience and satisfaction.

• Event App Usage: Analyse the usage of event apps or other technological tools to understand attendee behaviour and preferences.

• Website Traffic: Monitor website traffic related to the event, including page views and engagement.

Sales Impact metrics:

• Quality and Quantity of Leads: Assess the number and quality of leads generated during the event.

• Conversion Rates: Track how many leads converted into actual customers or clients post-event.

• Sales Impact: Measure any increase in sales or conversions directly attributed to the event.

• Customer Acquisition: Evaluate how the event contributed to new customer acquisition.

Brand & Perception metrics:

• Brand Loyalty: Assess whether the event has a lasting impact on brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

• Employee Morale: If the event involved employees, measure the impact on team morale and collaboration.

• Media Coverage: Measure the event's coverage in the media, including press releases, articles, and interviews.

• Brand Impressions: Assess the overall visibility and impressions of the brand during the event.

• Social Media Metrics: Monitor social media activity related to the event, including mentions, shares, likes, and comments.

• Hashtag Tracking: Assess the reach and popularity of the event's official hashtag.

Financial Performance:    

• Costs vs. Benefits: Evaluate the return on investment by comparing the costs incurred with the benefits gained.

• Revenue Generation: Measure the direct and indirect revenue generated as a result of the event.

Goal Achievement      

Covering all the above, compare the actual results with the initial objectives and goals set for the event.

Click here to download our handy reference guide for event measurement.