5 Ways to Measure the Success of your Event

How do you know if an event you worked so hard on was a well-attended, successful event? Here are five fool proof ways to monitor how well your event went. Some of these things should be built ahead of time, so do ensure feedback and tracking strategies are a component of your event planning.

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1. Track your social media

One of the easiest ways to monitor reach for an event is to use social media. With multiple platforms available, there could be a wide range of different sources to monitor. One way to gauge interest is to use an event hashtag – so #event2022 or something unique – and use various platform searches to see how many times and who has used it over the course of an event. 

TIP: Give it at least a week to 10 days after the event as attendees might still be talking about it.

You could decide to focus on the results from one social media platform such as Facebook or Twitter. Or use Instagram if it is a public event, or LinkedIn if it is a business occasion.

Once you have picked your chosen platform, you can look at ways to capture measurement.

2. Profit or loss - the finances

One way to prove if it was a successful event or not, is to look at the finances.  Now while this might not be a main goal in and of itself, the finances can be a good indicator if an event was successfully run.

After you have deducted all the costs from the sales amount, have you made the profit you expected?

3. Sales numbers

Another financial way to see if the event was a success is to work out how many sales the event generated. 

You may have had great attendance numbers but not have made as many sales as expected. Identifying the reason why can help you with future events.

Making sure you are tracking enquiries and sales can be the best indicator of whether to run an event again, and whether there need to be changes made going forward.

4. Surveys

Following up with attendees can be a great way to get feedback on whether people thought yours was a successful event.  This can be great for testimonials and to gauge event sentiment.  

This can be done in two ways. 

A powerful idea is to run exit surveys at the event and even ask for video testimonials. Getting attendees’ reactions while they are still at or just after they have been to something they have really enjoyed will help with promoting future events.

Secondly, if you have the data, you can email all the attendees afterwards and ask them to complete a survey. Easy surveys can be used with a service such as SurveyMonkey or even Google Forms. This might get you more quantitative data that is easier to analyse. 

5. Sponsors’ feedback

Finally, if your event has other partners or sponsors involved, getting feedback from them on how they found it, if it was profitable for them and if they are likely to attend future events, can be a good indicator of a successful event. 

Having happy sponsors makes future events easier to manage and fund.

Summary

As you can see there are several ways to monitor event success.  Thinking about these things and having systems in place pre- and post-event means you could have several different success metrics to use in debriefing after the occasion.  It will also help you make decisions about future events.

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