One of the main objectives for event planners is to measure the return on investment of their events in a constant effort to improve their events and lower the cost. But ROI calculation is more than simply a measurement system; it’s a strategy that calls for changes in business processes to get the maximum returns. Even though we completely understand the importance of event ROI, many event planners still face difficulty in measuring the real value of their events due to several tangible and intangible factors involved.
Like events, not all leads are equal. People attending your events are in different stages of the buying cycle and not all will convert into deals. While it’s easy to calculate the event registration fee or revenue from sponsorship, measuring attendee satisfaction for an event is no cake walk.
Here’s a template that you can use to calculate your next event ROI.
| Goal | Key Indicators | Tangible Value | |
| (A) Hard Metrics | Strengthen Existing Relationships | Clients, sponsors and partners retention | Potential vs actual renewals |
| Create New Opportunities | Add new prospects in the sales funnel | Cost per lead, new deals closed | |
| Generate Revenue | Event Registration fee Sponsorship revenue | Total revenue collected | |
| (B) Soft Metrics | Attendee Satisfaction | App activity feed, trending event hashtags, attendees coming back for more, positive survey response | Total number of positive survey response divided by total cost of event. |
| Brand Awareness | Social Media, PR opportunities | Cost per thousand impressions or CPM (cost per mille) | |
| Perfect Event Execution | On-time execution, logistics | Planned vs actual spend | |
| Total Return | Hard Metrics + Soft Metrics – Total Cost of the Event | ||
