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Each issue of CMO Close-up features an interview with a CMO, as well as other marketing executives answering that issue's "Big Question."
This week's feature:
Close-up with Laura Howard, CMO, ECI Telecom
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Measuring engagement a good way to prove event ROI
Erin Biba
Story posted: September 14, 2009 - 6:01 am EDT
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Generating leads is not enough anymore for event marketers in the current economy. Now marketers need to prove that those leads are high-quality customers and business partners that will champion a company long after the event booths have closed. One way to do that is to measure something that seems more conceptual then physical: engagement.
Measuring engagement can ultimately assist marketers in building more sincere relationships between event attendees and a brand. According to Elizabeth Pinkham, senior VP-events at Salesforce.com, a company that builds online programs for customer relationship management, it has become more important for marketers to understand the impact and value of dollars being spent. Knowing how attendees are inspired by an event—how they are engaged—is critical.
“The event is not a stand-alone program; it's just one chapter in the overall journey for that attendee. A complete marketing cycle is in play,” she said. “Ensuring the event delivers highly relevant information is essential for [attendees] to justify attendance and invest their time to engage with your company.”
According to Laura Ramos, VP-principal analyst at Forrester Research, measuring engagement is especially important in b-to-b. “It's really resonating with [b-to-b marketers],” she said. “The thing that's challenging them is what does it mean to be engaged and what does it mean in terms of the value that goes to the relationship-building process.”
Ramos said that there are four main objectives when it comes to measuring engagement:
1) Involvement—Is the attendee participating in the event, going to the marketing touch points such as the event's Web site and Twitter page, or simply spectating?
2) Interaction—Are they taking action once they are there, exploring the event, downloading information and commenting?
3) Intimacy—Is the attendee de-monstrating affection or aversion for your brand?
4) Influence—What is the likelihood that, after an event, attendees will advocate on behalf of the brand?
Though engagement seems more conceptual rather than physical, there are ways to measure it—especially in the virtual world. According to Jeorg Rathenberg, senior director of marketing at Unisfair, a virtual event company, the best way to think about engagement is “the level of activity that your attendees are showing.”
Engagement is simple to measure online: “How many chats did attendees have and with whom? How many and which white papers were downloaded? Did attendees fill out a survey? How long did they stay at a certain place? It's a complex metric that includes time, activity and content,” he said.
Because every single aspect of a virtual event can be measured, event marketers can be very detailed in ascertaining engagement.
Creating an engagement metric does not seem quite as simple when transferred to the live event. However, at Salesforce.com measuring engagement takes place pre-, during and postevent.
“We look at many key metrics for defining engagement—starting with defining the target audience for the event, and the full suite of communications (e-mails, Web sites, demand generation, telemarketing, referral campaigns, etc.) that promote the event program,” said Salesforce's Pinkham. “Response to the invitation communications are closely measured—everything from click-through, to the open rate and to registration percentages.”
According to Forrester's Ramos, as event marketers begin to scale back on the events they're attending and running, the level of engagement will become more important. “If you're not being engaging, you don't know who your audience is. You're either too broad in the net you're trying to cast or you're not talking about things they want to hear about. You're not thinking about a conversation.” Building relationships, she said, and differentiating yourself are the ultimate goals. M
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3 Comments
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Francis Friedman
President, Time & Place Strategies, Inc.
December 22, 2009 02:38 pm
As a consultant to the tradeshow industry one of the presuppositions in this reserch is that every exhibitor has a perfect booth and every booth staff person is highly treined and highly motivated to actively engage tradeshow attendees. We know from experience that this is not true. We know from experience that the quality of the booth staff, their personal motivation and their skills vary all over the lot. So we can ask what is actually being measured? Is the event being measure or is the quality of staff performance being measured?
Since exhibiting is a defined marketing activity, booth staff engagement performance metrics can be set pre-show based upon the training and assessment of the booth staff. On-site booth staff engagement can be measured against pre-show booth staff benchmarks for their on-site performance. Through this approach to metrics the exhibitor can sort out his booth staff performance from the tradeshow itself and better determine if it is the booth staff or the tradeshow that needs to be re-thought in the future.
Barry Wegener
Carlson Marketing
September 16, 2009 06:05 pm
In two weeks there will be another white paper available commenting on this incredibly important topic. Carlson Marketing has fielded research that links engagement (and the measurement thereof) to business objectives (usually profitability). The paper -- The Link Between Engagement, Gratitude and Profitability -- will be released on September 28 and you can download it at http://engagement.carlsonmarketing.com/Frame.aspx?page=WhitePapers.
While at the site, you might also want to check out the other Engagement papers: Heart of Engagement and Don't Check Emotions at the Door. Of course, Return on Events would also be in the same topic category as this BtoB article.
It's also nice to see Unisfair referenced in the article. Carlson Marketing is partnering with them to create our Virtual Engagement Suite of services.
CarlsonMarketing@Carlson.com 763.212.4520
Ellen Sorstokke
Saga Musical Instruments, Marketing Strategist
September 17, 2009 01:08 am
This is just part of it. In my industry, when times get tough, the tough get going: to the trade shows. Those who are less resilient don't go. They miss things they should have known about, which puts them further behind the curve. This applies to both vendors and buyers. Additionally, the hangers-on and wannabes are significantly reduced in number. The people who are there are serious about doing business. It's nuts not to be one of them in you expect run a successful business.
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