Event Marketers are often set KPIs in terms of Return on Investment (ROI). This can be in the form of minimizing cost outlay, while at the same time, increasing the topline of an event.
Here, we look at 7 possible ways for an event marketer to increase their Event Marketing ROI:
1) Sell Merchandise
Adding merchandise as an optional item during the registration process helps to generate additional revenue for events, while at the same time, offers a branding opportunity beyond the conference period. Collection of merchandise would typically be at the event itself, to also facilitate the production of the merchandise instead of pre-production, to ensure minimum wastage.
2) Hotel bookings
Quite a number of events are typically held at hotel ballrooms or at a location near a hotel. With possible foreign delegates accounting for 10-15% of a typical conference, having tie-ups with hotels for preferential rates for hotel booking will benefit your attendees, while at the same time allowing you to generate extra revenue from the tie-up with hotels.
3) Networking Party
Networking over after-event drinks always works well, especially if you have a sizeable audience from outside the home country. Leads are often generated from such casual set-up and exhibitors more than welcome such after-event parties. Cost can easily be covered by a sponsor, while we have also seen organisers charge $100 per ticket for networking parties with unlimited booze, with a positive sign-up rate as well.
4) Sponsorship
Event sponsorship always helps to generate significant ROI for events. Check out our popular article on 10 sponsorship ideas for your event.
5) Survey for Leads
Most events would rely on foot traffic to exhibitor booths as a form of leads for exhibitors. Surveys would help to increase the amount of information made available to event organisers to find feedback and future interest areas to plan the next event, while at the same time, offer some information which would be offered to premium partners. As a call-to-action to gather sufficient survey responses, a gift is typically appreciated among event respondents, which could be sponsored as well by companies who want to get their brand in front of the survey respondents.
6) Volunteers as Staff
Temporary staff for events always bears a significant part of manpower cost. Working with educational institutions who offer hospitality and MICE courses would definitely help in cushioning such cost, as schools would like their students to be exposed to real-time working scenarios. At the same time, schools would ensure that their students would turn up, lowering the possibility of no-shows which could happen for temporary staff.
7) Workshop with Keynote Speaker
Often, mid-size to large conferences will pay a significant fee for their keynote speaker. This can range from the thousands to hundred of thousands, where most of the time, the commitment is for a day of work.
To further optimize the cost spent on the keynote speaker, a joint workshop with an exhibitor/sponsor as a sub-track could be created to further enhance the value of this sub-track, while at the same time, selling this workshop to potential suitable partners who are keen to leverage on the brand name of the keynote speaker.
Generating revenue from events is getting more challenging year-by-year so start to look at the possible ways above to generate a positive Marketing ROI.
