OMG! The first crucial step in events planning

I think we can safely say it’s been a whirlwind few years in the world of events and workplace experience. Covid has fundamentally changed the workplace and the way businesses communicate with colleagues and customers. Now we’ve come out of that straight into a really challenging financial climate. All of this has led to more pressure than ever on budgets and an increasing emphasis not only on delivering but also demonstrating real value and return on investment.

But before we can do that, we first have to run the gauntlet of conversations with stakeholders to secure the budget we need. So, we are going to give you our simplybetter tips on how to reframe those stakeholder conversations and change their perception from ‘event spend’ to ‘engagement spend’ and the part that events play in the wider business strategy.

Check out the latest events planning webinar

If you missed our most recent webinar, ‘Designing events that drive better engagement’, we talk about this as well as the importance of your event environment in embedding behaviour change, and extending the lifespan of your events to maximise value. If you have a spare half an hour or so, grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable and find out what our experts had to say.

Are your stakeholders cutting spending?

The compound effect of Covid, Brexit, Ukraine and the rising cost of living means that this generation is facing more uncertainty than at any point in their life so far. If you apply that to a business context, this uncertainty will often lead to a battening down of hatches and the slashing of any expenditure deemed unnecessary. For some businesses, events and activations are the first things that tend to have their budgets cut. We know that if you hold an annual event without setting clear objectives and measures, it is very difficult to justify investment in something that doesn’t deliver any sort of tangible return. So how can you do things differently to prove the worth of an event and justify the expenditure?

Proper events planning delivers twice the value

It is widely accepted that many events could potentially deliver twice the value on the same budget if we go right back to the start and plan in objectives and measures right at the beginning. Most events achieve below their potential because it was never clear what they were actually setting out to achieve. An event can only create true value for stakeholders if it changes behaviours – and we can measure the impact of those changes.

OMG. Your essential tool

This is such a simple approach but one that is often overlooked. It may sound obvious but in order to measure results, there must be a set of clear and agreed objectives. So, what we do is apply the OMG formula.?

O - Objectives: What are our goals for this event?

M - Measures: How will we know if we’ve achieved them?

G - Gains: What value will they bring to the business if we get this right?

Objectives

This is your very first step when planning any event. Without objectives, measurement becomes meaningless. So, what do you want people to do differently as a result of what they see and hear at this event? What knowledge or skill will they gain? How will you change someone’s opinion or perception of a topic to make them change a current behaviour?

Once you know what you want to achieve, it’s important to understand your target audience, their demographic, what they do each day, their current challenges and their mindset. Then you can start to think about shaping the right approach, which all feeds into the overall experience. It is crucial to design and deliver an experience that inspires people to think, feel and do things differently.

Measures

So many organisations only use basic metrics but there is a well-recognised and simple tool that identifies five levels of measurement.

5 levels of measurement

1. Reaction / Satisfaction: How delegates felt about the event
2. Learning: The resulting increase in knowledge / skills / awareness / attitudes
3. Behaviour: The extent to which they have applied that learning
4. Results: The effect on the business of behaviour change
5. ROI or ROX / ROO: Return on investment or return on experience / objectives

Reaction / satisfaction

The most basic measure is of reaction and satisfaction. What was the delegates’ overall perception of the event? What did they think of the venue, the speakers, the food? We are sure all organisations are already measuring this. If you’re not, you really should be.

Learning

Then we move on to learning. What has been the increase in knowledge or skills? How have opinions and attitudes changed directly due to the event? We always suggest that you run a base test at the start of the day, then follow up with the same set of questions right after the event to quantify the impact of the day. We have loads of examples of questions you could ask at different stages. Get in touch or drop me a DM here on LinkedIn if you’d like to know more.

Behaviour change

Obviously, any feedback on the day can only inform you of intended behaviour change. The actual changes are not immediate and have to be measured over weeks and months. How have delegates applied what they learnt? What are they doing differently? This needs to happen alongside a consistent focus on engagement. Keep pushing those messages and learnings via a sustained and well-planned engagement calendar.

Results

Once those behavioural changes begin to have an effect, you can start to measure their impact. What has the result been on the business? This may be increased orders, better staff retention, increased customer satisfaction. Remember, it is not always monetary.

We’ll move on to return on investment, experience and objectives when we talk about gains.

Gains

Right at the top of the triangle, we have the return. While every stakeholder wants to prove ROI, this is not always possible and should not be the only focus. Realistically, you can only prove ROI directly from an event if you have tangible and quantifiable numbers to work with, such as taking orders at an exhibition. If you do – you could make use of this calculation below:

Gross profit from event – Cost of event

________________________________ x 100 = ROI

Cost of event

So, imagine you take a ￡300K order at an exhibition and the total cost of exhibiting was ￡100K.

￡300K (gross profit) - ￡100K (cost of event)

___________________________________ x 100 = ￡200K (or 200% ROI)

￡100K (cost of event)

Of course, you don’t have figures like this for an internal event. This is when you need to look at ROX (return on experience) or ROO (return on objectives). These are both softer, non-sales measures that prove the impact of an event or activity when it is not possible to tie them directly to sales. They look at changes in employee and/or customer satisfaction and behaviours, what has been achieved and whether an event has achieved its business objectives.

Expand the stakeholders’ view

According to Forbes, ROX and ROO are the new ROI. They are metrics of measuring, understanding and evaluating the value of an organisation’s investment into activities such as internal events. They should form the core of stakeholder conversations, making it easier for stakeholders to understand the long term impact of events and the part this is going to play in the wider company strategy.

Yes, this sort of planning requires an investment of time and capacity upfront. However, once you have mapped out what you want to achieve and what the measures and gains will be, every decision you need to make along the way is going to be more time efficient. You have a clear plan and you’re not asking yourself those questions as you go along.

Three key takeaways

1. Set your objectives first – before even thinking about measures. Be clear about what you want people to do differently as a result of the experience.
2. Recognise where you can and can’t measure ROI and set realistic targets. Instead of ROI, look into ROX and ROO.
3. Reframe your conversations with stakeholders. Move them away from ‘event spend’ to ‘engagement spend’. Demonstrate the value that these events will bring to the business. Turn the question around. Instead of “Can we justify the spend?” or “Can we justify taking people out of the business for the day?”, ask “Can we justify NOT holding the event?”

People are more isolated than ever before. If they don’t feel part of the bigger picture, they will be unhappy and leave. Ignoring the potential impact of an event (and a sustained engagement campaign following it) on employee behaviour, productivity and satisfaction is limiting and short sighted. According to Forbes, there is a demonstrable correlation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

simplybetter

experts in creative, memorable and impactful events

Events have changed dramatically in a short space of time. To find out more about our approach to engaging, innovative event experiences that drive real change, check out our resources page. Or call us for a chat, drop us an email or DM about your next event and see how we can help you reframe your stakeholder conversations to show the value of well-planned events and engagement campaigns and, more importantly, the impact on their business.