| Todays' discussion about the value of meetings and | | | | of your planning process. Your overall goal then, and |
| conferences moves to a new plane. Instead of | | | | a means to measure the success of the meeting or |
| focusing only on the Return on Investment (ROI), | | | | conference, should directly relate to comparing the |
| Executives are beginning to focus on Return on | | | | results found through financial reports, surveys, |
| Objective (ROO). Our opinion... measuring the true | | | | growth, and much more. Event managers need to be |
| value of meetings and conferences often requires | | | | able to provide credible data supporting the value of |
| that you use a combination of both. | | | | the meeting or conference. |
| ROI typically expresses the worth of a meeting or | | | | When determining how you are going to measure |
| conferences in monetary terms - the number of | | | | the results of your conferences or meeting, |
| dollars gained or lost as a result of the meeting or | | | | understand that the answer is not one size fits all. |
| conferences after you account for all associated | | | | For some client's, we find that ROI is the best |
| expenses. ROO, on the other hand, measures | | | | measurement means, for others, it's ROO and still |
| whether the objectives of a meeting or conferences | | | | others it is a combination of both. |
| have been met, such as whether sales | | | | One of the most important aspects of our job as |
| representatives can recall the selling points of a | | | | conferences and meetings planners is to help our |
| product six months or a year after a sales training | | | | client's determine how they will measure the success |
| meeting. | | | | of their meeting or conference. At the very beginning |
| Since the goals for hosting meetings and conferences | | | | of the meeting or conference planning process, we |
| typically expand far beyond monetary reasons alone, | | | | sit down with our clients and work with them to |
| simply looking at the financial aspect of your meeting | | | | figure out what they want to accomplish during the |
| is incomplete when measuring value. | | | | conference or meeting and how to best measure |
| We highly recommend that senior staff determine | | | | that. It's imperative to take this first step in order to |
| very specific objectives and get the buy in from all | | | | effectively determine how successful your meeting |
| key players within your organization at the beginning | | | | turns out to be in the end. |