Marketing, Marketing Events

5 Ways to Measure the Success of an Event

How can you check and see if the event you threw was worth it?

Source: Rawpixel / iStock / Getty

Putting on an event takes a ton of resources. From the time it takes to plan to the money you’ve spent booking a venue and providing refreshments to the sheer man power it takes to host, events are definitely a beast to throw. And whether you’re launching a new product or celebrating a business anniversary, it can be hard to know if your event was as successful as you were hoping. But events, like most other marketing tools, can be made measurable. Here are five ways to measure the success of any event to know whether your goals were met.

  1. How many guests attended? This is probably the easiest metric when it comes to events. Did you meet your attendance goal? If you planned on a party for 100 and only a handful of people swung by, your event probably didn’t meet your expectations, and you know something likely went wrong during the marketing stage.
  2. How much press coverage did you receive? Did many media outlets pick up on your event and cover it as a news story? Getting press attention from both long and short leads is a good way to measure how much buzz your event actually generated. You can also check out your “press conversion rate” by seeing how many reporters were invited vs. how many actually came vs. how many covered the event.
  3. How often was your hashtag utilized across various platforms? If you had a hashtag for the event, how often was it used and on which social media sites? Apps like Brandwatch can help you look over who’s saying what about your company online and will track specific hashtags to see how popular they are so that you don’t need to track each and every platform. You want your event to be the kind that people are talking about online—in a positive way, of course.
  4. How many social media check-ins did you have? Did people want to brag online that they were at your event? Check and see how many people “checked in” on apps like Facebook and Foursquare. Consider creating a location on Instagram stories, as well.
  5. How much did you sell? If the goal of the event was to hit a sales number, was that goal met? If you were selling products on-site or gathering donations for a nonprofit, seeing whether you hit your financial goals is one of the surest ways to determine the success of an event.