One of the main objectives for event managers and marketers 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 calling for changes in business processes to get the maximum returns. Even though we completely understand the importance of event ROI, many event professionals still face difficulties in measuring the real value of their events due to several tangible and intangible factors involved.
Like events, not all leads are the same. 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 delegate satisfaction for an event is no cakewalk.
Here’s a template for you to use when calculating your next event ROI.
| Goals | Key Indicators | Tangible Value | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (A) Hard Metrics | Strengthen Existing Relationships | Retention of clients, sponsors and partners | 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 | |||
