Simon Clayton, chief ideas officer, RefTech, encourages eventprofs to be mindful about what data they collect and how they use it.
Events collect a lot of data, and unless you’ve spent the past few years living under a rock you will know that data is king, that the more data we have the better and that events without data are worthless. Or so you’ve been led to believe.
Data can tell us lots of things, but collecting, managing, maintaining and storing data is expensive, so it can be a double-edged sword. Before collecting reams of data, you have to ask yourself ‘what am I actually going to get out of it?’
Consider what the actual tangible benefits are that the specific data will bring to you and your event. How will the data change what you do? Data without context is pointless, and statistics and data without meaningful action points are no better than just stating random facts.
The ‘so what’ test
If you are running a B2B conference, then I can tell you that over 80% of your registrations are going to come from a desktop or a laptop, rather than tablets or phones. Your delegates will be accessing your registration platform predominantly using Chrome, some Edge, some Firefox and they’ll be mostly using Windows. I’m not looking at any statistics for any of these predictions; this is just what will happen because Windows is by far the most popular operating system and, currently, Chrome is the most popular browser. People registering for a business event tend to do so while they’re sitting at their desk.
I’m not saying these facts aren’t potentially interesting, what I’m saying is that they don’t pass the ‘so what?’ test because they don’t provide anything that could cause you to take action. With these facts in mind, you may ask if your registration forms need to be responsive so that they work on mobile devices and tablets and, yes, they absolutely should be, simply because it gives people options and all forms should be responsive these days. But the fact that more than 80% of your delegates are going to be registering on a computer at their desk is irrelevant, because there’s nothing you can do with that information. With stuff like this, you would be far better following tech trends to see if there are things looming on the horizon that you will need to cope with next year.
Something to remember is that web browser trends move relatively slowly. It takes many months, and even years, to see large swings. Your data only relates to a fairly small window for your event – perhaps three to four months. This means that you might be taken by surprise if, this year, you’re seeing far more Microsoft Edge users than last year, but in the wider picture of the internet that will have been well known.
Therefore, it’s important to look forwards and outwards by looking at other data sources for trends that are happening so you don’t get caught out by something ‘new to you’. Remember that once upon a time there was no need for responsive web pages – it was only when smartphones and tablets came along that we all had to make sure our forms worked on all of those. What’s coming next that we’ll have to cope with? It’s very hard to say, but the trends will be there before we see them in the events industry.
Select valuable data
A lot of organisers end up with large amounts of data that ispointless. Even if they do get around to analysing it. It might be interesting, but if it doesn’t lead to actions and change the way you do something then it’s useless. Your data may show you that people under the age of 25 tend to register before 10am. Ok, great, – now what?
You may have data showing that 20% of people abandon their registration forms without finishing them. Some of those will go on to re-register and actually finish the forms, but some don’t and then won’t attend the show. Some thatdon’t finish the form might turn on site and attend. Can you do anything with any of that data?
Not really, because there are countless external factors affecting why people didn’t complete the registration form. Those might be distractions, or change of mind and you have absolutely no way of knowing why they didn’t finish. You may think that you should reduce the size of the form, limit the number of questions maybe? But 80% of people did fill in the form, so it worked for the vast majority. The thing to remember here is that if there is something you could change to lower the dropout rates then why aren’t you doing that anyway?
The same applies to demographic questions – the ‘what is your level of purchasing authority’ type questions. Make sure you’re actually going to use that data in a meaningful way because your attendees have to invest their time in your event to fill that stuff in and you should make sure that information isn’t wasted.
Remember, don’t chase data analytics endlessly unless it’s actually going to provide you with something useful.
