Event management technology provider Cvent showcased the findings of its Modern Event Marketing Europe report to the audience of its CONNECT Europe conference in London, 1-2 October.
The study, which surveyed 72 EMEA chief marketing officers (CMOs), including five from Vodafone, GE Healthcare, Tata Communications, AON and Mercer, revealed extensive insights into the importance of events as a marketing asset, rather than an expense.
According to the CMO responses, 83% consider their event programmes to be either ‘extremely’, ‘very’ or ‘significantly’ valuable for facilitating revenue growth.
Only 4% run events that are not tied in some way to revenue goals while 89% consider events to be either ‘critical’, ‘very important’ or ‘important’ to accelerating the sales cycle.
Currently, the largest contributor to event ROI is customer satisfaction metrics (52%), followed by new lead capturing (29%).
When the CMOs were asked, whether or not their events programme contributed to their overall revenue goals in an efficient manner, 57% said yes but that they needed more justification for board-level sign-off. In fact, 53% of CMOs stated that proving ROI was ‘very important’ when it came to allocating budget to events.
Julie Woods-Moss, former CMO, TATA Communications told the CONNECT audience: “To elevate our events we focus on pre, during and post event initiatives to maximise the overall success factor and increase our ROI. Techniques include creating immersive experiences and offering a keynote slot as part of a sponsorship.”
