In my course of presentations to clients, a very frequent question will be "What is my ROI on this event?". I usually hate that question. It seems like a simple question yet profound enough to be debated for days and to be written into a textbook. What alot of clients don't understand, is that an events cannot be a single marketing effort unless it is an ad-hoc and standalone. It will not be fair to expect wonders to happen without the effective implementation and combinations of other other support like PR or advertising. That is also part of the reason why I am more interested in offering integrated marketing services as there should be a common objective for all the marketing efforts.
I came across this very interesting article, an interview with Rob Aston, manager for Corporate event marketing in HP, written in 2005. In HP, they measure the success of an event with six-specific content-related items they call the "communication metrics". They include the following questions:
I came across this very interesting article, an interview with Rob Aston, manager for Corporate event marketing in HP, written in 2005. In HP, they measure the success of an event with six-specific content-related items they call the "communication metrics". They include the following questions:
- Did the audience receive the message?
- Did they understand the message?
- Did they believe the message?
- Did they value the message?
- Did they retain the message?
- Did they act upon the message?
This is called return on objectives. A very interesting new term not directly related to monetary or immediate returns. The problem is, sometimes the clients are very sure on their own marketing objectives either. They are hoping to get sales, awareness, branding etc etc. Clients must understand there can only be one primary objective and the rest would be secondary. So the priority is weighed and can be more effectively measured in its appropriate metric.
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2 comments:
The ROI term is thrown around a lot but it really is about measuring against marketing strategy.
For sponsorship or passion marketing, there needs to be alignment between the sponsorship measurement metrics and the marketing objectives.
With sponsorship ROI or ROO, as long as there is a pre and post measurement, sponsorship effectiveness can be measured.
Nothing worse than a post sponsorship scramble for justification of marketing spend if no consideration was give prior to that. Great sponsorship evaluation cannot make up for a sponsorship strategy without clear and measurable objectives.
The main thing in my mind is not whether there are more than one objective but rather that the sponsorship objectives align with the overall marketing ones.
Great post!
Hi Nicholas
Thanks for your response. A great pity in my part of the world, I don't think the awareness on measurement is very significant yet. Alot of marketeers here are not equipped with the skills and conscious to identify clear objectives and desired response. Hence there could be mixed or contradicting expectations at the end of the day.
For myself, I'm very weak in sponsorship issues and it's definitely not my forte. Your post has been very helpful. Would be nice to speak with you further on it someday!
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