When it comes to attendee data, would you classify your organisation’s events as a goldmine or a landmine?
For many marketers, it could go either way. As far as conference, meeting, or tradeshow data is concerned, even the best marketers have little or no insight about their attendee data beyond a post-event survey. But as we all know, events are an expense. From user conferences to tradeshows, event programmes can take up to 1/4 of your marketing budget. As a result, the C-Suites at most organisations are scrutinising the costs associated with these programmes and it has become more important than ever before for marketers to understand the attendee journey, increase ROI and attain better customer insights.
According to The CMO Solution Guide: Modern Event Marketing, a study conducted by The CMO Club in partnership with Cvent, we learned a few things:
- 69% of CMOs perceived events as very or extremely valuable in facilitating revenue growth.
- Nearly 70% of CMOs believe face to face events are very important or critical in accelerating the sales cycle.
- 87% of CMOs say ROI is very important or critical when it comes to allocating budget to their events.
- 34% of CMOs are not receiving the business analytics they need in order to validate their event spend.
- Nearly 75% of CMOs say their most pressing challenge with their events program is proving ROI or understanding its overall effectiveness.
Bottom-line: Proving ROI, accelerating pipeline, and understanding the overall effectiveness of event programmes is critical. But achieving these goals is not as difficult as you might think. It’s all about understanding your attendees, and their behaviour, a little better. Their wants, needs and activities can all be captured onsite during events. All you need to do is get your hands on that data to reap the rewards — from better engagement to higher ROI.
We’ll address the ways marketing professionals can not only improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their events but can also better demonstrate financial impact through the use of data and analytics gathered with event planning software and technology.
Take Your Events Online
If you’re a marketer and you’re reading this, you probably know everything your prospects and customers are doing on your website and other digital channels. But only if things were as clear when it came to live events. The ability to understand your attendees’ behaviour at an event provides real-time insight into their preferences and overall event effectiveness, so stop thinking of events as an “offline” activity. You measure your website performance, why not your event performance?
Your Attendees Are Talking. Are You Listening?
With the rapid emergence and adoption of event technology, you can bring your events in line with your digital marking mix. For too many marketers, relying on disparate point solutions and manual processes has led them to waste efforts, lose time, and ultimately, lose value. As a marketer, it is essential that you have access to the proper tools and technology to gather and harness event data in a way that provides actionable insights. Just because your events are all over the place—it doesn’t mean your event data has to be.
Read The CMO Solution Guide here.
