Meetings technology provider Cvent soon will help companies
place meetings volume, spend, budgeting, return on investment metrics and other
strategic meetings information in the context of industry practices, when it
releases findings from a survey of 2,200 meeting planners, corporate executives
and event marketing professionals. It’s a data gap that has stymied meetings
professionals, said Cvent co-founder and president of worldwide sales and marketing Chuck Ghoorah,
and one reason they have not become more strategic players within their organizations.
“Benchmarking is a critical way to have a discussion with
the C-level suite,” he said. “At that level, they want to know if they were
above [or] below the industry curve.” According to the Cvent study, 94 percent
of corporate executives surveyed already believed their organization’s meetings
were effective. That belief, however, often is based on what Ghoorah calls
“tribal knowledge,” rather than hard numbers. Some may have centralized data
that can show year-over-year spend and revenue goals realized from a specific
meeting or even a group of meetings. What has been missing, said Ghoorrah, is that
the eye of a disinterested party can broaden the perspective. And that, he
added, is what the C-suite really wants.
On the planning side, he said, benchmarking helps set
targets and build the business case to ask for what meetings pros need to push
meetings performance to the next level. “With this research in the market,
planners may have the opportunity to say, ‘If you give me budget, I can be here
on the benchmark curve; if you starve my budget, I may have suboptimal
performance.'”
ROI Strategies
Cvent surveyed meetings professionals across eight meeting
types. Trade shows and conferences loomed largest in the survey, permeating 64
percent of the respondent base. These were followed by training workshops at 57
percent and internal meetings at 56 percent. The benchmarking metrics offered
in the Cvent report largely focused on the trade show and conference segment,
where registration fees, sponsorships, sales leads and other revenue streams
can be tracked to calculate ROI.
Survey respondents leaned heavily upon registration fees,
sponsorships and exhibitor fees to recoup the upfront costs of hosting a trade show
or conference. Overall, registrations fees recouped 61 percent of event costs,
while sponsorships enabled meeting hosts to claw back 51 percent and exhibitor
fees made up for 33 percent. It stands to reason, then, that meeting organizers
looked to increase attendance by an average of 22 percent year-over-year as the
most effective way to offset costs.
The survey showed varying degrees of success in increasing
attendance. Trade show and conference planners fell slightly short of goal,
realizing 20 percent annual increases. Slightly more than half of respondents raised
registration costs throughout the registration window, both as a booking
incentive and to realize incremental revenue closer to the event.
Given their ability to drive revenue, registration and
exhibitor fees figured heftily into ROI calculations, as well. Thirty-seven
percent of respondents tracked registration fees as part of ROI, while 32
percent tracked sponsorships. A quarter of survey participants tracked sales-lead
generation as an element of ROI, while one-fifth looked at new business won and
16 percent measured client retention.
The study also examined budgeting, marketing, content and
event logistics timelines that meetings stakeholders can compare to their own practices.
ROI: The Next
Generation
In terms of ROI measurement, lead generation is the rising
star, according to Ghoorah, both for Cvent and its customers. “In the past,
people measured increased attendance, expenses and hard-dollar ROI. It’s all
important,” he said. “With new technologies out there and with the expectations
of attendees, we are now starting to measure the level of engagement as an
indicator of ROI. That’s why the [Cvent] mobile app is flying off the shelves.
That is often how we are starting customer conversations now; it’s starting
with the concept of engagement.”
But it’s not just the mobile app. Ghoorah said Cvent’s most
advanced attendee-engagement proponents are following the event journey from
the moment of registration, increasing the lead’s engagement “score” every time
they complete a significant action. Registration ups the lead score a certain
number of points; attendance provides another boost. Visiting booths, using the
mobile app or polling tool, and posting images on a “social wall” all are engagement
indicators. Integrating those lead scores with a customer relationship
management tool like Salesforce or Eloqua, he said, provides a new view of ROI
for the organization. “Obviously, not everyone is doing this, but the
progressive companies, they are starting to see the results,” he said. “They
can see 30, 60 and 90 days out, whereas before it was all tribal knowledge.”
Cvent is starting to see results from the engagement trend,
as well, and it’s changing the company’s business mix.
“We are moving squarely into onsite event technology,” said
Ghoorah. “Our mobile apps, social walls, polling, etc. The C-level suite can
see it, touch it, feel it. They can see all this interaction [of attendees]
with their companies. It used to be that event tech was all back-office
operations; it’s great but a thankless job. When the C-level sees the
interaction now possible and they see how meetings professionals are connecting
the brands with clients and partners, they get excited and they want to fund it
more.
“Planners have struggled to get out of the tactical weeds
and take their rightful seat in the corporate boardroom and to be known for the
value they bring to the enterprise,” Ghoorah added. “They need data and
technology to do that. They can have that now.”