As face-to-face events continue to become more commonplace and require more budget share, it’s become increasingly important that event strategies are synced with company CMOs’ business goals. According to Bizzabo’s 2019 event industry survey, 41% of CMOs consider live events to be the most critical marketing channel in achieving business outcomes – up 32% since 2017. Event budgets, on average, are 24% of marketing budgets – up 17% over 2017. With 84% of survey respondents planning to increase their 2020 spend, organizations must invest in their event strategies.
However, many marketers tend to discuss event planning and event strategy interchangeably and do not realize the difference. A client once said that event strategy is an overused and underutilized term. Let’s take a deeper dive.
The Upfront Event Strategy Work that Leads to Measurable Event ROI
Events are a marketing tactic and are one way a company can achieve its business goals, and event strategy is the driving force behind every decision. It’s the big-picture overview, helping to determine and qualify the events a company will attend. Think about the following:
- Why – Why would stakeholders want to attend an event?
- Who – Who is the event’s target audience?
- When – When is the event and how does it fall into the marketing calendar?
- What – What will be accomplished (SMART objectives)?
- How – How will these goals be accomplished (tactics) and how will success be measured (ROI)?
Answer these questions and you provide the infrastructure for event selection and participation. But wait – there’s more. It’s not just about improving brand recognition, increasing sales, or expanding into new markets; it’s also about taking those overarching goals and breaking them down into Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time Sensitive (SMART) objectives and identifying the tactics to deliver results by using a selection of events, trade shows, conferences, and meetings. Do the work up front and the ROI will be measurable.
Event Strategy Provides a Roadmap to Success
Good event strategies focus on your roadmap: a plan of action to deliver results that might include multiple events over the course of a full year. Remember that your strategy is the overarching framework. Event planners may adjust tactical execution to address regional, cultural, divisional, or product and service differences, but good strategies include:
- Organizational goals (corporate)
- Departmental goals (marketing, sales, finance, HR, etc.)
- Recommended event options for meeting goals
- Analysis of how each event will help meet specific goals
- Specific and measurable goals for each event, with a clear connection to how each event ties back to departmental and organizational goals
- Dashboards and reporting mechanisms to collect, analyze, and report data
This process should be done for all meeting types, including hosted conferences, trade shows, sales meetings, and training programs, as well as external meetings. It can also be applied to hospitality events and sponsorship programs.
I repeat myself often when talking about defining goals for your strategy. With SMART objectives and agreed-upon measurement processes, it will be easier to evaluate success, determine ROI, and justify event spends.
Grow Your Events collaborates with your company to develop an event plan that supports tangible, ongoing measurement to justify event spends and deliver to your company’s bottom line. We bring a strategic approach to grow your events by developing an enterprise approach that standardizes process, responsibilities, measurement, and results. If you struggle with event measurement and ROI, let’s work together to grow your events. Request a free consultation.