Getting at the ROI of an experiential event like a corporate meeting, conference, product launch, retail event, media event, mobile tour or street team deployment has been a longtime challenge, and the definition of “return” can vary by category or product. But there’s not a lot of mystery around how to gather data — and with the advent of mobile, there are more options than ever for marketers to gather useful information from their trade show booth, mobile tour, experiential stunt or other live activation.
Here’s a quick rundown of 9 ways to gather metrics and data that can help you assess the effectiveness of your live event — tactics that can obviously be mixed-and-mingled, depending on your need, to give you the insights you’re looking for:
1. In-Event Digital Quizzes: During their event experience, digital Q&As — either in tablet-based or push-to-mobile formats — can offer up “fun quiz questions” that will assess their engagement and let you compile nearly real-time results.
2. Post-Event Surveys: A postcard or interview are traditional tactics, but for opt-ins, a followup email survey can assess their response and takeaways.
3. In-Event Wireless Tracking: A WiFi/iBeacon transponder could be integrated into your footprint, allowing you to track general metrics on how many mobile users visited the site, for how long, how they engaged with it.
4. Brand Ambassador Engagement: There’s no substitute for dialogue with consumers. Event teams should be instructed to ask questions and gather general/specific responses from guests on what they’ve experiences, how they feel about a brand, as well as gathering other on-the-ground data that can be reported.
5. Sweepstakes/Contest Participation & Viralization: If you run a digital sweepstakes or contest as a post-event engagement tactic, the number of opt-ins provides a general metric.
6. Content Sharing: If you offer “exclusive” or free content as a post-event bonus, the volume of participation in accessing/sharing content, videos and posting their own content can be a more focused indicator of program impact.
7. Website/Social Media Quizzes: A pop-up “user response” poll at our microsite can assess visitor engagement at both our microsite and in E.U.C. social feeds can assess audience responses to the program and their takeaways.
8. Social Media Listening, Search Audits and Site Monitoring: Using social media listening tools, track mentions of your brand and associated keywords, and monitor searches for keywords, and analyze/report on traffic and user behaviors at your website or a program microsite.
9. Rewards Redemption: Analytics of an audience’s redemption rate on rewards such as coupons distributed at the event, or exclusive/tutorial content downloads or other items is a classic effectiveness metric.
