Famed British mathematician and data science entrepreneur Clive Humby said it best: “Data is the new oil. (Just as oil) has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc., to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity, so data must be broken down and analyzed for it to have value.” 

As the world embraces virtual events to cope with the disruption caused by the pandemic, there’s an opportunity for event professionals to leverage data. And one of the best things about virtual events is that they generate a goldmine of data — granular details that can help you pinpoint exactly how your event fared. There are quite a few ways you can harness the power of these numbers, but three of them stand out.  

Know what your attendees want — and what they don’t 

Virtual event data helps you understand your attendees better, both individually and as a whole. For instance, by charting weekly registrations, you can gain insight into what content your attendees deem most useful, audience demographics, and derive trends. Or you can review which ticket types performed best at your previous events and build an appropriate pricing strategy. You can also discover which sessions, speakers, and booths were liked more, the most popular contest formats, and even the preferred mode of networking among attendees.

Are your attendees enjoying the event? Which session had the maximum attendance? Are the attendees participating in polls? Instead of wondering, use event data and analytics to help you get answers to these questions and so much more.

Show sponsors they’ve invested in the right place 

Sponsorships are a significant contributor to the overall event revenue, which is why you should provide your exhibitors and sponsors with relevant metrics to showcase the value your event offers. To do this, your virtual event platform must provide you with relevant insights like metrics on sponsored banner ads, unique impressions, clicks garnered for ads placed at different locations, and attendee details.  

Another useful metric is booth traffic data. How many attendees visited? What actions did they perform? Did they request a product demo? All this helps shed light on the amount of visibility and lead generation opportunities your sponsors received at your event. This enables you to build a convincing case for why they should continue sponsoring your events.

Estimate the ‘real’ event ROI

Virtual event Return on Investment (ROI) isn’t just about what you gain from a monetary point of view. While expenditure vs. revenue can offer a good starting point to calculate your financial ROI, the real ROI varies according to your event goals. Say you’re selling burgers. Your ROI is not just the profit you earn, but also any word-of-mouth marketing that happens for your burgers. 

Similarly, when you define your event’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), look at what it is that you want to achieve. Is it a specific profit figure? Is it high audience engagement? Is it increasing discussion around a specific topic or gathering membership for your association? A virtual event platform will enable you to track each data point and provide you with detailed insights. You can then chart this against your ROI goals and measure what the event helped you achieve. 

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. To keep drilling for oil, book a demo with us and explore all that’s possible with an event analytics platform.