This is the third and final article in a series about building the foundational pieces of your virtual event strategy. ICYMI, learn how to define your event goals and, based on those goals, determine what kind of virtual event to run.
When you think about what led you to pursue a career in marketing, what comes to mind? For me, it was the excitement around connecting people, building campaigns, telling stories, and creating (or changing) perceptions and behaviors.
You know what it had nothing to do with? Data.
Actually, numbers were never my strong suit. In college, I’d have to study for 12 consecutive hours the day before an accounting or statistics exam so all the formulas were fresh in my mind. (Choosing business administration as a minor was my way of finding a challenge.)
But as my career progressed, I began understanding the importance of data. Sure, connecting people, building campaigns, and telling stories are fun — but without data, how would we ever know if those things are actually creating or changing perceptions and behaviors?
So despite my previously apathetic relationship with data, I found time throughout my career to learn more about marketing data and how it could not only make my work better, but also prove impact.
Although it seems complicated and stressful, using event data to prove impact can actually be quite simple. The important thing to remember: Your event KPIs should always be based on your event goals. So with that said, let’s revisit the five common event goals we outlined earlier in this series, the unique data that should go along with them, and some universal metrics that should be collected no matter what your goal is.
Thought leadership is notoriously difficult to measure because it can be quite subjective. Even so, there are several metrics that could indicate a rise in credibility and trust, which could also mean increased thought leadership.
1. Website traffic: Did your website traffic spike after the event?
2. Social traffic and followers: An increase in followers to your company’s and/or speakers’ social channels could mean people are starting to trust your company or view your internal experts as influencers.
3. Post-event conversions: After the event, what actions did your attendees take? You can look at metrics like content form fills, demo requests, email subscriptions, etc.
4. External website referrals: Have you seen an increase in external website referrals, also known as backlinks, post-event? These show that others respect your work enough to link to it on their own site.
5. Media mentions: Like social activity, have you been quoted or referenced in any traditional media publications or partner blogs?
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Like thought leadership, brand awareness can also be difficult to measure. It’s not as simple as counting the number of new leads or checking the latest customer retention rate. But fear not — there are metrics you can use to figure out how well your brand is recognized by your target audience.
6. Post-event conversions: What actions are your attendees taking after the event? How many of them are downloading content, subscribing to your email list, etc.?
7. Website traffic: After the event, did your website traffic spike?
8. Search volume data: After the event, did search volume for your company increase? What about search volume for your company name plus the event topic?
9. Social traffic and listening: Are attendees talking about you on social media after the event? You can look at metrics like mentions, engagement, and reach.
The best part of this lead generation as an event goal: It’s really easy to measure. Generating new demand is much more objective than building brand awareness or increasing thought leadership, and there are some clear-cut numbers to focus on.
10. Number of net-new leads: How many brand-new people entered your sales funnel because of your event?
11. Number of qualified leads: How many of those net-new leads are qualified to continue moving down the funnel?
12. Cost per lead: Based on your total event cost, how much are you spending to obtain each new qualified lead? And how does this compare to other events?
13. Pipeline generated: How much opportunity (monetarily speaking) is possible with your newly qualified leads?
At the end of the day, any marketing or event goals you have eventually flow down to supporting your revenue goals. Even if your webinar’s immediate goal was to build brand awareness, generate new demand, or something else, the ultimate goal is that those successes translate into more sales.
14. Event ROI: In its simplest form, how much revenue did you make from the event itself (total revenue from ticket sales minus total event cost)?
15. New customer conversions: How many prospects converted to customer status after your event? How does this compare to other events?
16. Recurring revenue: How much revenue did you generate from those who converted? What was your average deal size?
No business can survive without bringing in new customers. But equally, if not more, important is keeping your existing customers happy and loyal. Keeping tabs on the customers who attend your events is an effective way to identify their preferences and how things are going from their perspectives.
17. Net Promoter Score: After your event, did customer satisfaction increase, decrease, or remain consistent?
18. Renewal rate: What percentage of your customers renew their business each year? How does this compare between customers who attend your events and customers who don’t?
19. Recurring revenue: How much additional revenue did you generate from customers who expanded their accounts because of an event?
20. Engagement level & health scores: How engaged or healthy are your customers who attend events versus those who don’t? How many want to be ambassadors?
21. Referrals: How many referrals have you received from customers who attend your events? What’s the average deal size for those referrals?
It’s a must to measure goal-specific KPIs. After all, those are the numbers that truly indicate how your event programs are performing. But universal metrics — the ones that you should review for all event programs, no matter the goal — are also important. They can help guide you to better program decisions.
For example, you want to know how your individual email invitations performed because that data can help you write better subject lines, craft more compelling messages, and get more people to click on your call to action.
22. Registrations: How many people registered? What sources are generating the most registrations?
23. Ticket sales: If your event is ticketed, how much revenue did you generate from those ticket sales? What sources influenced the most sales?
24. Email performance: What were your open, click, and unsubscribe rates for each event email? How did they stack up against previous event emails?
25. Attendance rate: How many people actually attended compared to the number of people who registered?
26. New vs. returning attendees: What percentage of your attendees were interacting with your company for the first time ever?
27. Survey data: What feedback did your attendees give you post-event?
28. Content engagement: How is event-related content, such as blog posts, videos, or ebooks, performing both before and after your event?
As a Senior Manager of Marketing at Splash, Rebecca creates programs that help event marketers understand the importance of scale and how it translates to event goals and business results. A Chicago native, Rebecca recently traded the harsh winters for yearlong sun in the Arizona desert, where you can find her on running trails, in the pool, or at a patio cheering on the Chicago Bears.
