Setting measurable event objectives

In order to measure the success of your event, you need to know what success looks like for you, your team, and your organization. This begins with establishing clear and measurable objectives.

For example, imagine you are organizing a prospecting event for a SaaS business. You have 300 attendees who have demonstrated interest in your company's product.

What would you set your objectives as?

You might be tempted to set your event objective as "increasing sales".  However, for most B2B businesses, the sales cycles are often long, with many different touchpoints in between.

The most meaningful objectives for event teams are ones that can be measured a few days after the event. These demonstrate the true value of the channel and are the most useful for ensuring your events meet the needs of attendees and stakeholders alike.

So if not 'increase sales, ' what objectives should you consider setting instead?

Events are often part of a wider campaign of activities. In this case, several things might be happening, including sales training, online demos, outbound marketing and more, impacting sales revenue.

Metrics that events teams can measure is an attendee's intention following their presence at an event. How has the event shifted their intention to act following an event.

This is where the Explori event impact tree comes into play.

There are four parts to the Explori impact tree that help you set measurable objectives that link back to your company objectives.

Company goal

This is the fruit of your tree. You wouldn't plant an apple tree and expect to grow oranges. Equally, you wouldn't organize an event to contribute to increased sales if the aim was to impact staff retention. Start with the end in mind and build all your metrics out from this point.

Cognitive goal

What do you want your attendees to know when they leave your event? This will differ if you are thinking about your trade show booth vs an internal training event. This helps you focus on what you are teaching your attendees. It might be about updating the sales team on a new product or feature or increasing your prospect's understanding of what problem your product/service solves.

Sentiment goal

How do you want your attendees to feel after your event? Sentiment objectives are where we begin to get into measuring brand affinity. This is a fantastic opportunity to understand how events are used to communicate brand values to attendees. i.e. how many attendees believe your company is a leader in eco-technology?

Behavioral goal

What do your attendees intend to do after the event? This is critical. As described at the beginning of this post, an event's success often hangs on the number of sales, subscriptions, or partnerships that have resulted. This is often a flawed approach as several touch points aren't within the control of an event's lead. Setting a behavioral objective, such as the intention to remain an employee of your company or the intention to participate in a follow-up meeting, are a better indicator of the usefulness of the events channel.

Establishing the correct objectives for your event is the first step to successfully measure your events. And the great thing about this structure is it can be easily incorporated into your humble survey. By requesting quantifiable feedback from your events, you'll be able to build powerful insights highlighting the value of the events channel to your company's core objectives.

Eager to know more?

Download our Event Impact Playbook to learn more