The power of event data, and how an event planner can master it!

Event data is crucial in helping organisations better understand every little step of the attendee journey at their events. As a result, this journey paints a picture of what the attendee experienced, the sessions which attracted them the most and their actions throughout. If event planners know how to understand the patterns and behaviours of their audience – event data can be incredibly valuable.

The events industry is collecting more data than ever before. Event apps, registration software, AI matchmaking, virtual event platforms – these tools are made for the audience, and the purpose of the platforms are designed to measure behaviour. However, data management has always been a challenge for event planners – from understanding, analysis, and future opportunities. The keyword here is opportunity – opportunity means results, it means return on investment, and it means revenue/profits. So, we’ve got three key steps on how organisations can understand event data, see below:

1) Event ROI

It’s the primary reason to measure the success of an event. It’s the value of business won vs the amount spent. This can look different for every organisation, so as a planner, you’ve got to define the event type, the objective, and what the result will look like at the end of the event. The outcomes may look like this: new opportunities, pipeline acceleration, customer engagement or retention.

Use event technology solutions to capture the engagement data for your expected outcomes. The best bit about event technology – they’re designed to capture exactly what you need: registration software, NFC /RFID tap tools, marketing automation software, event apps – just to name a few.

2) Planning for the future

Whether you’re planning to improve your events, or to simply improve your organisation - the data can be analysed to gauge how your audience feel – you can capture emotional data. Here are some questions you can find answers to:

• Who were the attendees?
• What were their interests?
• How often do they attend the events?
• Attendance vs non-attendance?
• What are the survey submissions telling us?
• What were their biggest interests at the event?
• What did they least like?
• What do they want to see more of?

3) Generating leads and sales

With the right automation tool, you’ll be able to group attendees into relevant categories. This will help you better understand their background, pain points and business needs. For example, if you hosted an event for pharmaceutical products, and you had medical professionals as your attendees, the software should be able to segment them on the basis of the department they work for, the city, company etc.

Secondly, personalise the content in your follow-up communications. You’ll know exactly what they liked at the event, because you captured their interests using the event technology solution. That’s power to you as an event organiser.

We caught up with Steve Whittle, Event & Experiences Evangelist & Marketeer, and we asked him about his thoughts on event data throughout his planning process:

Steve says: “As an event planner, I think the future of event data analytics is bright! By harnessing the power of data analytics, we can gain insights into what works and what doesn't in our events, making us more efficient and effective in the planning process. We can also use data to better understand our attendees, tailoring our events to better meet their needs. All in all, I believe that data analytics will play a key role in the future of event planning!”

Steve is regularly active on Twitter (@youreventsguy), sharing great insight into event trends and advice for better event planning – check out his Linktree here, he’s got awesome resources!