Strategic event management of a virtual or hybrid event relies on a clearly laid out strategy. Event management has not really changed the basics of strategy design; however, online event management comes with its own unique set of challenges.
Although 52% of marketers would want to switch to virtual events in 2022, physical events still offer networking opportunities not found in the digital world. Virtual events also come with some advantages that could be leveraged in strategic event management to get the maximum visible ROI.
Business leaders deciding to chart their strategies are necessarily targeting winning sales and meeting their KPIs. Therefore, deploying good analytical tools to quantify success and visualize the raw data of these events is the highest priority for decision-makers today.
This guide will explore several tips for marketers who need to showcase their products, host speakers, project a trade show, or do an internal team-building event.
Event management strategy & planning
The Harvard Business Review observes in a report on Event Management Evolution that “Marketers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate value for the dollars they spend on all forms of marketing, including events.”
This is the challenge that used to perplex the event managers because there weren’t enough ways to measure “success” in a virtual event, unlike in a physical event. The question is, how do we know whether our event was successful or not? How do we know we will convert our attendees and retain them to the bottom-funnel?
So, how should companies execute event management strategy & planning?
#1 The success strategy is linked with the KPIs you define
Let’s start with the three stages of event planning KPIs that are part of any event strategist’s things to do:
- Pre-event KPIs: Pre-event KPIs are usually the number of registrations and website or page views. Another KPI to be considered is monetization or sponsorship to generate interest and incentivize the invitees.
- During event KPIs: Social or listening monitoring, an actual number of attendees, and real-time chat conversions.
- Post-event KPIs: Pipelines generated, future customers, closed businesses, worth of won businesses, number of scheduled interactions, number of conversations held.
#2 Define the outcomes of a virtual event management strategy
Virtual events have been part of the remote presence of corporations for some time, but now, as industries transform and business models shift, new trends come to the fore.
The corporations will continue to have remote work and online meetings, representing a four to five times increase compared to before the pandemic.
The big question is: Will the virtual event strategist promise the same fluid networking opportunities as the in-person events? Business executives are likely to be split on this; however, there are a few outcomes most companies agree on:
- Attract more attendees: Open house events and new product launch no longer require traveling. Therefore, it is a possibility that more B2B and B2C clients will sign up for your event.
- Lower cost, increased ROI: In-person events can be expensive because of the costs of traveling, lodging, meals, renting, and so much more! Virtual events cost less to execute the show-time. Therefore, the likelihood of lowering costs and increasing ROI is much more evident.
- Assess valuable metrics: Virtual events make a strong case for the use of analytics. Use the generated analytics and you can easily shape your current or future strategy, work out forecasting models, and offer scalable solutions to future events.
- Engage and generate demand: Virtual events can be the starting point to actually bring in all those who participated in an event or even had a no-show. You have just created a customer pipeline and can now pitch a customized offer that might change things.
- Convert attendees into clients In-person events may actually not always be effective in converting attendees into clients. In-person corporate events are a huge bustling affair, and you may not get a chance to respond to a prospective client in time. However, a virtual event may allow you to interact more personally with the virtual crowd.
#3 How to measure event success - ROI explained
Know how to measure event success by tracking ROI:
n an HBR survey, 22% of the companies “didn’t know” how they would calculate the ROI from their virtual events. 55% were not able to track ROI, and only 23% were able to calculate their ROI.
Therefore, it is very critical for a successful strategy to be in line with a clear ROI. It may not be very obvious if a company is going virtual for the first time, but making use of previous physical events and data from similar events might assist in outlining ROI.
What are the major metrics used to calculate ROI:
Different companies have differentiated needs and hence, a unique way to calculate ROI. You may want to define the way that matters the most to you and your stakeholders.
In the study conducted by HBR analytics, here is the breakdown of how the respondents deployed metrics to calculate ROI:
- 64% used the number of attendees
- 56% used number of qualified sales leads
- 48% used brand awareness
- 41% used social press mentions
- 40% used amount of sales pipelines generated
Must identify bad leads or top-funnel problems:
If a company does not define a way to calculate ROI, it is working at the top-funnel only, that is, to generate brand awareness.
However, it is possible to generate a lot of registrations but it is likely that one is generating “bad leads” or leads that don’t represent any sales, observes Stahl of Salesforce. So a more accurate measure is to keep track of the pipelines and “track that pipeline right down to actual sales.”
Companies must track every single attendee:
Like Stahl likes to track down the pipeline, a similar approach is adopted by Keller of Navigant, where every single attendee from every company is tracked down, with their previous purchase data of 12-24 months as well.
This data helps companies decide when and how to pitch sales to their clients. EdTechs, healthcare systems, insurance, and software companies need the user purchase data to decide on generating pipeline patterns.
Tracking your attendees is an important part of designing a successful event strategy.
- Track to decide when and why to hold events:
Another important part of the event management strategy is tracking attendees. It is not only important because it gives us an estimate of profits and sales, rather this data is valuable in determining whether we should conduct another event and when.
Of course, unnecessary events, and over-doing team-building activities just because companies have extra budgets in the stash, is only going to hurt the company’s ability to accelerate.
- Track to justify further investment:
Questions that companies need to ask are: Is the marketing budget of virtual events giving returns? Can we justify another investment in a similar event?
Marketers must decide on clear metrics that truly matter to the company because that’s the indicator “to justify further investments in a given location or format,” Priyadarshani of MediaMath.
#4 Leverage the technology of a virtual event manager to calculate success
Several marketers use event management companies’ metrics that can leverage technology to measure the metrics because event metrics can deeply impact your company’s investment and returns profile.
So what are the perks of using metrics by an event management company?
- Improved data quality: With an event management company in place, companies have reported a 40% increase in their ability to track metrics that matter, not just the top-funnel or awareness metrics, a 39% increase in attendance, and an improved registration process.
Companies reported a 30% increase in attendee experience and a 26% increase in planning and sales strategy.
- Return on investment: As previously observed, ROI through virtual events is not a straightforward count of registrations, attendees or the number of such events held.
If a company clearly maps metrics and ROI, then using an event management company analytics shows visible data improvement in all of the following virtual event metrics by a 7-23% increase in metrics (HBR Analytics):
- Amount of sales pipelines
- Number of attendees
- Number of qualified leads
- Brand awareness
- Press/social mentions
- Customer retention/loyalty
- Prospects accelerated down-funnel
- Amount of new revenue sourced
- Cost per opportunity generated
#5 Be a host of your virtual event with Oreed
In view of the success of some of the fastest growing companies like Apple, MediaMath, Salesforce, Meta, and Yelp! it is imperative that virtual events will continue to grow in number and prospects.
As these events bring in a real customer base and improve sales, more organizations will need scalable and targeted metrics evaluation by companies like Oreed.
Oreed is a complete event management solution offering services in KSA, MENA, US, UK, and Canada. Its CRM streamlines the entire process of a virtual event, starting from planning till execution and streaming of the event, and highlights the success metrics for a high ROI.
Oreed is for all B2B and B2C clients who want to avail of features that are critical to hosting a virtual or hybrid event, such as:
- Sending attendee invitations
- Bulk or individual emails and SMS
- Virtual event streaming
- Integrated payment solution with secure gateways
- Reminders and attendance statistics
- Attendee pipeline generation
- Certifications for attendees
- Event metrics and ROI calculation using centralized data and more.
Ready to be the host? Oreed is a complete 360 degrees solution to all of your business events.
