Explori Blog (5)

How to Measure the Impact of Your Event on Membership Value

Nov 19, 2021

Engaging members, growing the membership base and generating funds are three major objectives for any association and are frequently addressed by hosting regular events. Richard Kensett, Explori's commercial director explains how drawing on data to measure the impact of events on audiences’ engagement can lead to better and more financially attractive events, and ultimately enhanced membership value. Originally created Boardroom Magazine From conferences and award ceremonies to specialist training and networking sessions, events can take a variety of forms and offer a range of benefits to members. Association event organisers tend to have a sense of how an event is received but lack a robust way of measuring how it has performed in the eyes of the attendees. Many gather post-event feedback by using simple tools, but as associations come under greater scrutiny to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) from their engagement activities, more sophisticated survey platforms and analysis are needed. According to my colleague Sophie Holt, managing director at Explori, “as associations grapple with proving real value for their members, measuring and benchmarking events is one way to help organisers deliver real value to the association to underpin its goals.” Gathering meaningful data across the customer journey By gathering and absorbing the results of data-driven measures of success across not only their events, but also across many different touchpoints with their membership , associations can gain a clearer understanding of where they add value and where they need to alter their event(s) or their overarching membership value proposition. According to Holt, “having performance measurement tools allows associations to increase their efficiency and effective use of resources. They provide a picture of how individual activities contribute to the wider membership experience associations are trying to create.” Surveys, social media engagement, attendee tracking, matchmaking, polls, registration tools and apps that collate demographic and sentiment data are all ways that attendee data can be gathered and used to build a holistic picture of attendees over the course of the customer journey. That data can then be used to gain actionable insights to enhance future events, create a more attractive financially contributing event, and also deliver member value. Holt advises, “consider what data sources will tell you the who; the what; but most importantly, the why?’; only then consider how you are going to gather the data and turn it into valuable insights. “Using integrated research tools to benchmark an event’s success over time and against competitors, allows a narrative to be drawn out of the data. Being able to see where an event has succeeded and identify areas where it has fallen short gives the planning team valuable insights which they can use to improve future events.” Event measurement for association events There are a number of KPIs that help organisers predict the conditions an event may face in its next cycle. The Net Promoter Score (NPSSM) is one useful measure of advocacy (i.e. the likelihood someone will recommend the event), while another is the ‘loyalty versus ‘satisfaction’ matrix, made up of ‘hostages’, ‘apostles’, ‘mercenaries’ and ‘disaffected’. Hostages are categorised as unsatisfied but likely to return. A high percentage of hostages puts an event at significant risk if the organiser does not deliver for this group. Hostages are at risk of moving into the disaffected group (unlikely to return), so it is better to focus time and effort on this group as the event is still likely to be important to them, rather than risk losing them. Understanding the sentiment of these groups gives organisers the power to proactively address any hidden challenges that they might not be aware of. Holt points out that “being able to demonstrate to attendees that their feedback has been listened to and what steps have been put in place to address any concerns is incredibly powerful and likely to be a key way in which attendees are engaged, ultimately delivering greater value.” By effectively gathering and analysing data, associations can benchmark themselves against their competitors to demonstrate the strategic value their events offer members, ultimately delivering better value to those who matter the most. CASE STUDY The issue Like the majority of associations, the Chicago Dental Society (CDS) runs a programme of events throughout the year. From saving the compromised tooth to tax deductions most dentists miss, holding events is an integral part of its offering, sharing best practices amongst members and promoting continued professional development. For the past 156 years, The CDS has run a Midwinter Meeting every February. Feedback from the event has been gathered on rudimentary survey tools, which didn’t provide a robust way of understanding how the event performed in the eyes of the attendees and exhibitors. The CDS turned to Explori to help it understand how this annual event was performing against the global healthcare sector and to use robust data to underpin its instincts. The approach Explori gathered data at three key points throughout the customer journey: pre-event (demographic), at event (experience), and post event (survey). At the registration phases, attendees and exhibitors were asked about their objectives in attending the Midwinter Meeting. Attendees' and exhibitors’ engagement was gathered at the show, and the responses were mapped to provide a post-event analysis. Following the Meeting, Explori blended four KPIs together to provide a single overall event score: overall satisfaction, likelihood to return (loyalty), NPSSM and event importance. These different questions impact upon each other and aggregated together create an easily digestible single point of truth, without emphasis being placed on any single factor. Understanding whether objectives are being met and which are the most important is done using correlation analysis. The percentage of attendees who report their objectives as having been met is mapped against their overall satisfaction to understand if meeting a certain objective meant they were more or less satisfied with the event. From the data, Explori created ‘your event story’, an analysis that enabled the senior leadership to understand the attendees and exhibitors’ experiences of, and feelings towards, the event. The analysis allowed leadership to prioritise those areas of improvement that would have the most meaningful impact on the attendees’ and exhibitors’ overall experience. The outcome Strategic recommendations to improve future events were made as a result of this data and benchmarking. The CDS will continue to work with Explori to build-up an understanding of the value their Midwinter Meeting event offers their members and attendees over the next few years as the show reverts to live in 2022. Data will support intuition and ensure the best of the show is retained and change occurs when necessary. Want to find out more? The Event Impact Playbook which aims to help event organisers measure the impact of events so that they can underpin their next strategic event is available to download for free here.

The Global Recovery Insights 2021 report published: the road to recovery

Oct 28, 2021

Second part of the Global Recovery Insights 2021 report is now available. - Latest data reflects optimism in the industry as demand has recovered for live events from both exhibitors and visitors - Impact on spend has been less severe than feared - Visitor quality favoured over quantity Paris / London – 21 October 2021: UFI and Explori are today releasing the second part of the Global Recovery Insights 2021 report, conducted by live events research specialists, Explori in partnership with UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry and supported by SISO, the Society for Independent Show Organizers. This latest recurring quantitative global survey of trade show visitors and exhibitors, carried out in the summer of 2021, collectively gained 15,000 responses in 10 languages, representing trade show participation in over 30 countries. The report focused on five key themes which build on, and can be compared with, the findings of previous Global Insights studies. The study found that demand has returned to pre-pandemic levels for both exhibitors and visitors, with no signs of a fundamental shift away from in-person trade shows as a channel. 72% of existing visitors say they plan to attend trade shows with the same or increased frequency in future, with 62% of exhibitors reporting the same intention. The impact of the pandemic on spend has been far less severe than feared and 75% of exhibitors expect budgets to return to normal within 12 months. In previous studies, exhibitors favoured shows with high visitor numbers, but this appears to have shifted with 86% of exhibitors stating visitor quality is a larger influence on their decision to invest in a show against 67% citing visitor numbers. Where exhibitors are looking to make savings, high quality shows appear protected, and exhibitors who now consider the cost of exhibiting to be a large influence on their decision to support a specific show has grown to 29% since 2020. Live and face-to-face remains the preferred channel for networking and overall experience. Exhibitors are not diverting significant percentages of the budget to digital, although it is seen as a way to test new events and has the potential to deliver content and widen audiences. Many exhibitors are wary of future participation in digital and hybrid models, with low Net Promoter Scores (NPSSM) compounded by even lower scores for digital events, suggesting digital is a significant challenge for those who wish to pursue a revenue stream from this model. However, despite these findings, a new group was surveyed for the first time in this research who were strikingly more likely to convert from digital participation to in-person participation than either current visitors or exhibitors. Made up senior marketing decision makers based in the US or UK who had not used trade shows as a marketing channel prior to the pandemic, ‘the panel’ expect digital to remain part of their marketing mix, indicating that there is potential to convert them to exhibitors at live events and that the digital events that arose during the pandemic have attracted new audiences. “The report gives plenty of reasons for optimism, including quelling doubts about a possible shift away from live events and indicating which shows are likely to bounce back quickly. At a time where physical trade shows are restarting around the world, we hope that these findings will help the industry to a fast recovery and beyond.” said Kai Hattendorf, UFI CEO. Sophie Holt, Managing Director, Explori added: “Whilst the need for some exhibitors to make savings remains, the Global Recovery Insights reflects the optimism felt by the exhibition industry, that live events will soon return to pre-pandemic levels. Budget cuts have not been as harsh as predicted in 2020 and spend is expected to return to 2019 levels within an average show cycle. Quality shows are likely to be protected and digital has opened up new opportunities to widen audiences convert naysayers to the power of live!” The full report is now available to download free here.

Watch the ‘Metric Gap’: Measuring the Impact of Events on Business Objectives

Sep 7, 2021

Originally created for Exhibition News ahead of International Confex Explori, the leading metrics and benchmarking specialists to the events industry, are set to kick off the International Confex Keynote Theatre programme when the event returns to ExCeL London next week. Hosted by Explori’s Associate Research Director, Guy Garside, and Relationship Manager, Alex Temple, "Measuring the Impact of Events on Business Objectives" will delve into the vital role that event data plays in helping event managers understand and demonstrate the impact of events programmes. We spoke to Guy and Alex ahead of Confex to understand what event professionals can expect from this keynote session: The must have metrics Explori recently conducted corporate research in collaboration with in-house corporate event planner network ICE, and identified the ‘metric gap.’ One of the challenges facing event managers is capturing the must-have metrics needed to decipher value and the impact of events in delivering business objectives. Speaking to these challenges, Alex explained: “Measuring the impact an event has on wider business objectives has always been a challenge for planners. Anecdotal evidence or top line tactical surveys don’t give event managers the complete picture, yet we know 77% of organisers want the ability to benchmark event performance across their organisation.” Benchmarking across areas such as attendees’ future behaviour and their changing opinions and feelings give organisers a much better understanding of the true value of their event in respect of the overall objectives such as lead generation or employee retention. How to branch out Due to the recent surge in virtual events, the availability of data is greater than ever before. Attendees to this session can expect the Explori team to cut through the jargon and breakdown the subsequent challenges attained from data overload, drawing particular attention to audience feedback data: the epicentre of event impact analysis. By drawing on Explori’s highly respected Event Impact Playbook, the session will illustrate ‘how to leverage your event tech stack’, providing direction on how to layer data from different technologies to deepen your understanding of the attendee experience. Analysing event impact Explori will be breaking away from traditional methods of analysis by delving deeper into the potential of all the data sources at your disposal, such as engagement with content and connections made. Currently only one in five event organisers measure the impact of events on their attendees’ future behaviour and brand awareness, clearly indicating a misalignment between the organiser’s needs and the insight they currently have. Focusing on a case study with a positive outcome, the session will tackle the relationship between event data and wider corporate goals. This practical and visual demonstration will provide attendees with an immersive session on how to track and improve event impact. The takeaways This session will explore ways of interpreting event data from various perspectives enabling event professionals to implement tangible objectives specific to their event in order to evaluate their current measurement process. Relevant to event planners, agencies and event tech professionals, Guy and Alex will provide a thought-provoking session surrounding the direction of future event experiences: what data is out there and how can it be made to work harder? Attendees will leave with a greater understanding on how to assess their next event objectives with direction on how to propel forward into the strategies of the event world. Missed the session at International Confex? Speak to a member of the Explori team to find out more.

Explori and Evolio Join Forces in North America

Apr 20, 2021

LONDON and NEW YORK – April 20, 2021 - Event measurement experts Explori and Evolio Marketing are pleased to announce that they have entered into a North American strategic partnership, combining strengths to further expand their world-class expo and corporate event measurement services. Explori CEO Mark Brewster says, “We couldn’t have found a better partner at this stage in our strategy. Evolio’s experience, skills and reputation are second to none. Not only does this relationship deliver new resources, but it brings years of exhibit measurement specialism that is already adding value. The US has been the fastest growing market for us for the last three years. Having an expanded US presence and additional expertise sees us primed for further growth.” “Having worked in event measurement and strategy for more than 20 years, I am confident that Explori’ s platform and expertise solves the problem of delivering quality research at a massive scale regardless of the size and budget of an organization’s event marketing program,” commented Joe Federbush, President, Evolio. “There are strong synergies between our businesses and I’m very enthusiastic about the enhanced benefits and insights they will bring to Evolio’s customers.” Federbush has taken the role of Executive Vice President, North America, at Explori and will oversee customer success, business development, and talent acquisition for BtoB and BtoC events, while continuing his role as President of EVOLIO. “One of the most sought-after components of a strategic approach to measurement is the ability to provide largescale industry and client benchmarks,” added Federbush. “Explori leads the market in this respect, and through our partnership, we can further accelerate the development of our event and exhibit benchmarks for in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, benefitting our clients significantly.” Michael Dezso, Head of Experiential Strategy, Czarnowski says, "Providing our clients with measurement solutions is critical for their success and is an extremely important aspect of our business when managing strategic event programs. The combination of Evolio and Explori will be a great solution and I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.” About Explori Explori is an end-to-end, enterprise event measurement platform and consultancy. We measure the real business impact of events and our dashboards integrate data from multiple sources to create a crystal-clear understanding of event performance. Our technology joins up real-time data across businesses of any size and it produces organisational benchmarks and analytics that enable senior event leaders to make informed strategic decisions. Explori is chosen by over 3,000 in-person and virtual events worldwide and all our clients can compare their results to our uniquely robust industry benchmarks. In addition, Explori offers a range of managed services delivering in-depth insights and strategic recommendations. (www.explori.com) About EVOLIO EVOLIO helps brand marketers deliver the best results for their event marketing experiences and activities. We do not build exhibits and we do not produce events, but we have friends who do. Instead, we develop effective strategies, conduct measurement with actionable results, and provide superior training and staffing so you can deliver the best event experience. It’s all just part of our event marketing portfolio at EVOLIO. EVOLIO’s distinctive process is specifically designed for companies of all sizes and budgets. EVOLIO helps answer your toughest question: How do I successfully align our events to our business strategy and make sure they deliver effective results? (www.evoliomarketing.com) ### EVOLIO Marketing and the EVOLIO Marketing logo are trademarks of EVOLIO Marketing in the United States and other countries. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated.

Charlotte Penn talking about good post-event survey response rates

What is a good post-event survey response rate?

Mar 29, 2021

How do virtual sponsors and visitors feel a year on?

Mar 22, 2021

Event feedback experts, Explori, began measuring visitor and exhibitor sentiment towards virtual events from March 2020. Their latest examination reveals two things: attendee sentiment is increasing, and despite low exhibitor sentiment there is a notable minority who are having a positive experience. The company’s initial benchmarks demonstrated that attendee sentiment towards virtual events was positive. Attendees scored virtual events better across key metrics such as Value for Time and Net Promoter Score. However, as Overall Satisfaction scores were in line with the live events benchmark, this suggests NPS may be higher because it requires less effort for the recipient to interact with a virtual event. A year on, the benchmarks show attendee sentiment for virtual events is increasing. This is led by increased virtual trade show scores. Attendees are scoring virtual trade shows even higher for satisfaction and their likelihood to recommend compared to the 2020 benchmarks. Though content-led events typically perform better in the digital landscape, digital trade shows appear to be catching up. However, initial exhibitor benchmarks revealed that exhibitor sentiment was not so positive. Exhibitors scored digital events lower than their live event counterparts for Overall Satisfaction and Return on Investment. A year later and exhibitor sentiment is still low. Interestingly, when Explori’s researchers dug into the data some unexpected insights emerged. Explori examined the relationship between loyalty and satisfaction for exhibitors. The loyalty-satisfaction chart can be separated into four quadrants: Apostles, Mercenaries, Hostages, and Disaffected. Apostles - high loyalty and high satisfaction. They enjoy virtual events and will exhibit again. Mercenaries - high satisfaction and low loyalty. Their low loyalty is usually for reasons outside of an organisers control (.i.e. the event isn’t important to their company). Hostages - low satisfaction and high loyalty. This can sometimes represent a lack of competition in the space. Exhibitors aren’t happy with the virtual event but it is their only option. Disaffected - low satisfaction and low loyalty. These exhibitors are not satisfied with the virtual events and do not plan to exhibit virtually in the future. Explori found that 41% of exhibitors fell into the Disaffected quadrant. These exhibitors have low levels of satisfaction and are less likely to exhibit at virtual events again in the future. However, one-third of exhibitors fell into the Apostle quadrant. These exhibitors are highly satisfied with virtual events and plan to exhibit at more virtual events in the future. Overall low exhibitor sentiment scores appear to mask a notable minority of exhibitors who are having a positive experience with virtual events. To find out more about the virtual benchmarks and Explori services click here.

Post-event survey questions - for sponsors

Mar 12, 2021

What do you want to know about your exhibitors and sponsors? Typically, event organisers want to understand how satisfied they were with the event, if they will exhibit or sponsor in the future, and what would make the event unmissable? For the last decade, Explori has been helping organisers use surveys to gather post-event feedback to develop more customer-centred event portfolios. We benchmark attendee experience for over 3,000 events globally and hold over 3 million data points on attendee and exhibitor sentiment. We are a trusted research partner for the Global Association for the Exhibition Industry (UFI), supplying annual reports to organisers. Our expertise lies in creating surveys that provide strategic insights to event teams. In this post, we will share with you our ultimate list of post-event sponsor and exhibitor survey questions. 12 key questions to ask exhibitors and sponsors in your post-event survey Which of the following were objectives for your company at [eventname]? Please state how well you met each of your objectives for exhibiting/sponsoring. Overall, how well did you meet your objectives for exhibiting/sponsoring at the event? How satisfied were you with the following aspects of the event? What was the total value of the orders/purchases/contracts received by your company at the event? INCLUDING sales you have already made, what is the total value of the sales you expect to generate over the next 12 months as a result of exhibiting at/sponsoring the event this year? Considering the total sum of business you expect to generate as a result of exhibiting at [eventname] this year, how would you rate your overall return on investment? Overall, how satisfied were you with [eventname] this year? How likely are you to exhibit/sponsor [eventname] next year? How likely are you to recommend [eventname] to a friend or colleague in the industry? Please tell us why you gave that score? i.e. recommending the event to a friend or colleague How would you improve [eventname]? Examining Customer Objectives 1. Which of the following were objectives for your company at [eventname]? The most common objectives for exhibitors and sponsors are to generate new sales leads, increase awareness for their product/service and/or increase their brand position. Monitoring what objectives your exhibitors are trying to achieve through your event can be useful information when designing your event. 2. Please state how well you met each of your objectives for exhibiting/sponsoring. Allow exhibitors and sponsors to state how well they were able to meet each of the objectives they selected. This will give you an indication of what objectives you’re helping them achieve versus the objectives that are going unmet. 3. Overall, how well did you meet your objectives for exhibiting/sponsoring at the event? Not all objectives are created equal. This is why getting an overall score is important. Earlier in the survey exhibitors and sponsors may select five different objectives and only score one as being well met. But that one could have represented their main objective for attending the event whilst the others were ‘nice to haves’. This question will give you an overall view of how successful your event is at helping attendees achieve their objectives. Alternatively, with a survey tool like Explori, this can be calculated automatically based on the previous question responses. Identifying highlights and pain points 4. How satisfied were you with the following aspects of the event? With this question, you can gauge your customer’s satisfaction with different aspects of your event. In particular, options we think are useful to include are: Quality of visitors Quantity of visitors Quality of sessions Networking Assessing the value of your event 5. What was the total value of the orders/purchases/contracts received by your company at the event? Where relevant include this question to encourage exhibitors to consider the monetary value of participating in your event. This can also serve as a marketing metric to use in the promotion of your next event. 6. INCLUDING sales you have already made, what is the total value of the sales you expect to generate over the next 12 months as a result of exhibiting/sponsoring the event this year? There are some events where exhibitors and sponsors do not complete transactions on their stand. In this instance, it can be helpful to understand how they expect their participation in the event to convert into sales over the next 12 months. Measuring ROI and Importance 7. Considering the total sum of business you expect to generate as a result of exhibiting at [eventname] this year, how would you rate your overall return on investment? Return on Investment is one of the most important metrics to track for your event. Our global research shows that an unclear return on investment is the biggest driver of exhibitor dissatisfaction. Difficulty demonstrating ROI is the most frequently given reason for low advocacy scores. This question is a great temperature check to identify what proportion of your audience is struggling with the return so that you can intervene with relevant training and educational materials ahead of your next event. Evaluating overall exhibitor and sponsor sentiment 8. Overall, how satisfied were you with [eventname] this year? This question allows you to directly measure customer satisfaction and get a more bird’s eye view of how the event went overall. Use it to discover which exhibitor/sponsor types are most satisfied. This is a great way to gauge the success of your event. 9. How likely are you to exhibit/sponsor [eventname] next year? Ask exhibitors and sponsors this question to predict the environment your team will be selling into. Are your customers saying they are unlikely to return and are therefore disengaged? This will mean the team will have to work harder to get new customers through the door. However, if there is a larger proportion who are planning to return the following year this can be a good signal of engagement. Your team probably won’t have to work as hard to get them through the door. 10. How likely are you to recommend [eventname] to a friend or colleague in the industry? Net Promoter Score is an industry standard when it comes to measuring attendee experience. It allows you to measure your attendees’ likelihood to recommend your event and can be included in your post-event surveys for both virtual and live events. Respondents rate their likelihood to recommend on a scale of 0-10 and are banded into groups based on their scores. Promoters (9-10 rating) Passives (7-8 rating) Detractors (0-6 rating) The Net Promoter Score is then calculated by subtracting your percentage of Detractors from your percentage of Promoters. Organisers often ask what is a good Net Promoter Score. Technically speaking anything above zero means you have more Promoters than Detractors and is therefore a good score. The Explori platform benchmarks NPS for live and virtual events globally. This allows clients to compare the performance of their events against the industry standard and get a real sense of how their events compare to the industry benchmark. 11. Please tell us why you gave that score? i.e. recommending the event to a friend or colleague Open questions are a great way to collect qualitative data that can be used to explain scores. We always suggest adding an NPS reasoning question. It allows you to do some meaningful analysis of your detractors and promoters. For example, in the Explori platform clients can filter by NPS to see all the responses given by detractors or promoters. Filtering in this way can give you a sense for why some attendees are detracting and why some are promoting. 12. How would you improve [eventname]? Including a question about improvements is an easy way to spot what aspects of your event haven’t landed well with attendees. Depending on the tool you use, you can filter based on satisfaction or NPS to see what improvements are suggested by attendees. Survey your exhibitors and sponsors with Explori With an event feedback platform like Explori all of the above questions are templated to save you time creating your survey. The Explori platform collates responses and presents them using responsive dashboards. Your event dashboard shows you your Overall Event Score as well as KPIs including Net Promoter Score, Overall Satisfaction, Loyalty, and more. With the click of a button, you can compare the metrics for your event with industry benchmarks as well as your own company benchmarks. Click here to find out how we can help you measure the success of your events. Further reading Post-event survey email template How to increase email survey response rates Post-event survey questions for attendees

How to monetize your virtual events

Mar 3, 2021

net promoter score for virtual events

Case study: Explori's virtual benchmarks & Black Hat Asia 2020

Feb 1, 2021

For more than 20 years, Black Hat Briefings have provided attendees with the latest in information security research, development, and trends. Due to the global pandemic the Black Hat team had to consider how they could deliver value to their attendees virtually. The main objective of the team was to maintain their audience and communicate their core offering through digital. To measure the success of Black Hat Asia 2020 they collected their post-event feedback using our platform. Explori is an event feedback platform which specialises in benchmarking attendee experience. Since March 2020, we have collected attendee experience metrics for virtual events. These benchmarks are available to all Explori clients and provide the necessary context to understand what “good” looks like for virtual events. A virtual event success Overall satisfaction 95% of respondents were satisfied with Black Hat Asia 2020. This is notably higher than our current virtual events benchmarks. Likelihood of return Close to 90% of attendees said they would attend another virtual event organised by Informa Tech in the future. This too is ahead of the current benchmarks. Net Promoter Score Our virtual events benchmarks reveal that attendee Net Promoter Score sits at +10. Black Hat Asia 2020 scored well above this with +41. This indicates attendees are more likely to recommend attending their event. Selecting the right content As part of the feedback process, Promoters were asked why they gave high scores. Promoters talked about the event being informative, the high quality of the sessions as well as the platform quality and overall organisation. “It goes through a pretty extensive review process,” says Richard McCarthy, Senior Marketing Director at Informa Black Hat. “[There are] multiple layers of reviews before the talks are accepted and then the speakers are given the option of additional training from some of our review board members. So by the time they hit the stage it is ideally cutting edge research, that hasn’t been presented anywhere else, that has been vetted by a panel of experts, and is for the most part exclusive to Black Hat.” The Black Hat Asia team also worked with a high-end production company. They organised studios across various regions which allowed speakers to record their session under the guidance of the production crew. Speakers who were unable to record in the satellite studios were sent equipment such as lighting and easy to use instructions so they could record from home. In our recent study we analysed attendee sentiment towards the future of digital and hybrid events. In this research we discovered some of the strengths of virtual events, particularly related to content. The study revealed over 50% of respondents said the quality of content for digital events was the same or better than live events. This suggests that organisers who invest time delivering high quality content for their digital events will be more favourable to attendees. Measuring virtual events Suzanne van Montfoort, Explori’s Research Director, was the lead researcher analysing Black Hat Asia’s results against Explori’s virtual events benchmarks. “One of the things Black Hat, amongst other clients, find useful about our platform is the ability to benchmark attendee experience,” says van Montfoort. “It’s important to compare like for like as we’ve seen significant variations across KPIs. For example, Net Promoter Score for live events is +11, for virtual events +10 and for webinars +46. Therefore, we built out virtual benchmarks separate to our live events benchmarks. It was fantastic to share with the event team how Black Hat Asia has outperformed the industry benchmarks.” Top tip for running a virtual event “Know what makes your event unique and play it up really well,” says McCarthy. “Content has always been most important for paid attendees so that’s where we invested the most time energy. Making sure the quality was as high as it could be. Making sure the speakers were available to do a live Q&A. Making sure the broadcast elements worked. Really focus on the thing that people were paying for. And that paid off you can see it in the survey results. It was absolutely worth making that investment in the content delivery. And it is tough but figure out that one thing that is going to make your show really work and invest in it. Treat your event as a broadcast and not as a static website. You have to treat it like you’re producing for Netflix or network TV. It’s got to be high end and it’s got to be seamless.”

11 most important post event survey questions for attendees

Jan 27, 2021

How do you know if your event is a success? Better yet, how do you know if your attendees will be back next year? The explosion in event technology means organisers have more data than ever about how attendees are engaging with events. From the number of meetings booked to sessions attended and questions asked. However, this data isn’t capable of telling you why. Why are attendees engaging, and will they come back to your next event? This is where surveys come into play. For the last decade, Explori have been helping organisers use surveys to gather post-event feedback to develop more customer-centred event portfolios. We benchmark attendee experience for over 3,000 events globally, and analyse over 3 million data points on attendee and exhibitor sentiment. We are a trusted research partner for the Global Association for the Exhibition Industry (UFI) supplying annual reports to organisers. Our expertise lies in creating surveys that provide strategic insights to event teams. In this post we will share with you our definitive list of post-event survey questions. We will give you nine questions you can use in a live or virtual event survey and two bonus questions to include in your virtual event survey. What is a post-event survey? A post-event survey is a questionnaire. It is normally distributed via email to visitors, exhibitors, speakers, people who registered but did not attend, and any other participants. The survey normally consists of a combination of multiple/single choice and open-ended questions. The purpose of sending a post-event feedback survey is to understand the event through the eyes of attendees. Post-event surveys are crucial to any organiser interested in adopting a more customer-centred approach to their events. Types of survey questions There are different types of questions you can include in your post-event survey depending on the type of data you want to collect: Rating scales - measures the level of agreement with a question that can be quantified for reporting. It’s best to use a 5-point scale to avoid skewing survey responses. Multiple choice - useful when there are a few different options that could apply ie. when asking attendees about their reasons for attending your event. Open-ended - brings the attendee experience to life. It produces qualitative data which tends to be more emotive and specific at outlining sentiment. Screening questions At the beginning of your event survey it is important to include screening questions to ensure the integrity of the data you are collecting. When creating client surveys the first question we ask is ‘Did you attend [eventname] from [eventdates]?’ If the respondent says no they are routed to an exit screen. We then include a second screening question which asks ‘Did you attend as…’ and provide a single choice option of either Visitor, Exhibitor or Member of the press. If the respondent is not the intended recipient of the survey (i.e. an exhibitor receives the visitor survey) they will be rerouted to an exit page with a link to the relevant survey for their group. By including screening questions you can ensure your survey is being completed by the right members of your audience. Post event survey question examples Use these questions in both your live and virtual post-event surveys for attendees 1. Overall how satisfied are you with [eventname]? This question allows you to directly measure attendee satisfaction and get a more bird’s eye view of how the event went overall. This is a great way to gauge the success of your event. You can also use it to unpick which aspects of your event are driving satisfaction by creating crosstabs with other questions in your survey. 2. What were your main reasons for attending [eventname]? In other words, what is your event helping attendees do? Our studies show that the top five objectives of trade show visitors are: attending the conference, attending seminar sessions, seeing new products and innovations, keeping up to date with market trends and seeking new business partners. When using this multiple-choice question include a list of common objectives and allow respondents to select more than one. 3. Please state how well you met each of your objectives at [eventname]? Allow respondents to state how well they were able to meet each of the objectives they selected at your event. This will give you an indication of what objectives you’re helping attendees achieve versus the objectives that are going unmet. For example, across the 3,000+ shows we have benchmarked, we found there are three common attendee objectives that are poorly met at trade shows: Keeping up to date with market trends Seeking new business opportunities Seeing new products and innovations Most importantly we discovered these three objectives are highly correlated with overall satisfaction. This suggests that if you improve the ability for attendees to achieve these objectives you will see an increase in attendee satisfaction. 4. Overall, how well did you meet your objectives? Not all objectives are created equal. This is why getting an overall score is important. Earlier in the survey attendees may select five different objectives and only score one as being well met. But that one could have represented their main objective for attending the event whilst the others were ‘nice to haves’. This question will give you an overall view on how successful your event is at helping attendees achieve their objectives. Alternatively with a tool like Explori, this can be calculated automatically based on the previous question responses. 5. How likely are you to recommend our event to friends or colleagues in the industry? Net Promoter Score is an industry standard when it comes to measuring attendee experience. This allows you to measure your attendees’ likelihood to recommend your event and can be included in your post-event surveys for both virtual and live events. Respondents rate their likelihood to recommend on a scale of 0-10 and are banded into groups based on their scores. Promoters (9-10 rating) Passives (7-8 rating) Detractors (0-6 rating) The Net Promoter Score is then calculated by subtracting your percentage of Detractors from your percentage of Promoters. Organisers often ask what is a good Net Promoter Score. Technically speaking anything above zero suggests you have more Promoters than Detractors and is therefore a good score. The Explori platform benchmarks NPS for live and virtual events globally. This allows clients to compare the performance of their events against the industry standard and get a real sense of how their events compare to the industry benchmark. 6. Please tell us why you gave that score? i.e. recommending the event to a friend or colleague Open questions are a great way to collect qualitative data that can be used to explain scores. We always suggest adding an NPS reasoning question. It allows you to do some meaningful analysis of your detractors and promoters. For example, in the Explori platform clients can filter by NPS score to see all the responses given by detractors or promoters. Filtering in this way can give you a sense for why some attendees are detracting and why some are promoting. 7. Considering the total investment of your time spent, how would you rate the value you received? As event organisers we are in the business of creating value for our attendees. Asking a question about their perceived value of the event is a great way to measure the usefulness of the event relative to the time cost. Our latest research found that attendees score virtual events as being better value for time than live events. Including this question in your post-event survey will allow you to spot commonalities between attendees who rate virtual as better for time and those who do not. 8. What was your favourite aspect of [eventname]? The main aim of gathering feedback is to understand how to improve your event. However it is important to keep an eye on what is going well to make sure you don’t eliminate those aspects from future events (ie. a networking format that attendees enjoy). This open-ended question can provide some useful information about what is working at your event. You may also be able to use these responses as testimonials if you ask respondents to opt in. 9. Do you have any suggestions on how the event could be improved? Including a question about improvements is an easy way to spot what aspects of your event haven’t landed well with attendees. Depending on the tool you use, you can filter based on satisfaction or NPS to see what improvements are suggested by attendees. Virtual event survey questions For use in your virtual post-event surveys for attendees 10. How likely would you be to attend future virtual events from the organisers of [eventname]? This question provides a double benefit. On one hand it can communicate a level of satisfaction with the virtual event you organised, but it can also indicate whether or not your attendees are likely to attend future events. This is particularly important as you might be assessing what role virtual events will play once we return to organising live events. 11. Overall, how would you rate the delivery of the virtual event? Whilst you might still be finessing exactly how to deliver virtual events this could be a great question to add into your post-event survey. Pair it with an open-ended follow up question where respondents can explain why they have given it that rating. Final point To create strategic events that keep its customers at the centre organisers need to collect consistent feedback. Post-event surveys are the only tools built to give organisers an insight into their attendees and exhibitors. If you would like to start measuring your events take a tour of the Explori platform.

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