Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Measurement Tip # 1

Be regarded as a manager of the business as well as a manager of trade shows and events.

(This is the first in a series of articles for the MC2 eConnections Newsletter)

Your career opportunities expand rapidly if you are seen as a manager who affects the profitability of the organization and not just your own budget. The best way to do this is to relate the accomplishments you measure to the basic business profit equation.

Revenue – Expense = Profit

In fact, the following two simple concepts will be the underlying basis for this entire series of tips and articles:

1) Your success as an event marketing manager
2) Relating accomplishments to business profitability

So let’s get started. . .

Revenue related accomplishments in a marketing context are usually related to sales. Generating new sales through interactions and resulting leads with potential buyers is the most obvious. Not so obvious, is protecting and growing the revenue you already have through your existing customers. Your event plans should address both.

Expense related accomplishments in an event marketing context are virtually unlimited. Expense reductions (aka cost savings) impact profitability dollar for dollar. When you have your company CEO meet with thirty customers and prospects over three days at a major event, consider the savings to your company.

Would a trip for the CEO to meet with those same customers individually cost $10,000 or more?

If you use the media center at a big show to accomplish a major announcement or product launch, how much is saved compared to doing it independently?

When you reduce the number of sales calls from five to two for qualified visitors reached through your shows, what is the impact on sales expense?

When you develop new digital graphics, video, web pages and social media for a major show, how many times will those assets be reused in the future and for how many purposes?

The examples are endless. Expense reductions are the greatest and most varied opportunities available to you as an event marketing manager. Expense related accomplishments should be a part of every show plan.

Other measures will be discussed in this series as well. Cost efficiencies, such as Cost per Visitor, exhibit efficiencies such as Number of Visitors, communications efficiencies such as Number of Impressions, and even measures on the overall show or event such as Traffic Density.

A good measurement program will show if your events are paying off for the business and if they are being managed for optimum efficiency. Measurement will also show you how to improve your accomplishments in both categories. I hope you tune in each month as we expand on the knowledge and skills to justify and improve your events and elevate your status in the organization.

If you have any questions related to event measurement please call us at 770.391.0015

Ed

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a great article. Many event managers focus so much on increasing revenues that they often forget how profitable decreasing expenses can be. Citing a personal experience, I had a friend who was hosting an event and used an online ticketing service to sell the tickets. The ticketing online company, called Ticketbud (http://www.ticketbud.com), focused on utilizing the Internet and social media to sell tickets and, while it didn't help my buddy increase revenue necessarily, selling tickets online did drastically decrease his expenses. He was ultimately able to put that extra cash he saved into other facets of his event that eventually will earn him revenue. Overall, I think event managers should look on both sides of the financial coin and work just as hard to saving money as they do earning it.