You've just wrapped up another event. The signage is down, the lanyards are packed away, and the post-event high is starting to mellow. Now comes the million-dollar question: How do you prove it was successful?
Of course, adding leads and pipeline to your CRM is crucial. But stakeholders crave a more comprehensive picture of an event's impact. Let's dive into creative and actionable strategies to showcase the full spectrum of your event's value.
1. Embrace Integrated Revenue Campaigns
Imagine your event as a superstar in a blockbuster movie. It's not just about its solo performance but how it fits into the bigger cinematic universe. Enter integrated revenue campaigns — a holistic approach where your event is a pivotal part of a larger marketing strategy.
Why Integrated Campaigns?
By aligning your event with broader marketing initiatives, you ensure that every aspect, from pre-event buzz to post-event follow-ups, works in harmony to drive overarching business goals. This synergy amplifies your event's impact and provides a clearer picture of its contribution to revenue.
Actionable Steps:
- Collaborate across departments: Work closely with marketing, sales, and product teams to weave your event into the fabric of the company's campaigns. If you’re not meeting regularly with other GTM leaders, now’s the time to do so.
- Unified messaging: Ensure that the event's theme and content resonate with the company's current marketing narratives. For instance, if a financial company is focusing on personalization that allows customers to achieve their unique goals, the event might focus on empowerment and how one can actively manage their finances with the right tools and guidance.
- Leverage technology: Use platforms that integrate event data with your CRM and marketing tools, providing a seamless flow of information and a comprehensive view of attendee engagement.
For a deeper dive into integrated revenue campaigns, check out our nifty guide.
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2. Calculate Return on Objectives (ROO)
While ROI is about financial gains, return on objective (ROO) evaluates how well an event achieves its predefined goals — whether those goals are educational, relational, or brand-driven.
For instance, if your company is launching a new CRM platform, measuring success through revenue alone might not capture the full impact of your event. Instead, focusing on brand awareness, audience education, and lead engagement can provide a clearer picture of how well your event delivered on its purpose.
How to Measure ROO:
Set Clear, Measurable Goals
Define what success looks like for your event. Is it increased brand awareness? Launching a new product? Educating your audience?
For our new CRM launch, let’s say the primary objectives are:
- Brand awareness: Increase market recognition of the CRM by securing at least 50 media mentions and 10,000 social impressions
- Education: Ensure at least 75% of attendees engage with product demo sessions or workshops
- Lead engagement: Generate 500 qualified leads, with at least 200 requesting follow-up meetings
Collect Relevant Data
Once objectives are in place, track success using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, like:
- Brand awareness metrics: Track media coverage, press mentions, and social media reach using platforms like Meltwater or Google Alerts.
- Education metrics: Use session attendance reports, engagement heatmaps, and post-event quizzes to measure learning retention.
- Lead engagement metrics: Capture data through attendance, app interactions, booth visits, and meeting requests. A post-event survey can also gauge attendee interest.
For example, our new CRM company might set up QR codes at demo stations that attendees scan to access exclusive content. Each scan provides insight into audience interest and allows the team to track which features generate the most buzz.
Analyze and Report
After the event, compare actual results against goals:
- Brand awareness: 55 media mentions (+10% over goal), 12,500 social impressions (+25%)
- Education: 80% session engagement (+5%), 90% positive feedback in post-event surveys
- Lead engagement: 600 qualified leads (+20%), 250 follow-up meeting requests (+25%)
With these insights, our CRM company can assess where the event excelled (brand reach and lead engagement) and where to optimize next time (perhaps expanding educational content).
3. Measure Attendee Engagement and Satisfaction
Leads are great, but engaged attendees? Even better. Engagement metrics offer a window into how your audience is interacting with your event, providing insights beyond mere attendance numbers.
Actionable Steps:
- Pre- and post-event surveys: Gauge expectations before the event and measure satisfaction after. This not only shows areas of success but highlights opportunities for growth.
- Engagement analytics: Monitor session attendance, participation in Q&As, and networking activities to identify high-interest topics and formats.
- Social media activity: Keep an eye on mentions, shares, and the overall buzz your event is generating online.
- NPS scores: Leverage your Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a credible way to measure and showcase loyalty and satisfaction.
💡 Pro Tip: Use an event management platform (and its native apps) that offer real-time engagement tracking. This not only helps in measuring success but also allows for on-the-fly adjustments to boost interaction.
4. Evaluate Content Effectiveness
Your event content — be it presentations, workshops, or panel discussions — is a treasure trove of value. Evaluating how this content resonates can provide insights into attendee interests and the event's overall impact, as well as inform future planning.
Actionable Steps:
- Session attendance: Identify which topics drew the largest crowds (and which ones didn’t!). Use the highest-performing topics for post-event content and follow-up comms.
- Session ratings: Allow attendees to rate sessions in real time for immediate feedback on content relevance. “In real time” is the key phrase here to get their most accurate input. Schedule a push notification for session attendees to rate each session on your event app as it’s wrapping up.
- On-demand views: Track how often recorded sessions are accessed post-event.
- Content downloads: Monitor how popular your supplementary materials are, like reports, guides, or slide decks.
5. Analyze Social Media Impact
It’s a no-brainer that social media buzz can amplify your event's reach and influence. That goes for every stage of your event lifecycle: pre-event, on-site, and post-event.
Actionable Steps:
- Monitor mentions and hashtags: Track the volume and sentiment of social media mentions to gauge public perception.
- Engagement rates: Measure likes, shares, and comments to assess how much your event content is resonating with your audience.
- Influencer collaboration: Partner with industry influencers to expand your event's digital footprint and credibility.
6. Assess Brand Awareness and Perception
Events can enhance brand visibility and shape public perception. And while measuring brand awareness can be a bit abstract, it's absolutely doable.
Remember, a positive shift in brand perception can lead to long-term benefits that outweigh immediate sales.
Actionable Steps:
- Pre- and post-event brand surveys: Measure shifts in brand recognition and sentiment among your target audience.
- Media coverage analysis: Evaluate the quality and quantity of press mentions to understand media impact. Today, this should also include industry podcasts that your subject-matter experts participate in.
- Share of voice metrics: Compare your brand's event-related mentions against competitors to gauge market positioning.
- Website metrics: Track KPIs like overall traffic and branded search volume (especially around milestone dates for the event).
7. Calculate Customer Retention and Loyalty
Retaining existing customers often delivers more value than acquiring new ones. Research by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company (the creators of Net Promoter Score) finds that a 5% increase in customer retention boosts profits by 25% to 95%. Events can play a pivotal role in strengthening these relationships.
In fact, our 2025 Eventscape report found that 21% of event organizers say their events are used primarily for keeping customers, and those companies are 13% more likely to have an average year-over-year growth rate of more than 10%.
Also, community and customer events is the #1 event type teams are running, with 59% of event organizers saying it's on their events calendar.
It’s time to not only add, but dedicate serious energy to your customer retention efforts.
Actionable Steps:
- Track repeat attendance: Monitor how many attendees return for subsequent events, indicating sustained interest and loyalty.
- Customer lifetime value (CLV): Analyze whether event participation correlates with increased CLV, showcasing long-term benefits. Work with your revenue operations team to ensure you have the right reporting and dashboards in place to measure this.
- Exclusive perks for loyal customers: Offer special access or benefits to repeat attendees, fostering a sense of community and appreciation.
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8. Monitor Post-Event Behavioral Changes
The true testament to an event's impact lies in the actions attendees take afterward.
Actionable Steps:
- Product trials and demos: Track increases in product trial sign-ups or demo requests following the event.
- Content engagement: Measure upticks in website visits, blog reads, or newsletter subscriptions post-event.
- Sales cycle acceleration: Analyze whether event interactions shorten the time it takes to close deals. Specifically, compare the sales cycle of sourced or influenced opportunities from events with the average sales cycle of all other sourced and influenced revenue.
9. Evaluate Networking Opportunities Facilitated
One of the unique values of events is the opportunity for attendees to network. Facilitating and measuring these connections can highlight the event's role in building communities.
Actionable Steps:
- Networking session attendance: Track participation in dedicated networking events or breakout sessions.
- Connection metrics: Use event apps that allow attendees to connect and then measure the number of connections made.
- Post-event collaboration: Track partnerships or collaborations that originated from event interactions.
- Attendee testimonials: Collect stories from participants about valuable connections made during the event.
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10. Solicit Sponsor and Partner Feedback
Sponsors and partners are key stakeholders whose satisfaction can reflect the event's broader success.
Actionable Steps:
- Post-event surveys: Gather direct feedback from sponsors and partners regarding event ROI and exposure.
- Lead generation analysis: Evaluate the number of quality leads sponsors gained from the event.
- Brand visibility metrics: Assess how prominently sponsors were featured in event materials, sessions, and digital content.
- Future partnership interest: If sponsors and partners express interest in returning, that’s a strong indicator of an event well-executed from a partnerships angle.
Events Are More Than Just a Sales Funnel
Measuring event value beyond pipeline metrics can prove long-term impact. By assessing everything from engagement, to brand awareness, to sponsor satisfaction, you can craft a compelling narrative around your events’ true value.
Next time someone asks, “Was that event worth it?” — you won’t just have an answer, you’ll have the data to back it up.