Your last event went off without a hitch. Participants loved the venue, the performance was flawless, and the client who rented out the space is already communicating about your next partnership. To that end, all your venue marketing efforts were a success, right?
Not necessarily.
There are a host of factors that contribute to an event marketing strategy’s success. And to understand what went right and what went wrong, you need to evaluate the results based on key metrics. Then, you can begin the process of optimization.
Let’s discuss how to measure your venue’s marketing success.
Set SMART Goals
What are your expectations for the event? How many people do you think will attend? How many do you need to attend to break even?
With venues, it’s difficult to measure marketing success without first setting tangible goals, also known as SMART goals. These are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
By setting these goals beforehand, you can later perform a review to see how your expectations matched up to reality. If you fall short, that could be reflective of your marketing efforts.
Measuring Brand Awareness
One of the primary purposes of venue marketing is to increase awareness and buzz around the event. Drumming up interest can help boost attendance and sales.
Common indicators to track include:
- Event registrations – The total number of registrations is the most important top of the funnel metric that lets you gauge how many people plan on attending.
- Social media reach and engagement – When it comes to big events, social media is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. How many likes, shares, and comments did posts about the event garner? Those numbers will indicate whether your marketing is landing.
- Online media mentions – Are you also marketing via traditional outlets? If it’s a larger event there should be mentions about it online.
- Website traffic – If people learn about your venue, they’ll likely conduct research on your website. The total number of website visits, particularly from new visitors can be an important way you can gauge marketing success.
Event Engagement
Once the time for the event actually comes, you can start gathering your success metrics. These include:
- Event check-ins – This figure represents the total number of attendees to an event. By comparing this to the total number of registrations, you can see your visit-to-purchase conversion rate and attendance rate.
- Event surveys – Getting guests in the door matters, but it’s only one aspect of success. You also have to make sure that they had a good time and are likely to come back. Event surveys are one of the best ways you can gauge attendee satisfaction and receive actionable feedback—whether good or bad.
- Sales numbers – Depending on the event there may be a variety of figures that contribute to overall revenue, including ticket sales, food and alcohol, merchandise, and so on. Once you have calculated your total revenue, you can then compare your overhead costs, with an emphasis on your marketing costs. Ideally, you also want to have your historic numbers on hand to compare the most recent event to previous ones.
Put Your Venue on the Map with Semgeeks
Measuring a venue’s marketing success is a more difficult task compared to other industries. It’s less clear whether your actions had a direct impact on attendance and sales or were simply correlative.
This is why it’s essential to set goals, measure pre-attendance KPIs, and event engagement, then compare all of those figures to historic data.
Do you want to increase your venue’s reach?
The team at Semgeeks can help. As a SEM marketing agency, we have the professional expertise and the tools you need to build a marketing campaign and continuously optimize it.
What does that look like? Contact us today!
Sources:
Mind Tools. Smart Goals. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm
