The Universe of Events

Chapter 009

Chapter 009

What data are you collecting? And where is it going?

While data is important for any form of marketing, in some cases, data from your events can be considered an even more powerful buying signal than an ebook or an email. Think about it: if this person is willing to physically get out of their house and go to your event… well, it’s worth paying attention.

Here’s what you can do with event data:

In this chapter, we take you through the what, how, and where of event data: what data you should collect, how you should collect it, and where it should go.

The Data Points to Collect At Every Stage of Your Event

Below, we tried to be as comprehensive as possible of the different points of data throughout an event’s lifecycle. Use this as a guide (some might apply, some might not) to ensure you’re leveraging every data opportunity.

Day-Of

For a trade show, exhibition, or a sponsored event - 

• Registrant data: this is where you’ll get names, emails, job titles, company name, industry, etc.

• Plus one(s) data: same as above

• Secondary data: preferences (food, topics, products, etc.), personal information (T-shirt size, favorite artist, etc.), reference (how did they hear from you?)

• Consent data: opt-in to data processing (privacy policy), subscribe to marketing or partner communications

• Declines RSVP (checks off “no” if this is an option)

Ben’s Event Data Strategy: The GET Method

Here’s another way to think about your event data. Our CEO Ben has built a tried-and-true framework for collecting attendee data at every stage of your event and making sure you get it into the hands of the people who actually use it. It’s called the GET Method.

Intrigued? Watch Ben as he goes through step-by-step:

The Elephant in the Room: GDPR

"

“99% of the time I say ‘no’ to sponsoring a general
event. I’d rather invest our budget on an event where I
can control the content.

Som Puangladda, VP of Global Marketing at GumGum

With all this talk of data, we can’t not mention GDPR (the EU’s data privacy regulation that went into effect on May 25, 2018). As event organizers, GDPR affects how you do your job – specifically how your collect, store, and manage guests from the EU’s personal information. To help arm you with all of the GDPR knowledge you need, we’ve curated some of our best GDPR resources for you here:

Event Technologies: How to Collect Data

While understanding what data you need, and who to give it to is important, your event workflows and processes will run even smoother when you have a beautifully integrated system to do all the work for you. After all, an event marketer is only as good as their technology stack.

Here’s a list of technologies that would help benefit the event team:

There's no denying that technology is impacting how event organizers do their job. We pinpointed six event tech trends that every event marketer should keep top of mind.

Integrate, Integrate, Integrate

It’s difficult to wrangle event data when it lives in different systems, and especially when it’s on unclaimed paper name tags, business cards, slips of paper, Google sheets, etc. It’s nearly impossible without the right tools – integrated ones – that enable automated processes and real-time data tracking and measurement. 

That's why it's important your event data is integrated (in-real time) with the rest of your tech stack.

Want to dig deeper? This guide outlines why real-time, integrated event data is essential to your marketing, plus how to leverage it to maximize your overall impact.

It’s difficult to wrangle event data when it lives in different systems, and especially when it’s on unclaimed paper name tags, business cards, slips of paper, Google sheets, etc. It’s nearly impossible without the right tools – integrated ones – that enable automated processes and real-time data tracking and measurement. 

What are the signs of an effectively integrated, automated system? Look for these signs: