Winning strategies to boost event ROI
In today’s competitive landscape, creating events that not only captivate audiences but also deliver tangible returns on investment (ROI) and experience (ROE) is crucial.
Winning Strategy #1: Streamline invitations & check-in processes
Planner challenge: A crucial part of a winning strategy in ROI is calculating the cost per attendee.
Without an automated tool, planners are left trying to make sense of this all-important number with loose, inefficient processes: sign-in sheets, manual headcounts, incomplete information from surveys, or limited estimations based on venue capacity — none of which lead to solid figures.
Industry Tip:
Simplify event invitations and check-ins for accurate attendee counts and reporting.
The hero in your toolkit: An event invite and check-in tool, like Encore RSVP. This tool gives you a precise headcount and handles the legwork for seamless guest invitations, attendee management, and efficient onsite check-ins.
Use Encore RSVP to:
- Enable a streamlined, personalized experience
- Provide attendees with clear instructions
- Reduce wait times for onsite check-ins
Automating these processes cuts down on the tasks you’d otherwise do manually, minimizes errors, and saves valuable time for both you and your attendees, leading to higher attendance rates and positive word-of-mouth referrals — all of which contribute to improved event success and ROI.
Winning Strategy #2: Leverage Data Analytics
Planner challenge:
A big item in every post-event review? The bottom line. Stakeholders expect planners to communicate:
- The total amount of revenue generated compared to total budget
- Expense allocations
- The investment that delivered the biggest impact on attendees
You may know the total dollars spent, but to confidently address any further financial questions, you’ll need reliable, easy-to-understand insights to support your responses.
Industry Tip:
Harness data insights for evidence-based post-event reporting and recommendations.
The hero in your toolkit: An event app, like Chime Live℠, gathers actionable data on attendee behavior, session engagement, and event performance.
You can check out its live analytics dashboard anytime during or post-event for a clear view of the number of attendees logged in, session participation, interactions with content, and audience feedback.
When it’s time for that big post-event debrief, you’ll have the information you need to show which sessions or activities resonated most with attendees. This empowers you to advise how to allocate resources more effectively towards high-engagement areas so your organization’s future events are primed for optimal attendance and maximized ROI.
Winning Strategy # 3: Increase Sponsorship Visibility
Planner challenge: Demonstrating a clear return on investment to sponsors is crucial for both ROI and sustaining beneficial sponsor contributions in the future.
Sponsors boost events with essential funding, enhanced resources, broader reach and increased credibility, benefiting both organizers and planners. But how do you meet sponsor expectations and engage their customer audiences to increase their sales while balancing event integrity and the attendee experience?
Industry Tip:
By leveraging dynamic digital displays, sponsors gain enhanced visibility without overshadowing your programming. Meanwhile, attendees enjoy a more engaging event experience.
The hero in your toolkit: Introduce sponsor brands in creative ways while capturing participants’ attention with digital signage.
Beyond compelling content, Encore interactive signage provides engagement metrics, enabling you to report on the effectiveness of the display advertising.
Why should you incorporate tech into your sponsor promotions? Events leveraging technology for sponsorship activations experienced a 20 percent rise in sponsor satisfaction. And satisfied sponsors are more likely to invest in future events.
Winning Strategies to Boost Event ROE
Winning Strategy #1: Increase Opportunities for Interaction
Planner challenge: Participant engagement is a top event goal for organizers, as it influences attendee satisfaction and overall event success.
With today’s shorter attention spans and higher post-pandemic expectations for in-person events, planners face the challenge of adding excitement and interaction to sessions to keep participants interested and involved.
Industry Tip:
Encourage active participation through live polling and Q&A sessions, enhancing attendee satisfaction and event ROE.
The hero in your toolkit: Integrate an event app, like our Audience Response Solutions or Chime Live℠, to facilitate audience participation, encourage interaction and foster lively discussions between participants. Do it all with the touch of a button with:
- Live Q&A/Polling: Facilitate fun icebreakers to get attendees warmed up, open up the dialogue with real-time Q&A and polls, and enable participants to respond to topics with emojis.
- Content Customization: Participants can suggest topics they want to discuss with the Emerging Themes tool. They can upvote those they find most relevant. Providing supplemental resources? Easily offer targeted content to different audience segments within the app. This personalization lets them know you see them and understand their needs to foster a sense of belonging.
- Live Chat: Enable live chat for attendees to communicate with each other and with speakers. Plus, seamlessly connect with social media platforms for sharing and interaction.
- Live Q&A/Polling: Facilitate fun icebreakers to get attendees warmed up, open up the dialogue with real-time Q&A and polls, and enable participants to respond to topics with emojis.
These features keep participants actively involved in your program and drive engagement — underpinning your event success and high ROE outcomes.
Winning Strategy #2: Engage the Senses to Enhance Learning
Planner challenge:
A key aspect of ROE is your educational impact. This may be assessed by information retention or the number of continuing education credits (CEUs) offered/registered for. To enhance these outcomes, your challenge is to ensure your educational sessions are primed for success.
If your approach to knowledge sharing doesn’t captivate participants, you run the risk of attendees’ eyes glazing over at exactly the moment you hope to intrigue them with learnings.
Industry Tip:
Why immersive experiences?
- A study found immersive learning can boost retention rates by up to 75 percent.
- 85% of planners believe that immersive experiences foster greater attendee engagement, according to Encore research.
The hero in your toolkit: Incorporate elements that engage the senses and immerse attendees in your storytelling. Your mission? Transform the experience into something truly memorable.
Need ideas for inspiration? Bring your audience along with your speakers as they deliver their message. Transport participants to exotic islands, faraway planets, or compelling emotional spaces with wrap-around LED video walls.
Another tactic? Dial up the energy or create a relaxing ambiance by creating a sound bath with overhead speakers that move music in a wave from one side of the room to another.
Interested in more immersive experience hacks? Check out ways to boost learning and engagement with multisensory experiences.
Winning Strategy #3: Leverage “Matchmaking” Networking
Planner challenge:
One of the most valuable parts of in-person experiences for attendees is the connections they make at events. Your program needs to balance structured interaction with organic connections, to ensure attendees get the most value out of your sessions. Success requires careful curation and dynamic facilitation to foster meaningful interactions.
Industry Tip:
Ensure your event strategy includes agenda time for networking and incorporate scenarios in your program that encourage attendees to mingle.
The hero in your toolkit: A robust event app, like Chime Live℠, can facilitate “matchmaking” networking opportunities, foster connections and promote collaboration among attendees.
Chime Live’s customized networking features help participants discover other attendees they’re interested in connecting with, based on industry, interests, job titles and more.
This more personalized “matchmaking” during networking sessions enhances attendee experiences, resulting in successful collaborations and enriched attendee satisfaction, thus boosting ROE and networking ROI.
The Power of Partnership
By implementing these proactive strategies, planners can unlock the full potential of their events, driving both financial success and exceptional attendee experiences.
Choosing a full-service event production partner, like Encore, can be an invaluable part of this journey. Leverage the experts to help set your event strategy and deliver the end-to-end creative, production and technology solutions that support your ROI and ROE goals.
We’d love to partner on delivering an event that resonates with both your audience and your bottom line. Click here to schedule a free consultation!
Internet service is the thread that weaves together various event elements to help deliver a seamless experience, ensure attendee satisfaction, and manage costs. This is why it’s important to hire a partner to provide dedicated internet services.
Just like insurance protects you from loss in the case of a mishap, a dedicated internet services partner can prevent attendee dissatisfaction from:
- Internet outages and slowdowns
- Technical gaffes
- Ordering too much or too little broadband
- Tech-based participant frustration
- Wi-Fi identity theft
Customers often request digital solutions such as apps, agendas, and handouts to enhance the attendee experience. Attendees may try to access these tools on multiple devices; each person may have 3.6 devices/connections. Having a dedicated internet partner for your event helps bring peace of mind to any connection concerns that may arise.
“[Encore] is one of the only network services companies out there that focus exclusively on events,” shared Alex Wedesky, Encore Director of Internet Services. “We know that events don’t only happen from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.” This means customers benefit from always-on customer service.
The benefits of partnership
Having dedicated onsite tech support allows you to have proactive internet solutions for participants.
“[Often times] people will opt to turn their phone into a hotspot or bring a hotspot,” Wedesky says “Even though you can’t see Wi-Fi, it’s like molecules in the air. You can only have so many in one space before they begin colliding.” When multiple networks collide, web pages fail to load, and people have difficulty getting online.
Because Encore monitors network health and bandwidth speed, onsite techs can detect a problem before it happens. Before the trade show begins, Encore technicians will work with exhibitors to ensure personal networks are set up correctly and are contained so interference doesn’t occur.
Internet partners provide tools, strategies and tech support
How do we know the amount of bandwidth required for your event? Encore offers a bandwidth calculator to ensure customers always have the right amount for their needs. Then the Encore team develops a strategy for each event component that needs network access to prevent tech hiccups.
For example, if the internet is ordered as a shared pool for the conference, participant devices, live-streamed content, and presenter videos will be pulled from the same source. The results can be video hiccups that won’t play, polls won’t load, and participants may get impatient.
To solve this, Encore consults with clients to determine which event elements must be prioritized and partitioned off bandwidth accordingly. This prevents participant usage from interfering with things like streaming video or live stream feeds.
Internet service partners provide additional value and audience insights
Internet is an investment. When you purchase 500 MB, you want to know whether you used it. This is another way in which dedicated providers deliver value: by delivering insights about internet usage and audience behavior.
While the price of Internet is decreasing, the means of reporting and processing that data is becoming more expensive. This is why Encore helps meeting and event professionals analyze data to help manage costs.
“We deliver insightful analytics so [you] know what [customers] need to do to see success going forward,” Wedesky says. “They learn things about the attendee base they otherwise wouldn’t know.”
Encore’s Aptilo Access Control System provides real-time monitoring of customer event bandwidth utilization. Through the tool, Encore can provide customers with impactful post-event bandwidth reporting to provide insights such as:
- How much bandwidth was utilized
- Timeframes where spikes occurred
- Where most of the traffic was going (event resources, social media, etc.)
From user insights to full internet installations to onsite emergency troubleshooting, dedicated internet service providers offer end-to-end solutions that provide essential support and peace of mind.
“Things change,” Wedesky says. “Having a partner who can navigate those changes with you is important.”