The perfect event marketing ROI presentation shows how profits realized from product or service sales as a direct result of an event-based marketing program exceed the cost of the program. It’s actually a simple formula, but there are some challenges. To explain, here’s a story to show why calculating event ROI is more like dating than hooking up and its all about getting more than one touch to be successful.

In a perfect event marketing world, a consumer attends an event where he or she learns for the first time about a product or service and makes a purchase right on the spot. The profits realized from sales exceed the cost of the event by a comfortable margin and it is clear to you the event was key to making the sale.

If you are thinking, “As if,” well, you’re not alone.

Part 1: Joe works the crowd

Think of your brand as a potential mate. Let’s call him Joe. Now imagine someone walks into a party, meets Joe for the first time, finds him really attractive, chats for a couple of minutes, and then when Joe asks her out, he gets a resounding and immediate, “Yes!” Sure, there may be some people, just as there are some brands, who enjoy this kind of success. But most do not.

Most purchase decisions, like relationships between people, are complex and require time and nurturing. The journey from awareness to purchase is often on a long and winding road.

A more realistic scenario at our party unfolds like this: Joe is a nice guy with lots to offer. He hasn’t had a serious relationship for awhile and is determined to meet someone. He goes to a party with the intention of finding as many interesting women as possible. He moves around the room, striking up conversations with several women. He takes the time to ask each a few questions to determine their likes (demographics), their interests (is she a qualified buyer?), why they’ve never met before (is she aware of your product?), who they know in common (what other complimentary products does she buy?), and who she has dated recently (what’s the competition?)

Joe discovers quickly that most of the women at the party have never heard of him and while most are interested in the same things that he is, they don’t like his jokes.

CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE IS A CRITICAL INGREDIENT FOR ROI. Once Joe connects with the fact that the women don’t like his jokes, he fine-tunes his conversation and behaviour and notices that the remaining women he converses with are more interested in him.
You will never reach the “buy” stage if you don’t interest people at the “hi” stage. The sooner you receive feedback on your approach, the faster you can work on securing the next relationship or re-establishing connections with others.

Part 2: Joe gets the girl’s phone number

PERMISSION IS CRITICAL TO AN ONGOING RELATIONSHIP. Joe is aware he doesn’t have a lot of time to get to know the women in the room. He works hard to interest as many women as possible with his story telling. Then he politely asks if they’d like to hear how the story ends. Most are interested and give him their phone number or e-mail address.

Joe knows that finding his soul mate is not going to happen instantaneously, so he wisely tells each woman at the party only part of his story (a bit of value) and then offers to end the tale at a later date (follow up with more value). He measures his success that night by how many women were interested enough to want to meet him again and to continue the conversation. The measure of his success at the party is based on the number of phone numbers and e-mail addresses he collects. He knows if he calls them all, at least some of them will want to see him again.

How does this translate in the real world? Always include an opt-in option for participants who want to continue the consumer relationship. Count these opt-ins as part of your ROI calculation.

Part 3: Joe gets the girls

DON’T DROP THE BALL ONCE YOU’VE BEEN INVITED TO PLAY. Joe doesn’t rest on his laurels after the party. He knows his chances of success are greater if he acts quickly to follow up. The very next day, he contacts all the women who expressed an interest in hearing from him. He carefully tailors his message to the level of interest of each woman: a softer message for those who were not ready to jump back into dating, a stronger offer for those who were clearly ready for something new. Luckily for Joe, he has an incredible memory. Each message referenced something he had learned about each of the women and included an offer geared to their interests and timing preferences. Joe invited those who were the most interested to dinner.

How does this translate in the real world? Continue the relationship beyond your event. Send an e-mail or text message to thank participants for coming. Customize the message according to what they’ve told you in the survey. Offer the most qualified a special incentive. Measure how many of them stay connected to you – another part of an ROI calculation.

CROSS THE FINISH LINE. Joe is thick in the middle of the dating scene now. His relationships with the many women in his life are at various stages of seriousness. He still hasn’t “sold” anything. For Joe, that will happen when he finds his soul mate.

This is where our ROI analogy starts to fall apart, as polygamy is frowned upon!
How does this translate in the real world? In the case of event marketing, your final ROI comes when you can track people from the time they attend your event to the time of purchase and, even better, when they repeat purchase. Your ROI is then:
“The total profit associated with the products purchased by the attendees of your event minus the cost of the event, divided by the profit.”

The bottom line is to imagine yourself as a “Joe,” to connect with as many people as possible, and to ask them permission to continue a relationship. Carefully nurture that relationship, by offering meaningful, timely followup communications, and follow through to sales numbers for each of the visitors at the event.

The real question is “Should we switch or is this case a case of fixing what ain’t broken?”

I believe there are (at least) seven good reasons for using electronic data capture instead of paper. Some are more important than others, depending on the type of event, the audience and the type of data you are collecting.

1) Better Security
This is important! Data captured at events can include names, addresses, e-mails, bank account information and social security numbers. Consider the legal and public relations risks of misplacing or losing this information as the paper containing the data follows its processing route. Read my blog on this subject. A trustworthy partner can provide this service for you, storing the encrypted information on a locked down data capture device. This means that even if someone could access the data, it would not be decipherable. The data remains secure while it wings its way over a wireless network and to your end client’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.

2) Improved Accuracy
The accuracy of what information on paper depends on two things: the willingness of a consumer to provide the correct data, and the ability of the data entry person to read and understand answers provided. Electronic data capture uses software intelligence to improve accuracy by auto-populating city, state and country based on zip or postal code to prevent entering information that conflicts with answers to a previous question, and so on. Features such as spellchecking ensure open answers make sense, and that only one response is selected if that is what is desired. Software can also apply logic to ensure answers conform to a format that improves accuracy, for example, e-mail address format, date and age (where a minimum age is required).

3) More Complete
Some forms are confusing to consumers and, consequently, are abandoned.  An incomplete survey is often as useless as no survey. Intelligent electronic surveys can show the user only the questions that make sense and can insist on complete answers to some or all questions before allowing the user to continue.

4) Fewer Risks
Paper surveys are mobile by nature. They travel from the hands of those completing them, to event staff who collect and store them, put them in envelopes and ship them out. Sometimes they go home with the event staff at night. This kind of data collection is a challenge to track and enumerate. Missing surveys might represent a security breach if they contain personally identifiable information. You may have promised security in exchange for information. If a survey is not completely legible, you may not be able to uphold this kind of a promise. At the very best, this damages your brand. In the event of a contest or sweepstake, it may even result in a legal liability.  Properly completed electronic surveys ensure every record is captured on a secure device, tagged and delivered to a database with a full audit trail throughout.

5) Fast Processing
Before you can act on survey data, you must be able to access it. This usually means keying in or scanning a paper form. It can take weeks to deliver paper forms to a processing centre and enter information into a database. In contrast, an electronic system makes every survey record available to you within seconds of information being entered on a device. You can follow up with the survey taker before they have even left your display. Acting quickly improves your chance of success.

6) Editing Capability
It is almost inevitable that after you have designed a survey, printed it and shipped it, that “somebody” decides a last-minute change is essential. This not only takes time, but costs money – rush fees, for example. Worse, sometimes it becomes apparent only when people start using the form that some of the questions are unclear or confusing. Making changes at this point might be impossible. With the right electronic survey partner, changes to surveys are expected and welcomed. People rarely react exactly as we expect. Making changes to an electronic survey on location is often as easy as a few key strokes.

7) Storage Capacity
One of the worst possible scenarios for an event marketer is running out of paper forms and losing potential leads. It can be trying to spend time running from location to location ensuring there are enough paper form supplies. Electronic data capture maintains an almost infinite “paper” supply. Each device can store thousands of surveys securely and then co-ordinate their delivery to a data entry facility. With the right partner, your electronic surveys are seamlessly delivered to your client or to your servers using wireless networks and freeing up your event staff.

When all is said and done, except in a very few cases, I truly believe electronic data capture is the way to go but I also acknowledge it has its downsides. I’ll blog about those shortly.

It’s easy to extend lead capture to bring something special, that extra value, that can make the difference between a good event and a great event. Using technology-based interactions with event visitors, you can get so much more with little additional effort or cost.

Here are the top 6 reasons you should invest in electronic data capture systems for your next event:

1) Simplifying event registration
If you’re running the entire event, registration is a necessary part of planning but it’s often the most painful. A customized web-based registration for pre-event registration can be combined with on-site registration and/or recognition system to register and track event attendees as they come to the event and even as they move around the event.

2) Learning what’s on consumers’ minds
Knowing what consumers are thinking sure beats guessing when it comes to positioning a brand for success so why not ask them and record their answers? Engage with consumers in such a way that they’ll be happy to provide their thoughts and opinions to you, and if you capture this electronically you can instantly and easily analyze the results and turn them into recommendations that will be statistically sound. Slice and dice the results so you focus only on the “right” segment for your brand at that moment in time.

3) Getting consumer permission to starting a brand relationship
It’s difficult these days to get consumers to opt-in to receive more messages from your brand. Use incentives in creative ways to do just that, from delivering valuable content to sweepstakes, instant win draws, drive to store coupons, incentive coupons, photo marketing and more. Match the incentive to the event and the audience to get the highest opt-in rate imaginable.

4) Measuring how you’ve changed consumer opinions for the better
If you can demonstrate that consumers are more willing to buy, or more aware, or more interested in your brand as a result of the event you are well on your way to demonstrating a positive ROI. Take the time to quantify this – either before and during the event, or even before and after the event.

5) Touching consumers with the best ongoing messages
The best relationships are those where communication is relevant and interesting. Here’s your chance to capitalize on what you now know about your event visitors and to follow up to maintain and grow your relationship. Send email or SMS messages that speak to what you know about the person, their likes or dislikes, when they plan to buy or offer them something to win them back from a competitor. Creating relevant conversation is easy when you know so much about them.

6) Measuring return on event investment
The perfect ROI shows a correlation between engaging with a brand at an event and making a purchase as a result. It may be as simple as showing you how much likely the event visitor is to buy your brand’s product or service or as sophisticated as incorporating sales data and demonstrating exactly who bought what and how many as result. ROI is king when it comes to getting your next budget approved.

Those who get it will win. Going that extra measurement mile will make all the difference when the time comes to allocate budget for the next year’s programs.