Post-Event Evaluation: Learning from Your Successes (and Failures)

Reflecting on an event should be an integral part of your project, for each project involves successes and challenges. Often, in the scramble to complete the current project and rush into the next project we overlook the evaluation stage. Then, it becomes a missed opportunity. The evaluation stage provides opportunities to recognize important learning which will make better decisions and sharper strategies for the next event. Evaluation of an event can provide improvements for long term results and to develop more impactful experiences for attendees.  

The evaluation stage provides the opportunity to convert feedback and data into actionable insights. The four areas to evaluate are the satisfaction of attendees, networking, event logistics, and return-on-investment. This approach allows for continuous improvement and evolution with each event. Post-event evaluation also allows event organizers to learn from experiences and not simply repeat mistakes, while also ensuring events are each progressively more successful than the last.   

Key Areas for Evaluation

Attendee Satisfaction:

One of the most important measures for any event is the satisfaction of the attendees. Assessing attendee satisfaction can be done through reviewing surveys and feedback forms. Even informal conversations recorded during and after the event are useful to identify which attendees were satisfied and which had less than a desirable experience. The feedback provided by attendees provides direct insights into what attendees liked and disliked about their experience and what could have made the event more enjoyable.  

 Event Goals & Objectives: 

 Each event is made with specific goals to pursue–whether that’s to raise brand awareness or launching a product, or to generate leads. After the event you will want to evaluate if you attained these goals. Did the event accomplish its objectives?  

It is important to make a clear comparison of what you set out to do and what you achieved. When it came to engagement of attendees through interactive sessions, how many people really participated? Assessing where your event exceeded expectations and where it fell short in relation to the original goals offers the clearest picture of how successful it really was.  

Return on Investment (ROI): 

Calculating return on investment as part of any post-event evaluation is critical. While traditional ROI refers specifically to financial, and involve measuring revenue generated against event costs, we must also consider the number of intangible benefits. Events represent real value in terms of brand awareness, networking, and relationships…even if it doesn’t always get recorded on sheet.  

Write down and calculate event costs–venue, technology, marketing. To compare direct event revenue to revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships and closed business because of the there are additional non-monetary improvements you to assess too, such as increased customer satisfaction, better brand reputation, and relationship development that could results in revenue in the future.  

Lead Generation and Conversion: 

Lead generation is typically one of the highest priorities of any event, especially in a B2B environment. So in addition to measuring leg numbers it is also important to assess lead quality, as are these leads aligned with the intended audience for the event?  

It is also valuable to assess how effectively the event assisted in converting leads into potential clients or customers. How effective was your follow up and how many of the leads converted to business? Following up on lead conversions is essential to help access the overall value of the event in terms of business development.  

Networking and Engagement: 

Networking is one of the most valuable aspects of an event, and you want to look at the effectiveness of your events ability to provide networking opportunities. Were the attendees connecting with each other, engaging with the speakers or with the exhibitors? Did your event create purposeful, engaging dialogue?  

In measuring success for networking, determine the number of one-on-one meetings, the number of attendees that participated in any networked session, as well as participant comments about their networking experience. Consider what factors allowed for the positive networking experience, was it the event, the environment or perhaps the use of a tool like matchmaking technology? An important part of evaluating networking is determining the factors that created success in your event design; it can help you create more effective networking experiences for future events. 

Event Logistics and Execution: 

As a reminder, the operational aspect of the event is of equal importance as the content. Reflect on logistical components, were they all well-managed? This includes from registration and setting your sessions , to venue lay-out and managing the tech. After the event, reflect and consider how the operational phase was managed. Did you experience registration challenges? Did sessions start and finish as planned? Were there logistics or delays which exposed weaknesses in operational planning? 

Social Media Engagement 

 Social media engagement is an ever-important measure in today’s digital society, it acts as an important barometer for measuring event success. Social media engagement will be useful in giving an indication of overall success. Did attendees engage with social media, and share their event and brand experience, and participate in content online?  

Social media engagement reporting will allow you to measure mentions, shares, and likes and comments on you engagement’s, however, sentiment analysis is just as important. Are the comments or sentiment positive or critiquing? Analyzing this discourse, will highlight trends, perceptions, and influencers who positively responded to your event and shared the word.By critically assessing these key areas, you will not only be able to celebrate the success of your event, but also gather valuable learnings that will help you deliver even more successful events in the future.   

Data Collection and Analysis Tools   

 When it comes to conducting a post-event analysis, the right data collection tools and analysis is incredibly important. They will help track all the key performance indicators (KPI’s) and provide information to help shape your future logistical and strategic events. Below we provide some of the common tools for collecting and in valuating the data after an event., and how it can be used in a post-event analysis.  

 Event Management Software:  

 Event management software, such as Samaaro, is an essential tool for monitoring the success of any event. Event management platforms like Samaaro have features for monitoring attendance, engagement, and lead generation.  

With Samaaro, you can track your attendee’s behaviour in real-time, all the way from registration, check-in through to participation in the sessions. Samaaro’s platform can yield detailed data on which sessions attendees joined, including duration of engagement and which content was most viewed. Samaaro also allows you to capture leads at all data capture touch points throughout the event, whether its attendees downloading a brochure, completing polls or booking a one-on-one meeting with a presenter.  

From an engagement perspective, Samaaro’s event management software can also integrate directly with tools such as CRM application to help you with lead generation and streamlining conversions to different brands. Furthermore, Samaaro’s software is automatic, so you can generate reports of things like session popularity, traffic flows, and your networking opportunities in a seamless manner. This not only makes your post-event assessment easier – but it allows you to take valuable information from all your collected data to help influence how you can improve future events even further.  

Survey Tools:    

Surveys provide direct feedback of the event experience from the attendees point of view. Tools such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey can be useful for collecting the responses of several different areas of the overall event (such as the content being presented, satisfaction, etc.) Since feedback from survey tools provides you with attendee experiential data, with survey tools you can gather both what event elements were successful while also identifying areas that required strict improvements to enhance the overall experience of the event in the future.  

Social Media Analytics:  

Social media platforms can show you how involved engaged attendees were in online discussions before, during and after the event. Now you can mine any publicly available data where your event was mentioned directly by attendees, but also consider mentions using the event hashtag, as well as any likes or shares of event related content. Using tools such as Hootsuite or native analytics can assist you in this process and give you an overall impression of your event’s digital impact based on your attendees engagement. Specifically, feedback from social media often will highlight popular aspects of the event as well as ways that improvements can still be made based on the reaction from attendees of those aspects.  

 CRM Software:   

CRM software such as Salesforce or HubSpot, can track any leads that were generated during the event. Depending on your event planning software, you may be able to integrate your event management software with the CRM application which will make it easier to follow-up with leads and track conversions. You will gain insights about your event from both lead generation and the effectiveness of your efforts to nurture those leads post-event. 

 The primary reason for all of these tools is you can use them together to get a detailed evaluation of your event performance. Event management tools, like Samaaro, let you track attendee activities in real-time while survey tools provide you with direct feedback from attendees. Social media analytics allow you to access audience sentiment and the overall digital presence of your event. Customer relationship management (CRM) software keeps you honest about lead generation and even conversions with activities tracked. Every one of these tools will facilitate a data-driven approach when evaluating your event post-execution, and combined, will help you become more strategic about planning the next one.  

Best Practices for Post-Event Evaluation

Identify Clear Goals : 

When it comes to defining your event goals, ask what you hope to learn from the event. Do you want to measure overall attendee satisfaction, or how many leads were generated, or better yet if attendees enjoyed networking. Whatever it may be, determine your areas of focus during the evaluation upfront, while sticking to your specific goals in identifying your data.  

Access Data from Various Sources : 

To get a more comprehensive view of your event, you will need to combine various data points as sources. Surveys allow you to drill into their overall feedback directly from attendees, while social media sites provide a measurable public persona detailing sentiment and engagement from those posts; Event management tools like Samaaro can provide metrics related to attendance, session attendance, even lead generation to contribute to making a more complete picture of an event’s success.  

Analyze metrics in greater detail : 

Utilize more than just surface level metrics. Look at your overall attendance numbers and engagement of attendees e.g. did they come and go, attend the whole event, or even participate in every session? There are other details that could reveal themselves, but you will only find them if you review those details fully.  

Determine positives and negatives : 

Using your data allows you to discover patterns relating to strengths or areas of development. By noting positive feedback, this can help you direct similar successes in your room when evaluating challenges for future events. Look for common feedback patterns or details from engagement that may help you establish systemic answers to areas to attack for improvement.  

Communicate to the team : 

Communicating your data and analysis of that data to your event team gradually with the rest of your stakeholders will help you communicate the success or challenges. Making all the accomplishments and areas of development is essential for everyone to be on the same page and collaborates for the best possible outcomes for performing the next event better.  

Conclusion  

Post-Event evaluation is an essential stage of event planning to gain knowledge from improvements and challenges. Identifying clear goals, collecting data from multiple sources and taking time to analyse your data, can not only provide value for decision-making and development, but for all future events as well. The desire to maximize the attendee experience, logistical manoeuvres, lead generations will only come with time, through an iterative process of thorough evaluations of each event to the next.  

Are you ready to elevate your events? Book a demo of Samaaro and start your free trial to see how our platform can help leverage this.