Measuring the success of an event, a seminar or a conference, is a necessary step towards improving future events. What evaluation criteria do you have to consider? It depends on the goal of your event. Do you wish to present your strategy to your top managers? Win over new customers? Train your employees? Motivate your teams? Depending on the nature of your event, evaluation criteria can vary. Here are a few to consider:
1. Event attendance
This is the first criterion that comes to mind: counting the number of attendees. You can also compare the number of people who are actually present to the number of guests invited. How do you find out if the guests have truly participated in your event? You can obviously print out a list of confirmed guests and ask for their names upon arrival. Finding each name on a paper list takes a lot of time and doesn’t really make for a fluid arrival for your guests. We advise you to choose the Evenium OnSite app to scan guest invitations upon arrival at the event, then follow the number of guests in real time and offer them an efficient welcome. You also obtain precious information like their exact arrival time, the most popular sessions, etc. All this data will allow you to identify the most important moments for your event.
2. Participants’ engagement level
An event’s success can also be seen in the level of engagement from your guests. If they are really invested, they will remember the key messages of the event and they will retain a positive image of it. How do you measure their participation? Use a mobile app such as Evenium ConnexMe to organize votes and allow participants to post comments on the display screen. Throughout the entire event and in real time, you can follow the number of private messages exchanged between participants, the number of questions asked, the number of voters, etc. At the end of the event, you will be able to use this data to find out which moments were the most captivating to your audience.
3. Participant feedback
Evaluation criteria are not sufficient to really measure the success of your event. Qualitative data is necessary. It’s common practice to give guests an evaluation form so that they can note their impressions. Compiling all this data has always been extremely time consuming – not to mention the time spent contacting guests to remind them to fill out the form. Good news: now you can ask your guests for their opinion at any time (at the end of each session, at the end of the day, etc.) and all data is automatically compiled thanks to tools such as the interaction and networking app, Evenium ConnexMe.
4. Your event’s reach
During an external event, the aim is often to attract the maximum number of participants, and as such the event’s success is closely tied to its notoriety. To measure this, watch for the number of press articles or mentions on social media. These are good indicators to calculate your event’s reach.
5. Revenues generated
If the point of your event is to generate revenue, then the number of sales and contacts made on the big day are good indicators. For a non-profit event, the generated funds from donors are of course the main criterion to take into account.
To sum it up, multiple criteria exist to measure the success of your event. It’s up to you to define these criteria beforehand. Pick and mix direct and factual data (number of participants, new sales leads, etc.) with indirect factors (improvement of your company’s reputation, guest satisfaction, etc.) And don’t forget: there are new tools that allow you to fine tune the exact measure of your event’s success. So, when are you getting started?
