Event Marketing Benchmark Report

Introduction

Events are a time honored way to connect with customers, prospects and partners. They serve a myriad of functions, most notably for demand and lead generation, lead nurturing, customer engagement and building brand awareness.

In today’s digital environment, the manner in which events are being perceived and utilized by organizations is rapidly changing. Events are no longer silo’ed; they are reaching across business units and having a real impact on the entire organization.

For this reason, companies are putting greater emphasis on their event strategies and programs with a profound focus on getting the proper return from hosting events. Event marketing programs are typically comprised of a selection of the following types of events: tradeshows, conferences, roadshows, webinars, trainings, seminars, galas, user conferences, networking events, field marketing and virtual events.

There’s little doubt that all event details, from logistics to marketing to management, are changing rapidly and that marketers need to be aware of these changes as they market events.

In a study sponsored by Cvent, Demand Metric conducted a survey to find out about the current state of event marketing. The study’s goal was to understand the interest in and success with event marketing, gaining insights from which to derive best practices.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Executive Summary
3. The State of Event Marketing
4. Attending & Hosting Events
5. Event Marketing Budgets
6. Goals for Hosting Events
7. Event Marketing Effectiveness
8. Event Marketing Tools & Technologies
9. Event Marketing Metrics & ROI
10. Lead Volume Satisfaction
11. Event Marketing Challenges
12. The Future of Event Marketing
13. Analyst Bottom Line
14. Acknowledgements

15. About Cvent
16. About Demand Metric
17. Appendix - Survey Background

Research Methodology

This Demand Metric Benchmark Study survey was administered online during the period of October 27, 2014 through November 11, 2014. During this period, 225 responses were collected, 12 of which were disqualified and 161 of which were complete enough for inclusion in the analysis. The data was analyzed using SPSS to ensure the statistical validity of the findings. The representativeness of these results depends on the similarity of the sample to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.