I recently attended the B2BMX (Business to Business Marketing Exchange) conference in Scottsdale, AZ. As I stepped off the plane, my phone buzzed immediately with a flood of text messages. They were from Splash’s CEO Ben Hindman:
“Hey Kathy - How was the conference?”
“Did you bring home a ton of leads?”
“Would you do this event next year? Should we sponsor? I’m thinking maybe a speaking spot!”
“What’s our ROI? I’m jazzed about this one!”
I knew it wouldn’t be the best move to answer all of these questions right away. I had some anecdotal feedback I could provide, but it would take some time before I could completely understand our true ROI and make a thoughtful recommendation on our investment for the next year.
I also knew I shouldn’t wait too long before getting back to him.
As the head of Demand Gen, my role on the marketing team forces me to understand the direct business impact of every event and campaign we do. Unfortunately, understanding ROI is not as simple as calculating revenue minus spend divided by spend. And, there are many different measurements to consider when trying to understand if your event was a success, and there are also different time frames that make the most sense for these measurements.
Below, I’ve put together a plan I use, as a B2B marketer, to help me to validate and communicate post-event success metrics. Looking at event metrics immediately following an event, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days post-event, helps to provide structure and gives me a sense of true ROI after an event.
While it’s difficult to track ROI immediately following an event, there are some key metrics that every B2B event marketer can track as soon as the last guest leaves.
The event metrics I will report on:
◦ What was my budget for the event?
◦ What did I actually spend?
◦ How did my spend break down? (event production vs. travel expenses vs. swag, etc.)
◦ How many people (and companies) registered vs. attended?
◦ What was the goal for this conversion rate?
◦ Was the final conversion rate higher or lower than anticipated?
◦ What was the registration and attendee breakdown? (Industry, Title, Seniority, Clients, In Pipeline, etc.)
◦ What promotion channels did we use for the event? (Channel examples include paid ads, email segmentations, VIPs / Target Accounts, sales participation, partners)
◦ Which channels netted the best results?
◦ Where should we invest again and where do we need to go harder next time?
• Opportunity in the Room (This is one of Splash’s favorite event metrics)
◦ If all of the people who registered at the event were opportunities,
how much could they eventually buy from us?
Bonus tip: Splash measures the opportunity in the room metric PRE-event to show how much potential the event can drive. Consider calculating this one too. It’s a great motivating metric for the sales and marketing teams!
As a B2B marketer who typically sees sales cycles ranging from one week to one year, the thirty day mark is usually the first time where I can start to really dive into hard return on investment metrics. At this time in the post-event process, our post-event nurture campaigns have been sent, the sales team has kicked off their follow up process, and we should be getting a sense of traction post-event.
Here are the event metrics I will report on:
◦ How many people were new to us?
◦ How many new accounts attended?
◦ How many were on our target / VIP lists?
◦ If a trade show or similar event, how many meetings were at the booth?
◦ How many meetings happened outside of the booth experience?
◦ Did the sales team drive any meetings prior to the event? How many of these actually happened?
◦ How many meetings have we scheduled and had post-event?
◦ How many of them have progressed to opportunities?
Bonus tip: 30 days after an event, I love to hand out prizes to the sales team to encourage their hustle and hard work following an event. I will usually honor three sales reps with prizes based on who scheduled the most meetings pre event, who had the highest number of scheduled meetings actually occur at the event, and highest number of post event meetings scheduled.
Two months post-event is where I can really start digging in. It’s at this stage in the process where meetings have been held, and I should expect to see pipeline added from this event and maybe even some revenue starting to roll in.
Here are the event metrics I will report on:
◦ Opportunity owners
◦ Segmentation breakdown of opps (industry, product interest, region)
◦ Target account / VIP opps in pipeline
◦ Is the majority early stage pipeline?
◦ How much pipeline is in commit stages?
◦ Was this generated or influenced pipeline?
Bonus tip: Consider using this time-marker to reflect with your sales team on the post-event process -- if pipeline is low, is that because the event wasn’t strong or could the post event follow up process been stronger? What should we have done differently? Is pipeline where we expected it to be? What can we do RIGHT NOW to drive more pipeline? Two months out is a great time for re-engagement from an event as most people are inundated with follow-ups immediately after an event.
Ninety days following an event is the time period I can confidently report on event ROI. At this point in time, we should be seeing a huge increase in pipeline and I should be able to report on revenue driven from or influenced by my event.
Here are the event metrics I will report on:
◦ What would I do differently next time? (While this isn't a true metric, 90 days out is a great reflection point for this).
Tracking event ROI and answering the tough questions you’re getting from your team members can be challenging. ROI measurement isn’t one-size-fits-all. But the very act of creating a event ROI plan means that you’re committed to creating and executing the very best (and revenue-focused!) events for your team.
It all starts with determining what success metrics mean the most to you, and when is the most optimal time to put a stake in the ground to measure those metrics (which is often more complicated than it sounds.)
Need help determining what metrics to use for which event type? Check out our newest eBook: Proving the Value of B2B Event Marketing.
