How to Measure ROI from an Event

So you're planning on event, but you want to make sure you're getting a good return on your investment. This is sometimes hard to do in the event industry.

David Preston of Active Network has a great article on ROI in events.

What to measure? And how? Preston suggests you have a set number of relevant and measurable objectives, then use standard (and proven) methods to collect data to see if the objectives were met.

Here’s a list of suggested event objectives:

Business Impact – how do you want the event to impact key business measures, such as sales or profit?
Behaviour – what specific actions do you want participants to take as a result of attending e.g. visit a website, sign up to a mailing list?
Learning – cognitive change always has to precede behavioral change to change behavior i.e. participants have to ‘learn’ something – be it information, skills, attitudes and relationships. All aspects of every event will support at least one of these categories of learning.

When you set these objectives and plan and execute the event accordingly,  you can measure results along the chain of impact:

Did you create a good learning environment?
Did the group learn something?
And what was the business impact of their behaviour?


Read the entire article HERE.