Live events aren't new, but their role for sales and marketing teams only continues to gain popularity. Yet while events can generate lots of buzz, in order to be effective revenue generators, they need to be properly targeted and managed. 

There are three possible objectives for live events. You should decide which is primary for your event:

1. Selling products to the attendees—here you are exposing them to a product, for instance food from ten restaurants or a video game
2. Giving a great experience to the attendees which fosters buzz—for instance, providing a concert or speaker that creates value and buzz, resulting in them telling their friends so their friends buy the sponsoring product and spread word of mouth and word of mouse on the internet
3. Attracting and fostering buzz among the online community—creating buzz due to an event that is newsworthy for some interest group motivating them to act

Go beyond basic metrics to demonstrate impact of your event

The following metrics can be used to demonstrate event impact, depending on the objective: 

1. Direct sales on the spot
2. Sales to attendees after the event
3. Indirect sales to those who hear about the event
4. Person to person word of mouth and
5. Online word of mouse
6. Media mentions

Measuring sales to attendees, online word-of-mouth ,and media mentions is easy, but the majority of person-to-person word-of-mouth and indirect sales often still occur offline. One good approach to measuring these is to survey attendees a week after the event and ask them two questions:

• How many people did you tell about the event?
• To your knowledge, how many of those you told acted on your recommendation?

Many respondents will indicate that they do not know the answer to the second question but surprisingly, many do and will tell you “of the ten people I told, four bought the product.” We usually find that 40-50 percent of respondents will feel comfortable answering the question. This gives you solid data upon which to quantify event impact. Also, ask online purchasers where they heard of you.

Tips for successful events from a veteran

Tracy Lee, CEO of Dishcrawl.com, a San Jose startup, manages live events for many internet and retail firms. She had the following advice on targeting and managing such events and giving them spark. 

Targeting:  We find creating awareness through social channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and email is most effective. We use the guerrilla approach to marketing, communicating directly to thought leaders we have identified for the topic at hand. This is an effective "low" cost strategy that drives a high conversion rate—only the cost of the community manager's salary is incurred without additional marketing spend.

Outreach to potential attendees based on keyword searches on Twitter and Instagram works well—not so much to Facebook. For instance, if a new chocolate company is looking to find people interested in chocolate, they can search things like "Hershey's" "chocolate" "Reese’s" "Snickers" "Ghirardelli" "fondue" and find people sharing experiences of their love of chocolate consumption.  

The “Hook”: If the goal is to maximize the number of qualified attendees, it is crucial to create a strong value proposition for the attendee. The “hook” must be fun and interesting to talk about for WOM excitement or a strong enough business proposition to create a “cannot miss” experience. For some industries and events, having a set of influencers attend could even be the value proposition hook.

For instance: During Fashion Week, it is difficult to attract attention. Throwing an event and announcing that Kim Kardashian will be at the event giving away 10 never-before-seen dresses from Roberto Cavalli's new line will make this the new "go-to" event that everyone is talking about. Everyone will want to attend this event over others. Hooks: Kim Kardashian, free dresses, and exclusive dresses.  

Follow-up: As with any sales strategy, follow-up is key. Follow-up on social networks to those who have expressed interest or individually through email (event reminders before the event) is crucial in making sure you’re getting as many conversions as possible.

Maximize the shareability and buzz:

• Make sure the hash tags are prominently placed everywhere prior, during and throughout the event experience.
•  “Ambassadors” sharing attendee photos and tweets socially set an example to other attendees.
• Community moderation online during the event that instantly responds to those who are sharing will increase the likeliness of them sharing more.
• Have people take pictures and share them. Make sure there are picture-worthy pieces of the event like a guy in a bacon suit at a bacon tasting. 

Get every attendee jazzed:  If your event objective is interesting people networking with each other, create interactive games that are matched to your demographic. If your event objective is trial of a new product , build the event around that experience and making it fun and interactive.  Shareability of the experience online or providing an incentive to share can easily increase virility and sales.    

A client was a new startup that had a database of bloggers they sell access to. We invited media (journalists, magazine editors, news reporters) to a press party that included individuals who would be helpful for companies to use in their marketing efforts. To facilitate as much interaction and conversation as possible between the media and bloggers we created a bingo game around conversations. Each media person got a card at registration and had to find the right person who matched each square (such as "blogged about the death of handbags" or "tweets about everything pink"). This approach can apply to any product.

Live events will work for anyone, but you need to manage and measure them effectively.  

John Goodman is one of the original trailblazers of the customer experience industry and has personally directed some 1,000 customer experience studies for clients worldwide. He is the author of two books: Strategic Customer Service and Customer Experience 3.0. Follow him on Twitter: @jgoodman888

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