P39
STRAP
NEWS
IN HERE
Events: How to achieve
return on investment,
and how to measure it
1
Set business
impact objectives
How does your event connect
to the bottom line? Every event
has to make a profit, or the ROI
is negative. The profit formula
is net sales revenue minus costs,
so in the final analysis, your
event must either lead to a sales
increase or a cost reduction, or
both. It is often helpful to ask
yourself, ‘What is the problem
or what is the opportunity that
your event is intended to
address?’ Is an event the best
solution? What other activities
will support it, how does it fit
in the marketing mix?
46
P44 BRAINSTORM P46 HOW TO…
2decide what you
want participants
to do afterwards
The only way to generate value
from an event is through the
actions taken by participants. It is
not enough that they feel or think;
they actually have to DO something
which creates value for the
stakeholders. Events are all about
changing, or reinforcing people’s
behaviour. They usually need to
do something after the event, but
sometimes what they should do
happens during it, or even before,
as in the case of an incentive event.
You probably have several categories
of attendees, so you need to make
a list of actions that you want each
of them to take. Then ask yourself:
‘Why don’t they do it already?’
picture credit
Illustration by James Dawe
P48 BUSINESS CLINIC
3
know what the
required learning
experience is
How do you make participants
do what you specified in step 2?
Effective learning is experiential,
learning through all five senses.
What must they learn/experience at
the event to change their behaviour?
You learn information, but you also
get to know other people, which
builds trust. Changing participants’
attitudes to your brand is a learning
experience. Take the desired action
for each category of attendees in
step 2 and ask: ‘How do we make
them do that?’ Do they need
information, or to connect with your
sales staff or other attendees, or do
you need to change their attitude,
how they think about your brand?
4
Create an
experiential learning
environment
The learning experience can’t
be separated from the environment
in which it happens. We need
to apply psychology, sociology,
cognitive change, musicology and
neurology, to name a few. Research
shows how such elements as light,
music, colour and food influence
the learning experience. Many
events include speakers who
present a message in words and
pictures, where the presentation
format often has more impact than
the content. Research shows that
bullet point presentations make the
audience learn and remember
less, not more.
 THE KNOWLEDGE SECTION

Marketers need to know if their events will give a good ROI.

Dr Elling Hamso, managing partner of the European Event ROI
Institute, explains how to plan your event to ensure it will be
a good investment and measure the results to prove it...

The five levels of ROI
methodology
The ROI Methodology described
has become the industry standard
for planning and evaluating events.
It has been developed by Jack
Phillips and the ROI Institute Inc.
over more than 20 years, and
nearly 50 books are available on
the application of the methodology
to different industries. For more
details about the ROI Methodology
go to www.eventroi.org.
Nearly 50 one-day courses are
offered in Europe every year and
a five-day Event ROI Certification
course is held in early September.
5 6
Measure
satisfaction and
planned actions
After the event, you are ready
to evaluate. There are many ways
to collect data, but it is worth
considering a well thought out
questionnaire. Begin with the
learning environment. Did the event
fulfil expectations? Can participants
use what they learned? Suggest
some planned actions, and ask what
they’ll do, or do differently, as a result
of attending your event. If they take
no action, your event will not provide
any value to stakeholders. You don’t
know if people will do what they say,
good intentions don’t always lead
to actions; but if you don’t even
have the intention, your event
has not been successful.
Measure
Learning and
application
What did participants learn?
How did their behaviour change
accordingly? You do not need
complicated tests to measure
learning. It is often good enough
just to ask how well people
remember your information, if they
changed their attitude to your brands
or if they were able to establish
useful connections with other
participants through networking.
For practical purposes we often ask
the questions right after the event,
but to measure changes in behaviour,
you have to wait two to four
months. Check if they implemented
their planned actions. It should be
sufficient just to ask them to tell you.
7
Measure
Business Impact
and ROI
The business impact is the result
of people’s actions. For customer
events it is often sales. For internal
events, it is often a cost reduction
through greater organisational
effectiveness. Consider whether
the results you measure are a result
of the event or influenced by other
activity, like an ad campaign going on
at the same time. The best method
is to compare with a control group
who didn’t attend. Then convert the
business impact into monetary
values (which is usually doable); the
ROI is the business impact value,
minus cost of the event (which gives
the event profit), looked at as a ratio
of that overall event cost.

47