Achieving ROI for Trade Show Events and Meetings

Trade shows, conferences, and face to face meetings are an important part of business in most industries. There is something to be said about meeting face to face with people rather than strictly keeping it to email, phone, or even video conferencing. Even though the World Wide Web has enabled virtual businesses to strive, human interaction still has many benefits over digital communications. This infographic from UniversalWorldEvents.com outlines 10 ways to help achieve a return on your investment or a return on your meeting objectives. Proving that meetings and events pay for themselves and remain profitable is paramount to continuing to allow for in the budget.

 

5 Levels of Event ROI or ROO

In order to determine the actual return on investment or return on objectives, first we will outline the 5 levels of a ROI/ROO of an event.

LEVEL 1 Satisfaction & Perceived Value: Measures satisfaction with the meeting an perceived value. For example, will it help me achieve my targets vs. was my seat comfortable?

LEVEL 2 Learning: Measures the changes in knowledge, skills, and attitude of the delegates against the learning objectives that were set.

LEVEL 3 Application: Measures the application of the learnings back in the organisation and is measured at a given period post-event.

LEVEL 4 Business Impact: Measures the effect or impact to the business in monetary terms resulting from application of the learnings

LEVEL 5 Return on Investment: Always expressed a s a percentage and is the net benefit deriving from the event divided by the event costs.

 

10 Ways to Measure ROI/ROO Conforming to the Phillips Methodology

 

 

The infographic outlines a 10 step process for determining, calculating, and ultimately communicating the results. Here are your 10 steps explained:

  1. Develop Meeting Objectives: Setting goals and knowing where you want to be at the end of the process are important for ensuring growth and productivity. Set your objectives at each level.
  2. Develop Evaluation Plans: Once your objectives are set, use these as the basis of your evaluation questions. Ask delegates to evaluate on a scale of 1 through 5 to each objective in levels 1 through 3.
  3. Collect Data Before and During Meetings: A high level of response is needed and it is no easy task. Be sure to ask each person as many details and for as much information as possible. Don’t be shy about asking for feedback or information.
  4. Quickly Collect Data After Meetings: Post –event evaluation needs to take place very quickly after the event to maximise the volume and quality of the response.
  5. Isolate the Effects of the Meeting: Isolating the effect of the event from other forms of communication, marketing, and business activity.
  6. Convert the Data into a Monetary Amount: Apply a percentage to the monetary value that can be attributed to the event. Vs. other factors.
  7. Calculate the Hidden Costs of the Meeting: Some costs are often missed when calculating the expenses because they are forgotten or hidden costs. A considerable cost that is often missed is the time of your executives attending the event as well as the costs of all those involved in preparing for the event.
  8. Calculate the ROI: The equation they give for this is (Final weighted monetary value in #6) – (Cost of the event) ÷ Cost of the Event x 100 = ROI%
  9. Identify Intangible Benefits: Some intangible benefits include
    • Staff motivation,
    • Staff focus and direction,
    • Staff retention,
    • Company morale,
    • Networking.
  10. Communicate Results: Share the feedback. Be sure to communicate these results with all relevant stakeholders. This is vital in ensuring further investments in events and a focus for achieving better results for future events.

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