Event Technology - Is it Worth Investing?

How can event tech boost ROI?

So far, we have discussed the importance of events as a channel for your business, and how they can be used to achieve your business goals. But the big questions we are yet to answer are how the variety of event technologies out can there help to boost the ROI of your events, and whether or not these event technologies, ultimately, represent a good investment for your business.

Event Management Software

Event management software, simply put, is a set of business solutions that cover all the different aspects of organising an event, from planning to post-event stages. Some solutions are end-to-end systems that provide tools for the entire event lifecycle, while others are focused on specific processes of event organising, which can include registration, ticketing, floor planning, schedulers, analytics and surveys. According to survey results from Capterra, event planners spend, on average, around £915.37 on event management software, and 48% of survey respondents actually spent less money on these event management software’s than they thought they would.

Research from Eventsforce in 2017 states that event management software is seen as one of the top 3 most effective data collection tools for measuring event success.

We spoke to Ian Webb, Head of Business Development at Eventsforce, to discover his take on the ROI Eventsforce offers their customers. “At a time when budgets are squeezed and downsizing has become commonplace, seeing a quantifiable return on events has never been more important. And this is exactly where event tech can help.  In fact, these systems can bring a host of benefits to organisations that make them a worthwhile investment. They help save time by automating key tasks like event registration and sessions management. They improve the productivity of event teams so that more time can be invested in marketing and creativity.  They help drive engagement by delivering personalised attendee experiences.  More importantly, they help collect, track and manage valuable event data that allows organisations to measure performance, understand attendee behaviour and prove event ROI to stakeholders and management teams”.

“For example, the Eventsforce Attendance app provides organisers a live overview of who is attending their event, comparing the data with registrations and segmenting it by attendee type (VIP, speakers etc). Having access to this kind of real-time event data not only helps with reporting to management teams but can also be instrumental in making important decisions on the day. Should you delay serving breakfast as people are checking-in later than you thought?  Have all your speakers arrived?  Even after the event, having access to this kind of data is key in measuring success”.

Eventsforce also provided us with feedback from their clients on the specific ROI they have seen by using event management software. A spokesperson for Santander said, “Eventsforce proposed a solution that made the entire process of event planning a whole lot easier.  Tasks that were so time-consuming in the past are now extremely simple to do.  It also has greatly improved our delegate experience with informative websites and user-friendly registration forms.”

A spokesperson from Schroders commented on their experiences with Eventsforce; “The Eventsforce event management system saves us time collating reports and allows us to see what value our event activities are providing to our organisation. We are now using the solution to standardise processes across all our event operations globally.”

The reoccurring theme here is that event management software helps the user to save time, standardise processes and collect data to help improve the delegate experience overall.

In terms of the other benefits of using event management software at your events for ROI, one of the biggest advantages it can bring you is a huge improvement in the efficiency of your events. For example, most event management software applications feature a degree of automation; which can include things like automated email outreach, payment processing and registration in the pre-event stage, allowing you and your staff to focus on the creative aspects of your event, rather than being bogged down by the admin. By being able to focus more on engaging your audience, your event will end up being a much better, more memorable experience for your attendees, and saving time on the organisation of your event is a great way to save money, too.

Another benefit to using event management software at your events is that, like with RFID tech, it presents you with some really helpful data that can help you to generate a measurable ROI, as well as increasing it. With event management software in place, you should be able to track the activities and interests of those in attendance, giving you some important data on your audience that you can use in future business ventures, such as your next event, as well as some valuable insights into sales and marketing. You could also use this data to upsell and increase the number of cross-selling opportunities available to you.

With event management software, you are also presented with the opportunity to make your events much more interactive and engaging. For example, with features like smart registration forms, you can gain a better understanding of the goals of those attending and what their interests are; from here, you can do things like recommend particular activities, seminars or features of your event that will be of the most use to each individual attendee and deliver a more personalised, memorable experience.

Eventbrite, a large, US-based event management and ticketing business, saw huge success with their work with the Bournemouth 7s Festival. A spokesperson commented on their blog that “The Eventbrite Organiser App is an amazing tool for a tuned-in festival organiser. The real-time ability to review and understand ticket sales and trends facilitates an amazing understanding of the impact of traditional and digital marketing activity in real time. The management team of our festival absolutely love the ability to review overall numbers, dig down into individual transactions and monitor onsite attendance data all through one easy-to-use and beautifully designed app”. The ability to identify your strongest marketing channels which result in the most ticket sales creates the opportunity to assign marketing budgets which are backed by solid data, therefore making the most of every penny spent.

Event apps

Event apps are one of the most popular event technologies seen today, and they have a wide variety of uses. From providing event information such as schedules and speaker lists, exclusive event networking features, event gamification features and many more; event apps are a great addition to any event as they can fulfil a variety of roles in your event strategy based on what your goals and objectives are, be it to make your events more interactive, more efficient or just more fun! Research from Marketing Charts in 2018 indicates that schedules are one of the most in demand aspects of event apps, with 88% of event attendees describing access to meeting or event schedules in their event apps as being “extremely important”.

We spoke to Jo Walters of BrightonSEO, who commented that: “We've been using an event app for the last few years to help people make the most of the event. We're a multi-track event so remembering which sessions you wanted to see can be tricky, so the app helps people create their own schedule and reminders. It also puts useful information like social events, maps and welfare tips in one place without giving them lots of printed information to carry around. We also use the networking features in the app for lead-scanning and for attendees to chat to each other.”

One of the biggest benefits to using event apps is the considerable increase in the interactivity of your events. In-app audience tools such as live polling, discussion forums and activity streams are a great way to maximise your audience engagement and build interest among attendees. Real-time, audience response technology is another great feature of event apps to give engagement and interactivity a boost, allowing you to get attendee opinions on different aspects of the event, such as seminars, sessions and presentations, which is a great way to both interact with your audience, and also gain valuable insight into the success of your event as a whole.

A lot of event apps can even be linked to various social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, which can lead to increased engagement on a multitude of popular channels, allowing people to connect with each other beyond the event itself. Jo Walters of BrightonSEO commented that “[event tech] contributes to the friendly feeling of our event and our aim of helping people to meet, learn and do their jobs better”

Another great attribute of event apps in boosting the ROI of your events, is the analytics information it provides you with. Detailed analytics reports of every aspect of your event app will usually be available, which can help you to monitor the growth and success of your event, and this data can be used to build better events in the future by attracting new sponsors and speakers.

A final benefit of using event apps is that they can also help to make your events more efficient, especially if they are used in conjunction with other event technologies, such as event management software. Like RFID technology, event apps can also be used to simplify the registration and ticketing/checking in process, which can be automated through some event apps. The integration of ticketing with an in-app payment portal makes for a much more convenient way of managing this aspect of your events than simply doing it manually, and when you have an event app that helps with lots of different areas of your event, such as providing attendees with extra information (including schedules and speakers) and gamification features such as live polls. This might be a better option for you than using RFID technology; it just depends on what your preference is.

Jo Walters of BrightonSEO also saw a real financial return on investment by using event apps, adding that “Our exhibitors value the lead-scanning opportunity provided by our event app so that helps us attract sponsors (which in turn allows us to allocate thousands of free tickets for attendees). Providing information to attendees in this format also reduces the time and money we need to invest in providing printed information and allows us to quickly make changes when needed.”

Our own survey discovered that 69% of event organisers found that using an event app had a positive impact on overall attendee satisfaction, however 27% do not currently use event apps at all.

“We also find fantastic benefits from the event tech we use on the day. We use a till operating system called Izettle which allows us to manage payments for tickets, drinks etc. all via iPad. This not only makes the service faster and more efficient on the day, it helps us to measure stock levels and sales made so that we don’t overorder anything or have any wastage at the next event.”

“In terms of attracting sponsorship using event tech, we have a live podcast booth at the event on the day where we invite sponsors and people of interest to come and contribute to our podcast. This means we have something unique to offer our sponsors which allows for promotion long after the event, making it much easier for us to gain sponsorship.”

And if you want to be ahead of the curb when it comes to using the latest event technologies, there are so many tech options out there that look likely to be the next big thing in the future. With new tools like AI (such as chatbots) and Facial Recognition software, you can combine a variety of exciting and innovative event technologies into your event experience, that can make your event stand out a mile from the rest, and also boost both the interactivity and efficiency of your event.

In our survey, 61% of the respondents agreed with the statement that “Making sure to use the newest event technologies is one of the most important parts of the event” and 54% of respondents agreed with the statement that “Engaging audiences with good event technologies is one of the most important factors in driving sales at events”. If you can find a creative, cutting edge way to incorporate emerging event tech trends into your events, you could see a swift upturn in the revenue, and overall success of your events.

What is the ROI of event tech?

We have now discussed a few of the different types of Event Technology, and how they can be positively implemented into the successful running and delivery of your events. In this section we will go a bit deeper into some of the metrics and measures of success that can prove whether or not your event technologies have brought in a positive ROI or not. After all, to be effective, corporate events must be built on the solid foundation of a positive return on investment, and when there is a decline in business performance, events are usually one of the first areas to get cut. This is typically as a result of running unsuccessful events, or having unclear measures of impact from event activities.

For this reason, it is very important that your events and any respective technologies that you use are able to show a contribution and a value to your business, and there is no better way to show this than through a positive ROI. In fact, research from Eventsforce has found that 3 out of 4 event planners said that calculating ROI and measuring event success was the one reason they collect data from events - highlighting just how important ROI is for events. With so many moving parts and various stakeholders involved in the event planning and event management process, how can you make sure that you are measuring and proving your event success?  This question is the very reason why defining event success metrics should be a high priority task, and to answer this question you need to be aware of the KPIs (key performance indicators) of a successful event.

There is far more to measuring event success than just looking at ticket sales; research by Eventsforce suggests that attendee feedback, number of registrations and actual attendance rates are the top 3 data metrics for measuring event success.  So, it is clear that businesses need to look at multiple key performance indicators in order to gain insight into how well the event as a whole turned out, and how it will affect their company moving forward.

Engagement at events can be measured in a variety of ways. Did online traffic to your website increase in the period after the event? If the event was promoting a brand-new product or service, was there a notable increase in sales, conversions or goal completions related to this new product? Did you see an increase in the number of follows and likes on all of your associated social media accounts? You may have even made some new contacts at the event, which may lead to follow-up meetings and brand-new business opportunities. All of these things and many more represent some good indicators of just how engaging your event was to the attendee.

Many of the event technologies we have discussed can have a great impact on how engaging your attendees find your events. Event applications like Attendify, for example, are great for offering features like social timelines, private, in-event messaging and photo sharing that encourage attendees to get involved and get talking about whatever your event may have to offer.

As Ian Webb of Eventsforce said, event management software can “help drive engagement by delivering personalised attendee experiences”. Jo Walters of BrightonSEO found event apps increase engagement as they use “the networking features in the app for lead-scanning and for attendees to chat to each other.” BrightonSEO has thousands of attendees, so event tech such as networking apps helps people to find and engage with each other rather than just with the event organisers, making the entire event more valuable to the attendee.

KPI 2: Interaction

Whether it’s allowing real-time interaction in presentations or helping attendees to network with each other, interaction is a huge part of the overall event experience. How interactive your event is, is a KPI that goes hand-in-hand with how engaging your event is, and the types of event technology you use are one of the biggest factors in making an event more interactive, more memorable and ultimately more successful. Interaction at events can be measured in a variety of ways, including through survey completions, participation in polls, website visits, social media usage and more; if you can link these types of statistical improvements to an event technology you used, then you will not find many clearer examples of how event tech has proved its worth at your event.

Increased event interaction through event technology isn’t just useful for boosting your data intake. When asked how they measured the success of event tech being used at their events, one of our survey respondents listed the following; “Direct feedback from those in attendance. Better run events, more interaction, ability to raise ticket price based on last year’s event”. Increased interaction between event organiser and attendee is partly responsible for this event organiser being able to raise ticket prices for their next event, resulting in a financial ROI.

KPI 4: Efficiency

Another KPI that can be used to measure the success of event technology, is the idea of efficiency. The day-to-day planning, running and concluding of an event is something that, without event tech like event management software, can take a lot of time and money to complete successfully.

As previously discussed, most event management software systems utilise the automation of admin activities (like email outreach and attendee registrations) that then allow you to focus on other aspects of the event without worrying about the mundane.

A more efficient event, born out of the use of event technology, is also an event less likely to waste money on resources. For example, if you’re event is promoting or selling goods and products, a badly managed, inefficient event could potentially lose a lot of money on the overordering or wastage of goods brought to the event. We have seen that event technology can eliminate this possibility, as Louisa Parry’s example of using Izettle to track stock and sales shows us.

Final considerations regarding event technology

So, we have established what some of the main types of event technology are, the importance of event technology in putting on a successful event and the different ways in which event tech can represent a positive ROI for your business. In this section we will give a brief mention of any further questions you might have regarding the ROI of event technology, and what exactly using event technology will mean for your event and your overall business.

Can event tech ROI represent more than just a financial return?

Yes, without a doubt. When considering what the ROI of any event technologies you use might be, and whether it is positive or not overall, you absolutely must take into account the impact event tech will have on your event as a product of quality. Ultimately, a successful event will boil down to answering any of these questions:

• Does event tech make me money?
• Does event tech save me money?
• Does it help to create a more memorable experience?
• Does it improve participation and engagement?

If your use of an event technology answers “Yes” to any of these questions, then event technology will have resulted in some kind of positive return on the investment. How much value this return ultimately provides, depends on what your overall business goals are.

Can ROI metrics be analysed before the event has even taken place?

Absolutely! Event technology can demonstrate a positive ROI in a variety of ways outside of the actual event itself. An event management software that saves you lots of money in administration costs might not even come into play on the day of the event, or after, but the money and time you save in using it to effectively plan out the event beforehand is a great example of the positive ROI event tech can bring outside of the content of the event itself.

So, is using Event Tech worth it?

With events becoming an ever more integral part of the marketing strategies, brands are seeking to engage with their customers, partners and employees more and more.

While measuring the financial success of an event is important, short term financial gains are not always the sole goal of event professionals.  Although the financial success of a business is a key element to be sustainable, events are capable of providing businesses other benefits to ensure that the business can become a success.

Event organisers should be vigilant in their expectations if their only, or main goal, is to have a direct return on investment through the financial success of using event tech. While this can be achieved through increased ticket sales, confidence in ticket pricing, reducing stock wastage or attracting sponsorship, event tech offers so much more than just a monetary value ROI.

There are a variety of other key metrics that can be a great measure of the return on investment of the event, and more importantly, provide the business some irreplaceable gains for the future.

Event Tech Return On Investment:

• It helps to save time on otherwise time-consuming tasks
• It improves attendee engagement and their overall experience at the event
• It enables data collection to gauge attendee satisfaction
• It creates an added offering to sponsors, therefore increasing sponsorship opportunities
• It helps to reduce wastage and over-ordering of goods sold at the event
• It improves the event organisers confidence in pricing and enables data-backed decisions to be made

Very often an engaged and loyal audience can be a much more valuable asset to a business over a longer term. 

Rather than simply meeting with one potential customer, events help business to meet with a whole group of potential customers. It creates the opportunity to positively influence an entire group at one time. This is an economy of scale that is truly advantageous to businesses and influences a ROI beyond the event. Imagine the scheduling problems involved in trying to arrange a one-on-one meeting with each individual in that group. Think about the time and travel that would be involved if those meetings could be scheduled. Technology can enhance the experience through improved communication channels. It can help event organisers connect with more customers, the right customers and at the right time.