Technavio has projected the valuation of the global event management industry to be well over $1.07 trillion. And almost all forecasts are in agreement that the event space is only set to skyrocket all the more, in terms of fiscal valuation, manpower and employment. What this means for the individual event planner or their event ROI is that this field is a high-stakes affair.
A core aspect of these stakes is its consumers, much like any other multi-trillion-dollar global industry. Herein, good attendee experience or lack thereof is what either makes or breaks your event.
Event management companies invest carefully and yet generously when it comes to organizing their event. However, when the return on investment or ROI does not nearly match your expectations, money and morale both suffer. You question yourself, exhaustively trying to understand where we may have gone wrong. Much of this lack often ties back to one singular thing: the attendee experience.
Part of providing the best attendee experience for your visitors is also enjoying the process yourself. Yes, I said what I said.Â
What if event management did not have to be such an incredibly stressful occupation?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you did not have to micromanage multiple teams at once?
What if you did not have to cover for your employee’s mistakes on event day?
Wouldn’t it be proportionally better if you had one singular point of contact to interact with regarding all functions on event day? Well, overlooking several different teams is no joy, particularly when you are just starting out as a firm. We know for a fact that even the most experienced of professionals are simply unable to put everything in a single row on event day. But technology now exists to do precisely this.
With little to no human intervention, modern event tools are now capable of doing what was unthinkable a decade ago. Event professionals can now multiply their event ROI in meaningful ways, all thanks to the functions of modern, automated software. The pros are endless, but in this blog, let’s take a look at 5 of the most rewarding ways event tools improve your return on investment.
1. Event Platforms Help Cut Administrative Overhead
Manual event planning is labour-intensive. Staff spend hours on event registration, data entry, email confirmations, schedule updates, badge printing and vendor coordination. These are tasks that can be automated end-to-end with the right kind of platform. According to reports, 89% of businesses using event technology report saving around 200 hours annually, with 20% saving upwards of 360 hours per year.
Meanwhile, another event industry report observes that event management software increases savings in effort, cost and time by approximately 40% through digitization and automation alone.
2. Event Tools Reduce Staffing Costs
Beyond general time savings, automation has a direct impact on headcount requirements. Multiple analyses of event software economics repeatedly see that automating essential tasks such as registration, data entry and reporting can substantially reduce staffing costs. While this is also heavily dependent on the size and scale of the event, most event planners are in agreement with the pros of software tech.
It is also important to understand that many event organizations underestimate how much of their money is going into staffing. The proposition is fairly simple and linear. Not using an event management software means you will have to hire more individuals to handle tasks. More staff means more budget allocation toward salaries and associated employability costs.
So, in effect, this is not a minor efficiency gain that event management software is offering to organizations. It is big and measurable, the breadth of which the organization will realize soon after implementation. You see that your budget is no longer always on the brink. You are able to more freely allocate and accommodate your resources.
3. Minimizing Costs on Redundant Tools and Manual Processes
A persistent challenge in event planning is tool fragmentation. For every given task, the organization bears the brunt of having to subscribe to a software solution. Looking at the larger picture, this means anywhere between 5 and 15 different software tools, all individual entities, sometimes incapable of integration. Each of these tools also comes with its own baggage, varied subscription fees, a learning curve that can take anywhere from a week to a month and data silos.
All-in-one event management platforms are the stars here. They are able to consolidate registration, ticketing, marketing, analytics, mobile apps and post-event reporting into a single interface. This consolidation eliminates redundant SaaS subscription costs and reduces the administrative burden of managing multiple vendor relationships. Having email marketing built into the same platform as registration means campaigns can be triggered automatically based on attendee behaviour and without any manual data exports or third-party integrations.
4. Streamlining Marketing Automation and Lead Generation
Event management software with integrated marketing tools allows organizers to run targeted email campaigns, manage social media promotion, track registration conversions, and sync attendee data directly into CRM tools. All of this is made feasible without the need to manually transfer any information at all between platforms. The results of this kind of event automation are measurable when it comes to the ROI.
Event planners find it a lot easier to focus on the goals that they set for themselves at the beginning of planning. Should the planner attempt to do everything manually, chances are, they may have already forgotten the core purpose of the event. They can barely recall their business objectives because all they can think of are the hundred unfinished tasks on the calendar.
We have also come to see that event organizers today are also specifically seeking automation integrations when it comes to hosting virtual or hybrid events. When marketing and event operations run on the same platform, lead attribution becomes clean, follow-up sequences are automated, and we see that the full revenue value of event-generated leads is fulfilled.
5. Accessing Post-Event Data Through Surveys and Delivering Faster ROI
Post-event surveys are one of the most underutilised tools in the event organizer’s arsenal. When sent automatically through the event platform within hours of the event ending, post-event surveys pick up attendee satisfaction data. This is the time when audience impressions are still fresh from the event and are therefore building actionable intelligence. You can then use this to plan and position your next big event.
The data from post-event surveys feeds directly into the ability to measure event ROI:
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- Organizers can correlate satisfaction scores with ticket sales performance
- Session ratings are assessed based on repeat attendance
- Sponsor feedback can be used to check renewal rates or their likelihood of collaborating again.
The financial case for post-event data is something to look up to for organizers who are reaching for greater endeavours. Companies running more than ten events per year or events with hundreds of attendees appear to be the clearest beneficiaries of these analytics.
How to Measure Event ROI?
The whole point of organizing an event is to get people to attend your event, have a good time, connect with you on a face-to-face platform, and leave you with a bunch of new leads for your further marketing funnels. But how about the Return on Investment (ROI) of your event? We know how to calculate the ROI for businesses, but what about an event? Here are a few ways that you can use to measure your event ROI, depending on the type and goals of your events.
#1 Event Surveys
Of course, the most simple way to keep track of your leads and how your attendees felt about your event is to organize a survey, usually a hardcopy form that they can fill out after your event. But, with all these technological advancements in tracking event-related data, you can even create a simple event form on platforms like Google Forms and many other form-building sites like it.
Once you have your surveys, you can crack down on the details to see how many of your attendees were satisfied with the event and where the areas to improve are. The quality of their response will also tell you which of them are really interested in your event niche and could possibly be a lead for your next event.
#2 Targeted Messaging
You can begin targeting what kind of messaging it is that you send to your event attendees, based on the booths or areas that they gravitate to. This can be quite simply done with the help of RFID technology or a simple beacon. Aside from that, you can also get them to sign up for a personal account with your event company during the guest attendance, which can be easily set up on your website or a third-party platform.
All these methods will give you an open communication channel where you can send personalized and targeted marketing materials to your attendees. If they sign up for an account with you, even better. You’ll have a history of their behaviour towards your events and marketing materials, and this information will help you to better tailor to their needs and pinpoint where funds should be channelled or cut back, thus increasing your ROI significantly.
#3 Social Listening
Of course, in this day and age, everything ends up on the Internet and social media channels. The same applies to your event. So, why not take advantage of it? Create event-specific hashtags and track them closely on all of your social media channels. Set Google Alerts on your event keywords and track them as well.
You can usually use a third-party app or platform that specializes in social listening. This way, you’ll get to view the actual content related to your event and be able to assess the importance of the main topic as well as the sentiment that it presents towards your event.
#4 Ticket Sales
And if you think ROI, most commonly ROI is measured to see if the amount of money spent actually brings a feasible return, relative to the amount spent.
Here’s a general formula on how to calculate ROI :
(Sales Growth – Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost = ROI
The sales growth for an event is primarily generated by ticket sales and any merchandise sales, if attributable. Subtract that from the total marketing cost of your entire event and divide the sum again by the marketing cost. That will be your basic ROI. Your ROI will then be able to tell you which types of your events are received well by your target audience and which ones you’ll have to better in order to get better sales and higher attendance.
#5 Use an Integrated Platform
Most of the time, different ROI parameters are managed on separate platforms, and as an event manager, it can be quite a dizzying feat to collect all the data from various platforms and fit them into each other, like an intricate formula puzzle. And if you need to draw up a profit and loss statement, you can be sure that it will take you loads of effort and time, just for a single sheet of a basic report for your event.
To save you the trouble, you can look for lots of third-party event management software, for example, Dryfta, whereby all your data will be compiled into a single, easy-to-use platform. Not only that, you can both access segmented data, based on the criteria that you require, and also combine different segments of data in order to give you a bigger picture of how everything looks like overall. The best part is that you can easily spit out a profit and loss report from such platforms without having to get down to the numbers nitty-gritty yourself.
The Bottom Line
Event management software today is an investment with a quantifiable return. And that speaks to the very idea of measuring event ROI. When you have what is the single most productive tool to improve event ROI, still holding on to ineffective manual practices does greater harm than good.
This year, cut down on unnecessary staffing costs and part ways with those tools that have long become redundant. When the savings you make from reduced personnel costs and eliminated peripheral software subscriptions exceed the annual licensing fee, the financial case writes itself.
Try Dryfta’s purpose-built and 360° event management software today. We have catered to a number of large-scale events in the past and across niches. We have also worked extensively in the hybrid format and have developed tools exclusively for these events. To learn more, sign up for a free demo today and watch us in action.
