Event management has never been trickier than now. After more than a year of virtual events and Zoom calls, the B2B event market is finally getting back on track. Business professionals are eager to get back to face-to-face networking and the excitement of in-person events. However, the market is not bouncing back as quickly as many had hoped. If you look at the predictions made by analytics companies, you will see that CAGR is expected to be around 3.54% from 2021 to 2027 which is not much at all. While the return to offline events is a welcome change, companies are now evaluating the costs and benefits of attending events in a post-Covid world.
The pandemic has taught us many things, and one of the most significant is that offline events are not a necessity. Yes, nothing can replace live interaction with other humans, but… We can live without large and expensive expos and conferences. As now with the crisis and recession, companies have been forced to cut costs in every area of their business, visiting events is not a priority, no matter what marketing departments say. As a result, many businesses have reduced their budgets for attending events or eliminated them altogether.
While many organizations are still willing to invest in offline events, they expect to get back more. It’s no longer enough to attend events simply for networking and brand exposure. Companies want to see a real return on investment, and they want to be able to evaluate the efficiency of their participation.
This presents a challenge for event organizers and marketers. How can they provide companies with the data and insights they need to justify the investment in offline events? How can they measure the effectiveness of an event beyond just the number of business cards collected?
One solution is to leverage technology to provide companies with actionable data and insights. Event management platforms like Confetta that are focused on needs of event participants could provide real-time data on attendee engagement, booth traffic, and session attendance. This information could be used to track ROI and make informed decisions about future event participation.
Using such technologies will of course bring value to event organizers and the market in general. Knowing that visiting business events brings a lot of benefits, companies will invest more into event marketing. The key here is to demonstrate the value of event technology in terms of increased efficiency, cost savings, and improved ROI.
While the return to offline events is a welcome change, companies are now evaluating the costs and benefits of attending events in a post-Covid world. To succeed in this new reality, they need the data and insights to justify their investment in offline events. By leveraging event technology and demonstrating the value of visiting business events, the business can navigate this new landscape and succeed in the event market.