April 21, 2017
By Cvent

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
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Cvent

Cvent is a leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider with more than 4,500 employees and nearly 21,000 customers worldwide.

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