A key objective for us as event organisers and planners is to deliver ROI for our clients. theplanner.guru explores some of the top strategies we can implement.

Return on investment – it’s the sweet spot for any event organiser and marketer, and of course, our clients. Getting there, however, is easier said than done, and with the global economy currently strained as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, this challenge has been even further compounded.

“In [the] context of Covid-19, many marketers have been forced to adjust their expectations of return on investment. In some cases, brands in severely challenged categories have been put under pressure to chase short-term ROI just to survive the next couple of months. Others have chosen to play the long game and opted for the benefits of long-term brand building, believing the crisis has exposed the weaknesses of an overreliance on short-term tactics,” says a Marketing Week article.

Not only has the pandemic highlighted weaknesses in the context of our short-term marketing strategies but it has highlighted fundamental flaws in how we approach business. Prior to the pandemic, it was much easier to justify and secure client spend. Faced with the difficult decision of how their precious resources are allocated, marketing has become a far lower priority for business than supporting the salaries of staff and other operational costs. It is therefore no surprise that we have our work cut out for us when it comes to proving ROI.

“Whether you work at a non-profit or a Fortune 500 company, ROI strategy should be at the forefront of your planning process, and continue during the entire event lifecycle.”

How to derive ROI

Defining the objectives of the return we want is the step to understanding how we need to go about substantiating this.

“Whether you work at a non-profit or a Fortune 500 company, ROI strategy should be at the forefront of your planning process, and continue during the entire event lifecycle,” notes Cvent in its Essential Guide to Event ROI.

According to the guide, 85% of CMOs based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region say that proving ROI is ‘critical’ or ‘very important’ in how budget is allocated to events.

One of the keys to unlocking ROI for our sponsors may lie in technology.

“Real estate within digital event environments – from event apps to registration pages – has always been a hot spot for sponsorships. Images on landing pages, widgets on event app homepages, banner ads in speaker listings, and the like have been around for 15 years, and they’re not going anywhere,” says EventMB in an article on how to deliver value to virtual and hybrid event sponsors.

Marketing market

McKinsey & Company figures indicate that marketers spend $560 billion annually on global advertising and that conventional cross-channel MROI approaches to track spend are deemed inadequate.

“A few leading companies are pioneering a better approach that takes full advantage of the wealth of data now available. Today, companies can regularly, lawfully, and seamlessly collect smartphone and interaction data from across their customer, financial, and operations systems, yielding deep insights about their customers,” says the global consultancy and research house.

The thrust of their take is that the customer experience (CX) will improve with the rise of technology to drive predictive analytics. This is key because with the right data collection techniques, we can better determine the outcomes of our efforts and refine this in such a way that it allows us to produce more successful results in the future.