While it is great to boast about the degree of engagement that took place at your virtual event, if your ROI is low or non-existent, it indicates that something is not right. ROI is the primary factor for measuring the success of any virtual event. Therefore, maximizing it is crucial. From selecting an easy-to-use virtual event platform to gamifying your event, this article will walk you through the 10 tips to boost ROI with a customizable event platform. Let us dive deeper.
Why Is ROI Important for Your Event’s Success?
ROI or return on investment measures or evaluates the profitability of a virtual event against the cost incurred on it. While the basis of the measurement of your event’s ROI depends on your event goals and not every goal can be measured in numbers, tracking the right metrics can help you determine the success of your event. As an organizer, you would not want to repeat the same mistake multiple times. This is where ROI measurement comes in. Measuring your event’s ROI can help you get deeper insights into the event metrics and the value created by your efforts. Moreover, your sponsors might want to know the new leads, brand impressions, website visits etc.
Calculating the Event ROI
While the traditional approach for calculating an event’s ROI is subtracting the costs from the revenue, you also need to measure the following for deeper analysis –
- Return on Objectives: You must have set up some primary objectives for hosting the event. In addition to the profitability, you must also measure the degree to which you achieved your goals. For instance, if your primary goal was to gather more attendees or promote your product, the number of attendees and the total sales will represent your return on objectives.
- Return on Engagement: This measures the degree of interaction between the attendees and the brand. Measuring the level of interaction helps you get an idea of the brand impact and brand strength achieved.
- Return on Information: Return on information helps you measure how much the attendee’s found your content relatable and the amount of information they were able to retain.
Key Performance Indicators to Measure With the Help of a Customizable Event Platform
Given below are the key metrics that will indicate the level of performance of your virtual event.
- Number of Events Check-ins
- Total number of Active Community Members
- Number of Messages sent
- The response rate for Live Polls
- Social Media Mentions
- Number of Registrations
- Social Media Engagement
- Total number of qualified sales leads
- Gross Revenue
- Cost-revenue ratio
- Engagement on the Sponsorship page
- Number of shares, likes, views
- Number of messages sent using Live Chat
Tips to Boost ROI With an easy-to-use Virtual Event Platform
Selecting an easy to use customizable event platform can take your virtual event a notch higher by helping you boost the event ROI. Let us look how –
#1 Increase Audience Reach
A DIY virtual event platform lets you customize your virtual event as per your choice by allowing you to create a virtual venue consisting of a lobby, auditoriums, breakout rooms, engagement and networking zones. With the help of a customizable event platform, you can attract more audiences to your event and create a realistic virtual event experience for them. Moreover, these virtual platforms do not have restrictions on the number of attendees you can host. This means that you can host as many attendees as you want, leading to more registrations, ticket sales, and brand impressions. Therefore, the right online event platform can help skyrocket your event’s ROI.
#2 Harness the Power of Technology
86% of event marketers or organizers believe that technology can have a significant and positive impact on the success of their virtual events. You must harness the power of technology by selecting a customizable event platform that helps you automate multiple processes like event bookings, registrations, payment processing and integrate with social media channels. In addition to this, the virtual event platform must also provide an AI matchmaking tool. An AI matchmaking tool is the finest example of ‘how technology has transformed virtual events. This technology sorts the interests and goals of the attendees and matches them with the appropriate people they should meet to fulfil their objectives. It helps the attendees spend their time at the event more productively and thus, increase the event’s ROI.
#3 Have an Online Ticketing System
Selling more tickets and spaces in your online event is crucial to boosting the ROI of your event. You must take this process online by enabling your attendees to purchase the event tickets at a single click and setting up an online ticketing system. The online ticket sales make it easier for the attendees to purchase the tickets and smooth out the payment processes. Moreover, you must ensure that you select an easy-to-use virtual event platform.
#4 Choose a Customizable Event Platform
A customizable or DIY virtual event platform lets you create your event by yourself and add the elements you think might work for your event. It helps you create a virtual event experience close to physical events for your attendees. Moreover, with DIY event platforms, you can create a virtual venue on your own as per your needs and choices.
#5 Include Call-to-Action
You can include call-to-actions in your event and your marketing content. Calls-to-action is a great way to boost engagement at your online events. Moreover, you can simply ask the attendees to visit a website or request them to help you achieve your objectives.
#6 Create Good Content
One of the best ways to boost your virtual event’s ROI is to create good content. You must also use a variety of content like infographics, blogs, statistics, presentations and graphs. It is also a great way to attract more audiences and retain them throughout the event duration. Moreover, if the content is not appealing enough, it will adversely impact the online event’s ROI.
#7 Engage Your Attendees
Engaging your attendees is one of the most important factors influencing your event’s ROI. Keeping the attendees engaged; not only helps retain them but also; helps attract new attendees. Starting the engagement process before the actual event can help attract other people to join the virtual event. Moreover, while selecting a customizable event platform, you must look for the following features –
- Live polls: Live polls help boost interaction at your event and kick start two-way communication.
- Live Chat: Live chats are a boon for introverts as they provide them with an alternative channel of communication and increase the inclusivity of your online events.
- Q&A Sessions: Establishing Q&A sessions add a personal touch to the event and increases the level of interaction at your online events.
- Virtual Photo Booth: Virtual photo booth helps bridge the gap between a physical and a virtual event by letting the attendees create and capture memories of the event.
#8 Use Effective Event Tracking and Analysis Tools
Tracking the results of your virtual event can be very challenging. But having an effective event tracking tool can help solve this problem. Therefore, you must look for an easy-to-use virtual event platform that helps you track detailed attendee metrics like registration rate, attrition rate, the average cost per attendee and others. In addition to this, the platform must also provide a dashboard and well-curated reports.
#9 Provide Your Sponsors With Multiple Branding Opportunities
Another great way to maximize the ROI of your event is to provide your sponsors with multiple opportunities to display and promote their brand. The virtual event solution should have a lot of features like a dynamic lobby, branded walkthroughs, and branded booths. These features will help you promote your brand more efficiently and effectively.
#10 Gamify Your Event
Including games in your virtual event is another brilliant idea to boost the event’s ROI. Virtual event gamification is known to have a significant impact on the ROI of the event as it helps keep the attendees engaged. Moreover, gamifying your online event provides the attendees with the opportunity to communicate and interact with others.
Signing Off
We hope this blog helped you understand more about how you can measure your virtual event ROI and the top tips to maximize the return on your online events. Now that you know the importance of measuring the ROI for your virtual event, get advanced analytics and reporting features with Mixhub. Book a Demo Now!
