The 12 Questions to Ask Yourself to Measure the Success of Your Virtual Event
Emily Hartmann, former Consultant
Boulder, CO
In the wake of COVID-19, events across the globe have been canceled, postponed, or transformed into a virtual engagement. As this pandemic voraciously swept over the world with no clear path to eradication, organizations have been left scrambling to plan and execute virtual solutions to their in-person events.
Translating to a virtual environment comes with several challenges. The most ubiquitous being a newfound competition with the entire internet for stakeholders’ attention. From behind a screen, it is imperative to consider success metrics from the start and to employ mechanisms designed to maintain audience engagement.
So, how can you measure the success of your virtual event?
Pre-Event: Planning Phase
The number one metric that will define the success of your virtual engagement depends on your goal. One popular metric is the number of stakeholders that register. This metric informs whether your communications are effective, how engaged your stakeholders are, and if there is a clear benefit to attending. Here are some questions to consider during the Pre-Event phase:
How do registration numbers compare to the stakeholder group you are targeting?
Oftentimes, online events may reach more people than in-person events because of the low barrier to entry. Consider the number of stakeholders you are targeting with your event promotions, how does this compare? For example, if you send an event announcement email to 1,000 stakeholders, what percentage of that group registers?
How many people are registering for my event the day a promotion is sent?
Your promotional platforms may include email, blogs, social media, webpages, etc. Track the performance metrics per each promotion and correlate to your sign-up data. See which messages and media are getting the most traction. By qualifying the success of your promotions with registration numbers, you can hone your messaging and communications platforms to continue to boost your sign-ups.
During Event: Implement Phase
When you are ready to broadcast your virtual content to the world, your primary focus should be on audience engagement. It can be hard to tell if your audience is enthralled with your content in a virtual setting - there’s no way to tell if they’re falling asleep or scrolling through Facebook from behind a screen. That’s why it’s imperative to implement opportunities for questions and feedback to ensure your delivery is successful. You should also consider these questions:
If the event is live, what percentage of people who registered actually attended?
Regularly, people will sign up for a live event to receive the recording post-event. You’ll need to create a sense of urgency in your communications to convince registrants to tune in live. Is it a live Q&A with the presenters? Will they be the first to hear a special announcement? What’s in it for them?
For typical live webinars supported by Corner Alliance, we see a 50% attendance rate, on average.
If the event is live, are attendee numbers holding steady throughout the engagement? Or, are they dropping off during a portion of your presentation?
During a live presentation, record your attendance every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the engagement. This way, you can tell if stakeholders are uninterested during a piece of the live session. A drop in attendance rate at the end of the presentation could mean people have meetings at the next hour, or maybe don’t want to stick around for the live Q&A.
Are stakeholders asking questions or responding to requests for feedback?
A great way to temperature check a live audience is to use a virtual platform that will allow you to deploy poll questions (Check out another blog in this series, “Deciding Your Platform” for more insight). This can showcase which audience members are truly engaged with your event and who is not paying attention.
Tip: To keep your audience even more engaged, consider tailoring your presentation to poll results. For example, if you ask “Why are you attending this virtual event?”, you’ll get immediate audience insight and can spend extra time diving into what your audience is most interested in.
You can also measure how engaged your audience is by tracking the number of questions asked during a virtual event. Audibly prompting the audience to ask questions or give feedback can be a great way to reel wandering stakeholders back in to re-engage with your content.
What are stakeholders asking about during the virtual event?
Consider the types of questions being asked during your virtual event. Are stakeholders asking for more clarity, or are they asking questions to dig deeper into your content? Questions asking to clarify a point may mean that your presentation’s message was not clearly explained the first time around. On the other hand, questions that suggest your audience is ready to dive deeper are a testament to your content’s relevance.
How satisfied are stakeholders with the content of your virtual event?
By implementing a simple scale rating system for your stakeholders at the close of your presentation, you can easily obtain a valuable metric that informs how worthwhile a presentation was to your audience.
For a Corner Alliance-hosted virtual event, we tend to observe a satisfaction rating between 4 and 5 on a 1-5 scale. (1 - Poor, 2- Fair, 3 -Good, 4 -Very Good, 5-Excellent)
Has your website traffic increased?
When hosting a virtual engagement, you should expect to see an uptick in traffic to your organization’s website or specific webpage(s) (especially if any event content is hosted there). Record the average number of visitors to your website the week preceding your event and compare it to the week of your event. This baseline data will allow you to quantify an event-induced surge in visitors.
During a recent Corner Alliance-hosted virtual event, we observed a total website traffic increase of over 80% compared to our client’s average.
If your event is recorded, how many views does it have?
Similar to the attendees of a live event, evaluate the number of people that have signed up for your event and the number of people viewing the content. You should continue monitoring this metric while you are sustaining content promotions. This ratio will inform how exciting and engaging stakeholders find the content you’ve delivered.
Post Event: Creating Results
When your event comes to a close, the full arc of the data becomes available to analyze your event’s success. Here are some questions to consider:
How did your total registration number compare to a similar in-person event or virtual event?
The results are in, so you can look even deeper into the comparison data from similar events (whether in-person or virtual). Did registration surpass what you expected?
During a recent virtual event hosted by Corner Alliance, our consultants achieved a 100% increase in attendance compared to a similar in-person event. The virtual and accessible format significantly increased reach versus an in-person gathering.
How are stakeholders responding to your post-event survey?
Following up with an easy way for stakeholders to give their feedback is a great way to learn about your audience and understand their event experience. In a virtual setting, there’s no way to walk up to an audience member and ask them on the spot. A post-event survey can capture feedback, and is a valuable tool to measure the success of your event.
Did your organization gain new followers on your blog, social media, email, website, etc. as a result of your virtual event?
By tracking new followers on all communications platforms, you can understand the reach the virtual event had online. While you may not be able to count the number of people in a conference hall, you can track an increase in page views or followers on Twitter. Do these numbers exceed your average increased follower count or email subscribers in any given week? Can you correlate the increases to specific promotions in the pre, during, or post event phases?
Corner Alliance can help
Planning a virtual event can be daunting, and it’s hard to know where to start. Let alone, how to ensure it’s successful. Your success measurements should be identified early, and integrated into a dashboard or report for efficient monitoring and evaluation and those metrics may vary depending on your event’s size, purpose, or outcomes. Other metrics that could be helpful to measure include: data collected, feedback and ratings, general sentiment, media coverage, email open rates, email click through rates, social media engagement, and impacts.
Corner Alliance consultants have a proven track record of designing and executing successful virtual engagements. We understand that the need to convene a community of stakeholders cannot be postponed or canceled.
Author
Emily Hartmann, former Consultant to NIST PSCR, seeks to inspire positive change through her work in communications. Her passion for mission-driven work began in her experience with environmental non-profits and has translated into her position with Corner Alliance.