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 15

Start Your Measurement Before the Event Even Begins - Forecasting is an Essential Planning Tool and Can Pay Big Dividends

Forecasting can make a significant difference in how your event is perceived, how it performs and how it is evaluated. Forecasting is simply estimating, in advance, the results of your key measures and performance expectations for an event. By doing so, you can tailor your resource requirements and tactics for the upcoming event, e.g. adjustments to size, staff, spending and other activities based upon expected needs and results.

By forecasting an event, you can set realistic expectations with upper management and others regarding expected outcomes. This is extremely important as there is little you can do to deliver a successful result if executives and others already have unrealistic expectations for the results of an upcoming event.

Forecasting is also the tool that allows you to compare a new event that you may be considering with those that you are already doing. This is achieved by forecasting the results of a consistent set of key measures that match those you use to evaluate your current events. Additionally, the payback ratio can be estimated for a prospective event and compared with your existing events. The process is to simply rank all of your current events from best to worst using the most recent performance data and then add in the forecasted event results into the mix for consideration. You will be able to readily see where the new events fall among the existing ones. If the new events appear high on the list by payback, then you may consider eliminating or cutting back lower performing events in order to fund the newer ones.

One caution to consider is that you must ensure that lower performing events are not justified on qualitative factors alone, such as your company president being the chairman of the event sponsor association, etc. When the qualitative considerations have been made, you are ready to total up the expected costs and draw a line where spending meets allocated budget. This will provide the best mix of shows and will also equip you to represent suggested changes in the annual program to others (who may be quite fond of certain low performing events!) based upon fact and not just opinions.

The following variables can be forecasted for an upcoming trade show:

1. Estimating Resources

a. Size - Exhibit or venue size required to address the forecasted number of visitors at the event. Size is not a factor of visitor processing alone; it is also a consideration for your company’s visibility within the exhibit hall or venue.
b. Staff- Too many staff members are perhaps worse than too few. You can derive the correct number of staff required to handle the forecasted number of visitors to your exhibit for the show. Remember that sometimes experts are required to man a demo even though they may not get their share of visitors.
c. Cost– When size, tactics and staff are all adjusted based upon forecasted results, it is much easier to adjust the cost of the event with confidence. The optimum amount to spend on an event should be directly based upon the marketing opportunity associated with participating. This will allow your company to remix investment levels for maximum results.

2. Estimating Results
a. Number of Visitors
b. Number of Engaged Prospects
c. Number of Committed Leads

3. Expected Sales Results
a. Using the sales funnel approach, you can estimate the dollar value of the sales opportunity based upon the number of projected leads by product category.

4. Cost Savings
a. Estimating and then producing cost savings is a great way to enhance your plan and results.

5. Customer Relationship Management Value
a. Number of customers addressable at the event
b. Average value of a customer, and Addressable Current Revenue at the event
c. Cross Selling Opportunities/ Results
d. Account Saves and Associated Value

6. Promotion Impact
a. Number of Impressions (Gross and Targeted)
b. Advertising Equivalent Value (Media Value)

7. Payback Ratio and ROI
a. Estimate the probable value in categories of:
-New revenue (value of the sales opportunity, where practical)
-Customer Relationship and Retention Management
-Cost Avoidance
-Promotion (AVE)

Compare all of these to the event cost. This payback ratio is necessary for assessing the value, ranking and comparison of current or future events. Forecasting is an essential element in event marketing success. Otherwise, there is no way to know what results should be expected and thus how much to spend.

Event marketing budgets should be directly correlated with the opportunity an event presents. And as detailed before, your job will be considerably easier and you will get better results and recognition when you set realistic expectations internally with executives and others about expected results and justification for the investment.

Measurement Tip 14

How to Relate Objectives, Success and Measurement Around Three Factors that Will Make or Break the ROI on Your Event

In my classes I teach "Three Critical Success Factors" essential for trade show return on investment. These factors provide the template for a compelling set of measures of regarding what is most important and what will surely be of interest to your top management.

The "Three Critical Success Factors" are:

* You must attract enough of the right people to your exhibit or event (i.e. those individuals who can actually benefit your business)

* You must deliver compelling messages that motivate those people to act

* You must obtain actions from those participants that lead directly to profit improvement for your company (either an increase in revenue or reduction in cost)

The shorter, easier to remember version goes like this:

* The right people

* The right messages

* The right actions and results

If you miss any one of the three, you are not likely to justify your investment in the event. It is essential that they be executed somewhat in order. That is why pre-event and post-event activities are at just as important as event execution.

These ROI related success factors were developed from years of working with clients to create a solid bridge between sales and marketing. They are core to our event measurement and return on investment philosophy.
Of course, many other things must also go well for a successful result.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the following factors provide the template for a compelling set of measures of what is most important:

The right people

Determine the show demographics profile and know how many people attending the show fit your target profiles. Identify them to the individual level if the information is available.

Make a forecast of how many targets are there and how many you will see. Track the number of people who come to your exhibit or venue. Develop averages and totals for the program year.

Determine how many visitors are seriously engaged vs. just entering a drawing or making a casual walk-through. (Make counts during the events) Use exit polls or surveys while visitors wait for a presentation for example, to find our who is visiting your stand. Report all of these numbers and the mix of people by type in your show summary.

The right messages

The only way to know if your messages are resonating with customers and prospects is to ask them. Use exit surveys or post- show surveys to determine 1) Can anyone recall, repeat or describe what you were trying to tell them? 2) Does the message they retained have any potential effect on their role or plans? I.e., does the message you conveyed present a solution to problems or an improvement in a process or profitability? Do they believe what you told them? A great open ended question is to simply ask your visitors “What was the most important thing they learned during your visit?” Compare their answers with your communication objectives. Remember, “nothing” is a possible answer.

The right actions and result

What specifically will your visitors do as a result of visiting you? This is the most valuable question of all. If their intent matches with your desired follow-up behavior you are on your way to ROI. Are your visitors more inclined to do business with your company? Do they find your company to be a good fit for their needs? These elements can be determined with questions such as, “Do you plan to make changes (or a purchase) based upon what you learned today?" or  “Is it more likely that you will purchase products from us ?”, etc. These metrics are guaranteed to be of interest to the top management of your company.

Determining the number of visitors who actually take a prescribed step at or after your show is the ultimate measure of success. You may even be able to place a potential value upon those people taking that step if the step is one the sales team has defined and therefore knows the probable value associated with it.

Ed

Measurement Tip #4

Trade Shows can be about more than leads and sales. Cost savings tactics such as negotiating with new suppliers, reducing travel, recruitment and generating press all lower the cost of doing business for your company. Reducing cost makes a dollar for dollar impact on profitability. Measure and report the savings as an element of event ROI.

Most events offer many ways to save your company money. Events present “one-on-many” opportunities that are especially effective in reducing sales call costs and travel expense to hold meetings in the future. The reason is hundreds, if not thousands of people who can influence the amount or cost of doing business for your company have paid their own way to be at the event and are available to meet with you. These people include existing customers, potential buyers, suppliers, partners, channels, influencers and many others.

One of our clients hosted over 1,000 meetings that included their own executives and sales teams with customers, channel partners, strategic alliances, technical experts, standards body members, investors and industry press and analysts at their largest trade show. Each meeting they held resulted in the elimination of future time and travel expense to hold that same meeting at the company’s expense in the future. This client was able to report a savings estimate of more than $1,000,000, representing enough return to justify the entire show budget without any estimate of eventual sales impact.

Reducing the number of required field sales contacts and associated cost presents another opportunity for savings. A well-executed event plan accomplishes the same objectives with targeted prospects that would occur in the first few field sales calls. A well-executed program may eliminate up to two or more sales calls in the field required to close a sale. Typically, these calls cost a company from $400 to $1,000 or more dollars each.

There are more ways to impact the cost of doing business that can be listed here. For example, many clients use marketing events as recruitment opportunities thereby reducing the cost of finding suitable candidates and bringing candidates to HQ for an interview. This is also true for supplier and channel recruitment.

The activities at your next event should be aimed not only at the income side of the profit equation, but the cost side as well. Of course to make these benefits happen requires that you initiate a dialogue with those internal managers who can take advantage of the opportunity your event provides. They can also help you estimate the value associated with doing multiple things at an event instead of doing them one at a time.

Reporting these results in your event measurement report will add credibility and financial justification for your investment beyond the primary goal of increasing sales.