When planning an event, you do not want to be flying blind. Insight into what people appreciate and what they respond to well can help you create more effective events that will bring in leads and drive growth for your organization.
Effective data analysis can give you a window into the responses of your target audience, whether you are planning corporate events, trade shows, or conferences of any size. As you start to plan your upcoming occasion, have a data collection plan in place so that you can gather and analyze this critical information and use it to connect with your audience more effectively.
Let’s explore what you need to know about the role of data in your event planning.
Understanding Event Data Collection
If you haven’t used event data collection before, you want to start at the very beginning. So, let’s break down what this event data consists of and the value it offers event professionals.
What is Event Data Collection?
Event data collection is the gathering of data related to event attendance, engagement, and impressions that you can use to better understand what people thought of your event and the impact of the occasion on your leads and sales.
To use data collection effectively, you want to gather various types of information. Some of the most common types of event data collection include:
- Ticket sales
- Event app downloads and engagement
- Landing page traffic
- Repeat versus new attendees for your event
- Post-event surveys and feedback
- The costs of the event compared to your initial budget and overall ROI
- The funds brought in through sponsors
- Returning versus new sponsors and their investments
- Sponsor ROI
Why is Data Collection Important for Event Professionals?
Gathering this data plays a critical role for event professionals. Looking at the event from all these different perspectives will give you a close look at how well your events interest your target audience and potential leads. You will better understand what people thought of your event and whether they felt they gained value from the experience.
As you plan future events, you can use this information to improve attendee experiences and boost your ROI. For example, if your sponsors and attendees rank the networking experiences highly but also report feeling that they didn’t have enough time, expand this portion and highlight the networking opportunities as a perk for sponsors for future events. You can also use insight from your data to identify the types of speakers that people appreciate the most or the types of workshops they would want to participate in.
Strategies for Effective Event Data Collection
Now that you have a better idea of what event data can offer your organization, it helps to examine the methods you can use to gather this data more closely.
Pre-Event Data Collection Techniques
Initiate your data collection before the event begins. You can use your registration forms and surveys to gather information about your participants as well as the demographics and job roles of the people signing up for your event.
You can also use social media insights and event management platforms to collect data about your typical attendee. Keep this information gathering running throughout the entire registration period.
On-Site Data Collection Methods
You can use a variety of technological strategies to gather information about your attendees and their engagement during the event. Right from the first interaction, when people check-in, you can use digital kiosks to gather real-time feedback on your participants. Your check-in process can gather information such as how many registrants showed up and their intended session attendance.
Mobile apps can also provide additional information and opportunities to connect with attendees. You can prompt people to share pictures during the event, ask for feedback periodically, and observe how engaged and interested they seem during the different sessions.
RFID and NFC offer different ways to track attendee data during the event. RFID, or radio frequency identification, can be embedded in registration badges and then used to track attendance during different sessions.
NFC is not used as frequently, but it can still be valuable for event data collection. It allows two-way communication, so businesses can use it to collect data during registration and check-in or any other high-contact points during the event.
Post-Event Data Gathering
Your event-gathering strategies should not end when the event finishes. Speaking with your participants can give you a better idea of their thoughts and what parts they appreciated the most. Conducting follow-up surveys can help you gain insight into how they gauged the quality of the sessions and speakers and what they thought could be improved moving forward.
In addition to sending out post-event surveys, it helps to analyze social media engagement. You can track hashtags and conversations related to your brand and event to learn more about what people have to say.
Tools and Technologies for Event Data Collection
Now that you see all the different types and ways you can collect information from your participants, consider the tools and technologies that can help you make sense of it.
Software and Platforms
The market offers a variety of tools that can help with data collection. A few of the different types of systems you might employ include:
Event management software: This includes platforms like Eventbrite and Cvent. While Eventbrite typically targets smaller events, Cvent generally works with larger occasions. However, A2Z Events offers a comprehensive platform that enhances event management and can incorporate registration management and data with kiosks, floor plan management, apps, and outstanding integrations for an improved overall experience.
Website analytics systems: Using platforms like Google Analytics can help you watch website traffic for your landing page and overall web traffic before, during, and after the event.
Event apps: The platform you use for your event app can help you track usage and how people engage with your event.
Email providers: Your email provider can help you track your event’s open rates and engagement rates with email promotions.
Integrating Data Collection Tools
As you consider all of these different data collection forms, however, you may start to wonder how you will keep all your efforts accurate and consistent across the different platforms. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.
- Use uniform registration forms so you get consistent information regardless of where the person signs up.
- Use universal post-event surveys so people give you the same data in the same format.
- Before incorporating a new technology into your event planning, make sure it integrates well with your existing systems.
- Look at platforms like A2Z Events that not only integrate well with other systems but also give you more comprehensive solutions, so you need fewer integrations.
Analyzing Event Data
Once you collect your event data, you want to make sense of your different sources of information so you can fill in the picture of the occasion and see what you want to improve and what you want to keep consistent. Effective data analysis is the cornerstone of this step of your plan.
Data Analysis Techniques
Some of your data comes through quantitative surveys, where you used questions that gave people predefined options. For example, you might ask them ‘yes or no’ questions or ask them to rate or rank portions of the event. You can then combine all the different ratings and get concrete statistics on people’s impressions. This type of analysis is known as quantitative analysis.
You also have information you can gather through more open-ended responses. When you ask people for impressions or to give their thoughts in response to surveys or prompts, you can collect information through qualitative data analysis. Since your answers to these questions will not necessarily follow a consistent format, you analyze this data for patterns and common or repeated insights.
There are a variety of different tools and software you can use to analyze your event data. Platforms like A2Z Events also offer data reporting capabilities that can help you quickly capture and visualize your data for easy reference. Other tools, like Google Analytics, can help you build personalized website reports according to your specific criteria.
If you want tools to help you understand your qualitative data, you might consider looking at analysis tools such as:
- Cauliflower
- NVivo
- Quirkos
Interpreting Data Insights
Once the analysis of your different data points starts coming in, interpreting it can help you plan for future events and maximize the value you bring your business. Consider the following scenarios:
- You analyze your registration data and notice that while your emails received many sign-ups, your social media promotions did not. This will tell you to capitalize on your email promotions for a future event while also approaching your social media sign-ups from a different angle.
- Your data about the source of traffic that converts on your event landing page can help you identify the most popular sources of online promotion, which can then help you enhance your promotions moving forward.
- The ratings and reviews people give your speakers and break-out sessions can help you select your future speakers and how you promote your various talks and seminars during the event.
Discuss the results you gather from your team and brainstorm ways you can put this data to work for you as you review the event and start planning the next one.
Applying Data Insights to Improve Future Events
Once your initial event is over, you need to review how everything went and then start making plans for the next occasion. All the insight you collected can help make this event even more engaging than the last.
Enhancing Attendee Experience
The data can help you personalize attendee interactions and experiences through:
- Incorporating attendees’ past attendance, roles, and interests into interactions
- Personalizing email invitations for attendance
- Using apps to send personalized notifications about sessions and speakers
Optimizing Event Logistics
The data you collect can also optimize your event logistics by guiding your decision-making on:
- Venue selection
- Scheduling
- Speakers and sessions
- Additional activities and networking opportunities
Measuring and Improving ROI
Once the event is over, one of the first questions you will ask is whether the occasion provided a positive ROI for your organization. You want to know if it positively impacted your business’s bottom line and helped you bring in new customers.
Measuring ROI can be complicated because few people will purchase because of a single interaction, such as attending an event. Instead, they might attend an event and then go online to request a product demo, or they might engage with your brand online and read your articles, attend a webinar, and then attend an event while interacting with a sales representative and convert. Therefore, you have a few strategies at your fingertips.
- You can compare the rate of your traffic and sales in the weeks following your event to those before.
- You can look at your active leads who attend your event and their conversion rate following the event.
- You might consider how many attendees become leads following the event.
As you build your ROI calculations and estimates, always look for areas of improvement. If your event did an excellent job of encouraging conversion among existing leads but was poor in bringing in new leads, you might look at strategies for improving event promotion and interest among prospects, which you can turn into leads, for example. Evaluating your ROI from these different perspectives can provide you with a roadmap for your event moving forward.
Conclusion: Incorporating Event Data Collection into Your Next Event
Hosting an event is one thing. Learning how to take and leverage that event to improve future events is an entirely new level. Event data collection and analysis can guide your planning decisions and give you the information you need to plan events that keep your users returning to your company.
If you have not done a thorough job of collecting your event data in the past, now is the time to start gathering your information to use it to guide your business decisions and prepare events that will bring your company greater success. See how the tips above can help you get started.
