Event marketing is a great way to generate buzz about your particular products or services, and garner leads by attracting potential customers. Live events can be a very powerful tool in allowing you to interact and connect with your audience. The question, however, lies in figuring out how to translate these touchpoints into qualified leads and increase the ROI (Return On Investment) for these events. As we have mentioned in other articles, the approach of trying, measuring success, analyzing the results, and making adjustments is critical to maximizing your ROI.
Surveying the Land
In order to improve your event marketing ROI, you have to establish goals for the event and decide HOW you will track them. A goal can be as simple or general as you desire. Here are some examples of possible goals for a marketing event:
- Gathering 500 qualified leads
- Generating buzz for a new product
- Establishing a new brand identity or direction
- Reaching a specific threshold of product sales
Determining your target audience will help in improving your ROI and informing your event marketing company about your goals for the program. Ensure that your offerings are in line with the type of event you are promoting or participating in, as well as the audience it attracts.
When you define your target market, you can do it in several different ways. One is to use demographics, things like age, sex, and income. The other is to use psychographics, which is more about people are thinking. What motivates them to take action? What are their attitudes or goals?
Demographics are very broad, and psychographics can help you better target a specific niche or market. It can be beneficial to use demographics to narrow down your target, then further define it using psychographics.
The Process
If you have the WHAT and the WHO figured out for your event in order to improve your ROI, here are three ways to improve the HOW.
If you have a hashtag particular to your products or services, be sure to leverage social listening to see what the audience is saying about your offerings. If you see any complaints, respond to these immediately and provide a viable solution to avoid bad publicity. It's important to make sure customers know that you listen to and value their voices.
If you have an app that participants can download, be sure to promote it because it can provide valuable insights as to the success of your event participation. By assessing the number of downloads, the particular features that were used, and messaging functions that were utilized, you will get great insight from your audience.
Event surveys are also a great way to gain valuable feedback for improving future events. Sending out surveys during and immediately after the event will help measure the opinions and responses of the attendees. You can also tie this to a giveaway during the event. If they complete a survey, they are entered in a drawing to win a prize which ideally is directly related to the products or services you provide. Be careful, you don’t want people whose only interest is winning something for free.
Planting the Victory Flag
The event doesn’t end after the lights have been turned out at the venue; you can continue to improve your event ROI by taking action quickly: First, make sure to follow up on any qualified leads immediately and accurately, but in a personable manner (no one wants to feel like they're on an assembly line). If you are collecting information during the event, whether electronically or otherwise, writing down a quick note about the interaction can make the follow-up all that more personal and meaningful.
Secondly, if there were any issues during the event, particularly ones that can garner bad reviews for your company, make sure to deal with this swiftly in order to build brand loyalty and satisfaction. This is your opportunity to turn angry or upset customers into loyal brand ambassadors.
Lastly, continue to provide value for your audience through additional content marketing. Was there a particular speaker that captured the attention of the audience? Perhaps you can ask him or her to write an article for your audience. This will not only add value to your audience, but it will also help to establish the speaker as an authority in the industry.
Once all your sales figures and expenses are gathered, don’t forget to also evaluate the outcome of the event through a statistical analysis based on your original goals. If you lost money or didn’t make enough revenue, maybe you need to re-think the type of event marketing for your particular product or services. If you don’t measure the success of your marketing efforts, how will you know if your money and time are being well spent?
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill
If your event didn’t work, figure out why. If your event was successful, find ways to improve it for an even higher ROI. Remember to lean on the best event marketing companies to help drive your success.
Experience and relationships matter, and when you partner with a trusted event marketing company, you will have the support needed and avoid making costly mistakes in planning, budgeting, or activation.
