How to measure the success of event marketing? 3 proven ways

When organizing any type of event, you want to make sure that there are no logistical problems, no last-minute fires to put out, and that every participant is satisfied and feels that they received what they expected. How can you tell that your event was successful? It all comes down to KPIs you set at the beginning – that is, what results you wanted to achieve. Let’s check out the best practices in this regard.

Event marketing – table of contents:

1. Attendance as a key indicator?
2. Activity in social media
3. Post-event surveys
4. Sales qualified leads
5. Summary

Attendance as a key indicator?

Is good attendance a measure of the event’s success? Nowadays, this is not a fully reliable indicator. Instead of stating that the success of a project will be determined by the number of participants, it is worthwhile to bet on social media mentions, post-event surveys and the number of acquired leads.

Activity in social media

Nowadays, there is no other channel where more is said about various types of events than social media. That’s why, when organizing your event, you should bet on regular and attention-grabbing communication on your social media. Use an intriguing claim, hashtag or graphic element that users will be able to repeat, reporting on “what happened at the event.”

What do you need to pay attention to when studying the success of an event using social media? It’s a good idea to start with the number of mentions on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter usually made during the event. After the event, in turn, you can track the summaries appearing on both your corporate (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) and personal accounts (especially on LinkedIn due to the business nature of the content). By setting a certain number of social media mentions, you’ll see if you’ve reached your goal.

Mentions will also give you some signal as to whether the overall assessment of the event is more positive or negative. While you can’t always be sure that a person has written the truth, such information will certainly help you better plan your next event.

Post-event surveys

Sending out post-event surveys is the traditional way of finding out opinions of attendees, and it still works very well. There will always be a certain percentage of participants who will honestly share their opinion, especially if the event evoked very positive or negative feelings in them.

However, you need to remember to include questions that are most relevant to the event, thanks to which you will be able to determine whether the trade show, conference or sales meeting produced the desired results. As a KPI, you can take, for example, the average rating of the event, which you will calculate by putting all the results together. You can send surveys either by email or through an event app – then the percentage of people who fill out the form will surely increase.

Sales qualified leads

Have you organized a trade show or other sales-oriented meeting? In such a situation, you need to focus on conversion – that is, to study how many leads you managed to acquire or how many direct sales you carried out. To do this, it’s best to use an indicator known as SQLs, which counts leads qualified as potential customers. How do you determine what is required to acquire SQLs? It is best to consult with the sales department on what criteria must be met for this purpose.

After the event, this indicator should be compared with the cost of obtaining one lead through other sales and marketing activities – then you will be able to determine how much the organization of marketing events pays off from a business point of view.

Summary

There are many ways to measure the success of event marketing – it all comes down to your needs and the nature of the event you are organizing. In addition to the above-mentioned indicators, you can also focus on measuring the satisfaction of event sponsors, tracking traffic to your website or event app, or analyzing financial indicators (revenue, ROI, expenses). However, it is undoubtedly necessary to focus on establishing performance indicators before the event – without them, it will not be possible to properly evaluate the event.

Read also: 4 event-marketing trends to look out for in 2023

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