The goal of qualitative measurement, while not as statistically significant as quantitative tactics, is to assess event performance by obtaining unaided, firsthand consumer reactions, impressions and perceptions relative to the event experience. This information gives marketers an in-depth and unfiltered evaluation of how the audience received an event. A few methodologies to capture this data include: In-person interviews/intercepts In-person interviews can be used to measure the immediate effectiveness of the event and provide insight on things like: what brought consumers to the event, their initial impression/perception of the event and what was most memorable about the event. Social Media Conversation Monitoring An effective way to measure consumer sentiment and perception of an event is to monitor the social conversations that arise. Marketers can now follow and track event related content posted by consumers by utilizing hashtags, Google alerts, and social media monitoring applications (see a comprehensive list of social media monitoring tools in this article by Pam Dyer on social media today), giving brands the opportunity to listen to what consumers are saying in real time. Monitoring event specific social content will give you an unfiltered look at consumer attitudes toward an event as well as valuable insights on what did or didn't resonate with them. Don't be afraid to engage further in conversation with targeted consumers, the greatest thing about social media is the ability to interact with your consumers. Event observation/Interaction Observe and experience the event for yourself or with your team. Engage with the brands activations as if you were a consumer, interact with staff, demo the new products, ask questions and use the technology. The knowledge and insights you and your staff gather from observing and interacting will give you a solid understanding of the event experience and strong basis to analyze all of your additional event metrics. Things to remember The goal of measuring any event is to evaluate the success and effectiveness of the event based on your marketing objectives and uncover actionable insights to help drive future event strategy. A good measurement strategy begins with clearly defined objectives and leverages a combination of methods to effectively measure the event success.
We can all agree that with the planning, logistics and costs that go into executing a brand event, it's essential that you have a measurement strategy in place to help gauge the success and effectiveness of your event marketing efforts. That said, measuring events can often be a complicated assignment when trying to determine just what to measure and how best to measure it. Don't fret though, there are a few best practices you can follow to help in the development of your measurement strategy to ultimately provide you with the metrics and insights you need to accurately evaluate your event. Define your objectives Since there is no industry "standard" on what indices should be measured at an event and different types of events support different objectives, it's up to you to develop a measurement plan that accurately assesses the success of your unique event. The first step to developing this plan is defining the objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, if one of your objectives is to raise awareness for a product, KPIs may include product trial rate, number of impressions generated and increased product awareness metrics. Additionally if another one of your objectives is to increase brand affinity, your KPIs may include delivering a 'memorable experience'? and establishing a trending topic on social media, all of which can be measured through a variety of methods. Objectives and KPIs can be fairly straightforward, but you will want to include all key stakeholders in establishing them. It's important to have everyone involved and in agreement with the objectives before you can begin to build out a measurement strategy. Gaining alignment will help eliminate any misunderstanding of the purpose of the event ahead of time. Develop tactics to effectively measure success against each objective Now that you know what success looks like, you can effectively develop a measurement plan to evaluate your marketing efforts. At AMP, we measure our events on both a quantitative and qualitative basis. Within these two options are multiple tactics. In our next two blog posts, we will discuss a few tactics to consider when developing a measurement plan. Keep in mind that there is not one 'correct'? method to measure against your event objectives, only methods that will give you actionable information that you can continue to plan against. What are some of the objectives you have for your next event?
