Measurement Tip 24

Understanding the Value of Conferences

Is your conference an expense or an investment?

Many organizations regard their conference as a necessary expense, one that serves to educate customers to be successful in using products or influences employees to do a better job.  Having evaluated and measured a variety of conferences, we found something different. In this tip, we explore how conferences deliver real, near-term profit improvement beyond the conference.  And, we look at how a great conference can influence other objectives such as organizational growth and customer retention.

The conferences that deliver the most value for the organizer or host have a common characteristic; they successfully provide value to all of the other players in the conference ecosystem.  Simply stated, organizers attract participants through valuable offerings and content.  Sponsors and exhibitors seek valuable access to targeted, high-value participants. Sponsors and exhibitors provide the organizer with valuable funding and support in return for access. The organizer perpetuates and grows the cycle.  All participants seek value in return for their contribution of time and money and smart organizers and hosts ensure that it is provided. 

In addition to profit improvement, the well-planned conference also serves the organizer’s overall mission and goals. For example, many associations seek membership growth, in part, by providing great value to their members through the conference experience.

For those of us with interest in exhibitions at conferences, numerous studies have shown that that exposure to content provided by sponsors and exhibitors is an integral part of conference participant value and satisfaction.  When the organizer and the sponsors and exhibitors are attuned to the strategic needs of the participants, the momentum builds quickly. Intra-event communications using digital and social media make it possible to learn from members as well as serve their needs between events.  

Increased revenue and expense reduction resulting from conference participation – after a successful conference participants may take actions that result in improved business results for the host.  Here are a few of the most likely results:

Increased Sales –

Participants will make upgrades to systems and products and purchase new offerings learned about at the conference.  Designers or integrators may incorporate more of your products into their designs and offerings.  Applicable measures: Conference related sales

Reduced Support Requirements –

• Participants will have less need for technical or customer support through knowledge gained at the conference.  Applicable measures: Changes and cost associated with levels of customer service access and requirements

Enhanced Loyalty, Customer and Revenue Retention –

• Retention of the participants’ existing level of business is ensured through enhanced affinity, familiarity with your company and product and reduced perceived risk. Applicable measures: Retention rates among conference participants vs. non-conference participants, Average revenue value of a customer, Cost of a lost account, Cost of a new or replacement customer.

Recurring or Repeat Revenue Growth –

• Participants experience personal and company success, leading to growth on the existing revenue stream. Many conference providers focus efforts to help their participants grow their own business, thereby increasing the demand for their own products.  Applicable measures:  Financial and growth performance of conference participants.  Associated sales volume.

Other Expense Reduction -

• Conference activities may produce cost savings in hundreds of ways.  Exploiting the time and place opportunity afforded by attendance at a conference allows a company to accomplish goals that would require additional time and expense to duplicate in the future and in different locales.  For example, teaching 3,000 customers at a conference the nuances of your upgraded product may be much more cost effective than sending field sales teams out to do the job on-site or relying on digital media.  Providing customers and prospects with access to your executives and experts may create an experience and exert influence that would not otherwise be possible or financially feasible. The possibilities are endless. 

Communications, Press and PR Value –

• Conferences can generate considerable press and PR exposure through conference related promotion, advertising and marketing campaigns.  The value of conference related promotion and earned media can be equivalent to several million dollars of advertising exposure for the host.  Inspiring the press to focus on your strategic initiatives, included in the conference content, is invaluable.

All of the above either impact the revenue or expense side of an organizer or host’s profitability or income. 

How can a conference help an organization to grow?

When participants and sponsors feel they derive great value, organizers may experience an increase in event participation and membership.

In my research I have learned some of what participants seek at conferences, related to their job:

Immediate Impact:

• The ability to make informed decisions
• The ability to make effective near-term changes and improvements
• To make connections with people and resources valuable in achieving improvements and goals
• To reduce personal and organizational risk (see what works!)

Future Results:

• To identify and consider influences that affect good planning

These may be regarded as “strategic needs” of the conferee.  Conferences that focus their content on these types of topics excel.  Exhibitors and sponsors who focus their messages and demonstrations for customers on these types of needs will be successful as well.  This provides a great basis for targeting the content of publications, and content delivered through education, digital, and social media on value for all concerned.  

As the word spreads of a conference’s value in meeting these needs, attendance will grow.  As it becomes apparent that a company or membership organization delivers a constant stream of strategic information, customers and memberships will grow too!


Ed Jones
President, Constellation Communication

To get started on your event marketing measurement program, contact us today at +1.770.391.0015 or edjones@constellationcc.com

 

 

 

 

Measurement Tip 6

"Sales Opportunities" Are an Effective Measure of Marketing Success - and May Help You Ease the Gap Between Sales and Marketing

I have often said that the sales team is the primary customer of the marketing team. The marketing function is primarily focused on creating sales opportunities and improving the probability of sale for the company. This is for good reason. In most companies the pressure for sales results is constant. The entire financial strategy for a company begins and ends with the sales forecast and sales results. That is why so many companies put such a heavy emphasis on leads, using the number of leads as the primary measure for trade show success.

For those reasons, most companies would like to correlate actual sales results with event marketing activity. This is possible for some, but impractical for many. Some companies take orders on the show floor. That situation is easier, the measure of success is the total value of the orders written. For many others, sales occur long after the event is over, and often through one of more layers of channels, making it difficult if not impossible to track. Add to that, a multi-year sales cycle. In the defense industry the sales cycle may be a decade or longer from initial engagement to sale. Also, converting a lead to a sale often requires significant participation by the sales team, presenting the question of how much of the eventual sales value is attributable to having made the initial contact and engagement with a prospect at a trade show?

Of course there is a lot more to be gained at trade events beyond generating leads, however for this discussion we will keep the focus on the link between marketing and sales. At worst this link is perceived as a disconnect. At best, marketing is seen to have a direct influence on the level of sales. For example, a call center might be known as a marketing function, but if they write orders they are a sales function. Therefore, it is worth considering if a trade show effort should be evaluated on the ability to generate bona fide sales opportunities for nurturing and closing by the sales team.

The most basic question that must be answered by the sales team is, "What do we want a qualified visitor to do as a result of engaging with us at an upcoming show?". The answer must be a specific step that is feasible and will involve a targeted individual more deeply in the normal sales cycle and to a point where the certainty of a sale can be estimated. So, it follows that the simplest measure of success might be how many real sales opportunities were generated by activity at this event.

To go a step further, we can place an estimated value upon the sales opportunities generated by gathering some additional input from the sales team. To estimate the value of the sales opportunities (aka leads counts) you will need to know two things:

1) What is the estimated percentage of your committed leads (i.e. people who interact with your staff and make a commitment to a specific follow-up action such as a sales visit) that eventually result in a sale? This may be known internally as the "close ratio" or something similar. Ask sales for this number, and remember it will only apply to real leads that represent a targeted individual who actually takes the next step you specified.

2) What is the average value of a sale that results from a committed lead/visitor from this show? Again, the provider of this information is the sales team. They will also explain how they prefer to view this value. Valuation perspectives might include initial contract value, annual value or a continuous service, lifetime value, etc. Service businesses may use the value of revenue over a period such as a year or more.

In planning for next year’s event cycle, take time to make an appointment with the sales team and jointly define the measures of success for your event marketing program.Effective targeting and attraction are prerequisites to an effective sales activity. These are within the domain of marketing. Engagement is the activity that begins to span the marketing and sales functions. Engagement should result in moving well-targeted individuals directly into an important step in the sales cycle for a company. Prospects reached through marketing activity must commit to a step (action) that the sales people agree is an important step in their process. If this agreement is reached, the proverbial gap between marketing and sales will be erased.

To summarize, here are few suggestions: 1) keep to emphasis on selling. 2) focus your marketing activity on two things a)defining and finding targets and b)engaging and interacting with them in a fashion that results in participation in a specific action that your sales team has defined as the next step. Then, count your success by the number of sales opportunities generated and assess the value of your investment using the estimated value of those opportunities.

Measurement Tip #3

To determine marketing success, you should identify and report these exhibit metrics: 1) who visited, 2) why they came, 3) what they learned and 4) what your visitors plan to do as a result of their visit.

Although many think of an exhibition as a place to put a number of products and services on display to a large number of people, the real value comes from making contact with individuals who are qualified to do business with your company. These people may be prospects, customers, suppliers or other participants in the profit equation of your business. Therefore, in order to identify and justify the value of an event marketing activity, it is essential to know and report who visited your venue and what outcomes are expected as a result of their experience. Marketing exists to create sales opportunities and to increase the probability of sale. In order to create sales opportunities, your program must target specific individuals and persuade them to act in a manner that benefits your company.

To understand the effectiveness of your marketing program it is important to know why participants came to visit and what they learned during their stay. This informs you regarding the effectiveness of your targeting and attraction campaigns and identifies the elements of the event experience that were most successful and likely to influence a visitor’s decision to act on your behalf.

The answers to the four questions listed above can be determined in a variety of ways. A common practice is to conduct live, post-visit intercept surveys. They help you understand how well you connected with your target audience. Intercept surveys provide accurate demographic profiling of visitors to your exhibit or event. This includes targeting criteria such as industry affiliation, company type, company size, individual responsibility, job title, buying readiness, and purchase intent. Post-visit intercept surveys also identify what the participants learned (if anything) and most importantly what they intend to do as a result of their visit. This data can even provide a forecast of expected sales driven from the participant’s view.

More sophisticated measures are possible using post-event survey techniques that pull from the entire event audience which includes those who visited your exhibit or event as a subset. You can identify changes in purchase intent, brand preference, brand fit and Net Promoter* scores for example. These metrics help you understand a lot more about the effectiveness of your marketing activity in creating positive change in perceptions among your target markets that result in an increased probability of sale.

Another method is to utilize technologies such as localized scanning techniques that provide real-time visitor identification and tracking of their movement. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for example, can provide real-time activity reports on session attendance, time on the show floor, and in-booth activity by product interest and for post-event analysis.

Understanding what your visitors plan to do as a result of their visit is one of the most crucial elements. A qualified lead should be committed to take a pre-determined action that sales has defined as a step in the company’s sales cycle. A tight definition of a qualified lead will provide a strong metric regarding generation of sales opportunity.

There are many metrics that are important to exhibit and event managers. As far as ROI is concerned, determining who came, the persuasiveness of their experience and their intent to act provide the clearest measures of effectiveness.

*Net Promoter Score is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld

Measurement Tip # 2

Gather and share information that will satisfy your internal customer - Sales.

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

The sales team is the internal customer of the marketing function. Marketing is employed to generate sales opportunities and to increase the probability of sales. These same objectives apply to a marketing event. So, what information can you supply that will be valuable for the sales team?

Beginning with the planning phase, define for the sales team who is “addressable” at the upcoming event. The correct strategy, messaging, products and content can be determined by knowing the target audience available at a marketing event. This information is valuable in choosing which products to feature and even which sales team members will participate. You might also identify who among your existing customers are likely to attend. This information is often available from the event organizer and from your own measurement records from the last event cycle.

Second, give the sales team a forecast of how many participants are expected at your booth or event along with their demographics. Suggest that the sales team use this information to determine which demonstrations and other experiences to include. Forecast the number of expected engagements and estimate the number of committed leads that should result. From there the sales team can help you estimate the “sales opportunity” value for the event.

You should not only give information to the sales team, but you should also seek it. Ask the sales team to define the steps that an interested, targeted visitor should be asked to take. This will become your definition of a qualified lead, i.e. someone who is committed to take those steps with your company.

Finally, report the actual attendance at your event in the same way you defined the forecast. Who visited? Define your visitors by the following:

• Industry
• Company type,
• Relationship to your company (such as customer, prospect, supplier, partner, etc.)
• Company size
• Titles
• Level of decision authority individual contact information

This information comes from your scans or leads documentation and may also be supplemented by an exit survey of visitors who have completed their experience.

Of course, the golden ticket for the sales team is complete documentation of well qualified leads. Work with sales to determine how much information is really required to support an effective follow-up. Requiring too much information will clog the process and dissuade prospects from participating in documenting the lead. Too little information makes it less likely that sales will want to follow-up.

You want to confirm the specifics of the follow-up step with the visitor before you pass this information on to sales. Clarify the following:

• “Who”- As in the visitors name and organization

-Remember to get accurate contact information

• “What”-As in the nature of the follow-up expected
• “When”- What is the mutually agreeable time frame for the follow-up

Your lead system should have a place for all of these data points. By keeping this data in a common database, you can analyze and report how well your events have provided the sales team with access to qualified targets over the year.

Your personal influence will increase considerably if you are seen as a manager who can deliver a well-targeted audience at your events. A good measurement program shows you how to improve upon your accomplishments in every category. 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.

Please contact me if you have questions or ideas you would like to share at edjones@constellationcc.com, or call 770-391-0015.

Ed