Many business-to-business companies today in business services, financial services and technology are spending heavily on a range of marketing events from industry trade shows, to client conferences to online and on-demand formats like webcasts. While most of these companies know the registration and attendance statistics, they have no good way of measuring the ROI of these investments or their downstream sales pipeline impact.

MDS has developed a convergent approach to measuring the sales impact and ROI effectiveness of these events using a mix of post event surveys, and statistical modeling. Within 3 days of an event we send survey invitations to event attendees to measure the impact of event attendance on brand perceptions, and purchase intentions. Surveys are conducted around the world in multiple languages and we have cracked the code on getting very high response rates cost effectively. Within a week we provide rich diagnostic data about how to improve the overall event and individual sessions or exhibits.

Then, using a proprietary analytical approach, we then link the survey results to hard data on the downstream impact of the events on sales pipeline to allow ROI measurement and to suggest budget reallocations which increase spend effectiveness. Typically the results of this work guide decisions on which event formats and locations to invest more heavily in, which event attendees are better targeted, and which specific events might be dropped or scaled up and offered more frequently. Gains of 40% plus in spend effectiveness are common using this approach. Click to download