Measurable Goals is the 4th Principles of Event Marketing
Why Measurable Goals Matter for Trainers
- Clarity & Focus: Defining clear goals keeps your trainees and their marketing efforts aligned with the event’s purpose.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Measurable goals allow for tracking progress, identifying what works, and making informed adjustments.
- Demonstrating ROI: Proving the success (or areas for improvement) of event marketing efforts is crucial for both clients and trainees’ own careers.
- Foundation for Future Success: Analyzing results against measurable goals provides invaluable insights to optimize future events.
Key Concepts for Training
- SMART Goals
- Specific: Avoid vague goals. Quantify or clearly outline the desired outcome (e.g., “Increase website traffic by 20%” vs. “Get more people to the website”)
- Measurable: Include ways to track progress. How will you know if you achieve the goal? (e.g., using web analytics tools)
- Achievable: Goals should be challenging but within reach given resources and timeframe.
- Relevant: Align directly with the overarching purpose of the event.
- Time-bound: Include a clear deadline for achieving the goal.
- Beyond Ticket Sales
- Awareness: Website traffic, social reach, mentions
- Engagement: Social interactions, email open rates, time spent on-site
- Lead Generation: Number of qualified leads, newsletter signups
- Revenue Goals: Ticket sales, sponsorship revenue, merchandise sales
- Attendee Satisfaction: Post-event survey scores
- Tools for Tracking
- Web Analytics: Google Analytics or similar
- Social Media Metrics: Each platform has built-in analytics
- Email Marketing Platforms: Track open/click rates
- CRM Tools: For tracking leads and sales
- Event-Specific Platforms: Can offer comprehensive dashboards
- Baselines Matter
- Where Are You Starting? Pre-event data provides a benchmark to measure growth or change.
Training Activities
- Goal Transformation: Take vague event goals (like “make it a success”) and have trainees transform them into SMART goals.
- Metrics Match: Provide example goals and have trainees match them with the most appropriate tracking method (website traffic = Google Analytics, etc.).
- Scenario Goals: Give event scenarios and have groups brainstorm 3-5 SMART goals for each, justifying their choices.
Training Resources
- SMART Goals Resources: Numerous online guides and templates exist. Search “SMART goals worksheet.”
- Analytics Tools: Provide brief overviews of free, beginner-friendly tools like Google Analytics.
- Blogs on Event Marketing KPIs: These will discuss common key performance indicators relevant to events.
Trainer Tips
- Real-World Examples: Share anonymized event data showing how progress was tracked in relation to goals.
- Imperfect is OK: Emphasize aiming for realistic goals, even if they seem modest, is better than unrealistic ones.
- Connect the Dots: Continuously show how measurable goals tie into other marketing strategies (e.g., a goal of increased social shares informs content choices).
Resources
- Hubspot’s SMART Goals Template: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-write-a-smart-goal-template Clear explanations and a downloadable worksheet.
- https://www.youtube.com/embed/9DE5gBCNizA
- EventMB Guide on Event KPIs: ([invalid URL removed]) Provides a great list of potential metrics relevant to events beyond the basics.
Activity Variations
- Goal Transformation: The Remix Instead of providing trainees with vague goals, start with METRICS. Example: “Email open rate was 15%”. Trainees must work backward to figure out what a related SMART goal might have been.
- Reverse Engineer the Dashboard: Display a screenshot of an analytics dashboard (anonymized real data is ideal). Trainees must identify which SMART goals those metrics could help track.
- The “What If?” Metric Challenge: Present trainees with an event scenario and a single changed metric (e.g., “Social media reach doubled since last year.”). They brainstorm:
- Possible SMART goals this could relate to
- What marketing actions might have caused the change
Additional Tips
- Introduce Simple Tools: If time allows, briefly demo how to find basic metrics on a social media platform or the free version of Google Analytics. Demystifying the tools makes the concepts more concrete.
- Showcase Variety: Use different event scenarios (small workshop vs. large conference, etc.) to illustrate how goals shift with the scale and target audience.
- The Long Game: Briefly discuss how a goal like “building brand awareness” while harder to quantify immediately, can have long-term payoffs for event marketing.
Scenario Brainstorming
- Local Business Expo: A one-day expo connecting small businesses with customers and investors in a specific region.
- Goal Possibilities: Lead generation (capturing attendee info), ticket sales, exhibitor satisfaction, social buzz in the local area.
- Virtual Career Summit: A series of online workshops, speaker sessions, and a virtual job fair aimed at career changers in a specific industry.
- Goal Possibilities: Qualified lead generation (resume uploads, etc.), attendee engagement (high webinar attendance rates), positive feedback scores, content downloads
- Industry Conference: Large-scale, multi-day conference with keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and an exhibition space. Attendees are professionals in a particular field.
- Goal Possibilities: Ticket sales, sponsorship revenue, social media reach, press/media mentions, year-over-year growth compared to previous events.
- Community Arts Festival: A weekend festival in a mid-sized town featuring local artists, food vendors, musicians, and family-friendly activities.
- Goal Possibilities: Attendance numbers, social media buzz (focus on local reach), positive sentiment survey, vendor sales, donations collected (if charitable component).
- Nonprofit Gala: A formal fundraising event with dinner, entertainment, and silent/live auctions to support a well-known cause.
- Goal Possibilities:** Revenue exceeding a set target, increased donor participation vs. prior years, attendees converted to recurring donors, media coverage.
Tips for Using Scenarios
- Vary Complexity: Mix in smaller-scale, more niche events alongside larger ones to show the range of goal setting.
- Tie to Persona Work: Revisit any previously created ideal attendee personas and tailor the scenarios to their interests and priorities.
- Beyond the Obvious: Encourage trainees to think of goals beyond the most obvious ones (e.g., for the gala, consider social media shareability as a goal alongside revenue).
Additional Ideas to Spark More Scenarios
- Location: Urban vs. rural, multi-city, international – this impacts goals around reach.
- Seasonality: Events tied to specific holidays or times of year influence marketing goals.
- B2B vs. B2C: Target audience impacts which metrics are most valuable to track.
- First-Time vs. Established: Goals for a brand new event differ from one with historical data.
Event KPIs, or key performance indicators, are a way to measure the success of an event. When choosing KPIs, you can consider the event’s goals, format, and type. For example, a virtual conference will have different KPIs than an in-person conference. Here are some common KPIs for events:
- Event check-ins: The number of attendees who have checked in
- Event surveys: Feedback from attendees
- Net promoter score (NPS): Attendees’ likelihood to recommend the event to friends
- Event registrations: The number of people who registered for the event
- Attendee count: The number of attendees
- Engagement metrics: Such as social media activity, session attendance, and audience feedback
- Sponsor or exhibitor satisfaction: How satisfied sponsors or exhibitors are
- ROI (Return on Investment): How much the event is generating in revenue
KPIs can help you: Set and track goals, Provide insights for future events, Demonstrate the event’s value to stakeholders, and Improve the overall experience for attendees.
Here are some guidelines for setting KPIs:
- Identify key areas: Discuss the event’s goals with your event planning committee
- Benchmark previous data: Use data and performance from previous events to constantly improve events
- Make them specific: Don’t just write “Boost Event Attendance”
- Ensure they are measurable: For example, customer satisfaction is harder to measure
- Set achievable goals: Make realistic and achievable indicators of your event’s success
- Check its relevance: Make sure the event registration and event attendance numbers are as congruent as possible
- Define its time frame: Measure your attendee’s satisfaction with a survey sent via a cloud solution after the event
Resources:
https://www.gevme.com/en/blog/5-key-performance-indicators-to-measure-event-success
