What’s the ROI?

We were thrilled when Event Magazine asked us if we knew anything about ROI and would we take part in a panel discussion at the Event Guide Live last month.

Step forward Jess H, our very own ROI guru (and joint MD), who when asked why she loves it and has it as her chosen specialist subject “Because if you can’t demonstrate you’re delivering a return what’s the point of our existence. How can you expect Clients to trust you with their money, if you can’t show them what it delivers back to their business?”

Sit with our lovely Board and Strings asks “where’s the magic?”, Em’s asks “what’s the story?”, Sian asks “what’s the experience?” and Jess always asks “what’s the ROI?” (Tim always asks “where’s the money?” but let’s not go there).

So Jess kindly agreed to sit on Panel and we snuck in and listened with interest to the debate, and what Jess had to say:

– ROI is the ability to quantify in some form, a measurement for return on investment

– There is no universal agreement on how to measure success in this field, which is outrageous

– Measurements are usually by individual brand owners or driven by an agency model

– Measurement standard could be from cost per contact, reach or engagement levels

– Favoured approach is to measure advocacy and propensity to purchase

– The industry should work together more collaboratively to share data to build more robust modelling.

– We don’t want to drown in complex tools

– ATL measurement is invested in as it’s been driven by the media and ad agencies to validate their industry and is traditionally the highest spend

– As an industry we need to ensure we are investing as much in researching the success of our channel as experience has the ability to drive the most resonance with consumers

– Marketers recognise the impact of events however the post campaign analysis is often weak

Hear, hear Jess. She definitely knows her chosen specialist subject as the panel and audience were all in agreement.

Her final quote .

“Let’s hope this is the start of an industry collaboration on delivering an ROI model shared and adopted as a norm”.