Speaker 1: It's really about measuring how an event is going to be post-completion that is the true success factor. And I think more than ever, the impact of this channel though has historically been the hardest to measure. So today I'd love to focus on a model that I employ and execute with my team that we use and really focus on the post-event process. Everyone is really hyped up and excited to plan, to ideate, and to obviously go on site and just rock it out. But if you don't have the data points post-event to proof point the success, that is going to be a huge challenge for you. And again, make it very, I would say, complicated going forward in your budget to prove this. And really having a sales impact. So let's jump right in and let's talk a little bit about how at PTC I've employed a system with my team to measure events successfully. So first and foremost, we're really talking about two different types of events. We're talking about events you can host and events that you're going to that are third party. So whether you're sponsoring an event, maybe you're partnering with a different group or a third party and you're co-creating an event together. But regardless, there's really a consistent level of themes or impact that make that play. So first and foremost, we look at measurement around objective KPIs. And I would say one thing that before you do any of that stuff is you have to think about the goals of the event. So how do you want to measure the success? What are some of those KPIs that you want to attribute so that you can use that as a benchmark post-analysis to really evaluate its success? And there's a great industry term that we use called SMART, and that stands for Specific, for Measurable, for Achievable, for Results Oriented, and for Time Bound. And those big criteria are something I've emphasized time and time again with my team, and it really sets us out on alignment. Making sure that your team is aligned first and foremost is half that battle. And I really make sure that I drive feedback from every one of my direct colleagues to truly make them feel part of the event process as we go forward. Because if they haven't bought into it, they're not going to be passionate and exude the brand and story tell the way you hope they will on site. So then you go on site, you have a great event, or maybe you don't have a great event for whatever reason. And I think there's a lot of different variables sometimes that impact the success or the perception of success for a show. And again, you sometimes might deal with issues like a family emergency for a key event team member, or someone falls ill last minute. These types of stumble and roadblocks are really important because you have to make sure that you take those into consideration when evaluating the post-event recap. But again, going back to our formula, I really first and foremost start off with the event expenses. I look at everything from the food and beverage cost to hotels if you're hosting an event, to travel, to the vendor partnerships required, to the people cost. There's so many different factors that you have to look at. And sometimes you have tunnel vision or blinders where you might only focus on one on two. And it's really important that you make it comprehensive audit. Now with the event expenses or one bucket, you want to add that up and really get a total cost. But the next phase of this is really looking at those objective KPIs, which most of us as marketers have seen for most of our careers. These are things like lead generation, pipeline driving, number of registrations, revenue, and so much more. And I would say there's an industry trend that I'm seeing over the last three to four years now where we're seeing more subjective impact. And these are things now that we're looking at at events like thought leadership, and the brand amplification, and how did you engage with customers? Was there product demos involved? The days of just counting the number of booth scans, those are far and cry from over. And you have to think outside the box if you're truly going to have an appropriate, accurate representation of what happened at that event and the true impact it can make and the future impact on the customer lifecycle and the value proposition. So again, my team looks at all of those different impact variables beyond the expenses. And then what we do is we then create a reporting scale. So we look at everything from a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being super low on that spectrum, 5 being amazing, could not have gone any better, it's super achievable, and just exceeded expectations. And then we try to aggregate those scores. So every time you're hosting an event or you have a third party event, you look at these different metrics, and you take the different impact variables when appropriate, and you add all of those up. And then we aggregate, again, those scores. And we really use a scoring system of really a 1 to 50 point measurement. So anything over a 30 point system is a really great success in the eyes of PTC or the teams that I manage and run. And we consider those something that we want to reevaluate or continue executing in future years, depending on the same strategy the company has embarked and executed. But beyond those scores, you're really end result of the last step you want to take is really looking at does that total event cost, does that outweigh or is it lower than the impact on objective and subjective variables or impact? And you take those scores, and we rank that performance by a lettering system. So we use A, B, C, D. A is for our A plus events, and think of this just like in grade school. If you got an A on a test, you were beyond pleased, you were happy, you met expectations or maybe even exceeded expectations. If you got a D, it probably needed some improvement, and you need to figure out what was wrong and what needed to change in the future. Now what I would also say is when we look at A events and we look at the scoring system, don't just stop there with the scoring. Try to do an evaluation and extract additional data points and different trends or things that you're observing when you look at this. So what I mean by that is in the A column, what makes events A's? What attributions, what similarities that you can sort of hypothesize and collectively agree to makes them A events? And when you start to synthesize that data and really look at it at the high level, it helps you significantly be more successful in deducing those takeaways to educate the rest of the business, to look for other events that you want to source or research or recruit to. And again, as you get lower down that scoring system, I would also say though, don't just look at this if you get a C or a D for an event and say it was a failure. In life and in business, I am a true believer in forgiveness. And I think sometimes it's really helpful to do an evaluation. So maybe you had for a C or D rated event, a colleague that was sick, and they're your go-to thought leader, or they're the individuals who just absolutely kill it on the booth front where they're exhibiting or they're creating a party or they're hosting a third party event. And they're the ones that really do the best job engaging with attendees, starting conversations, driving customer interest. So you have to reevaluate it. I'm a big proponent, and I would advocate today that you always try something at least two times. That's my rule at PTC. We always try something twice. And if it doesn't work after the second time, then we know to maybe sunset something or reevaluate if it makes the most sense for investing our marketing dollars. But overall, this is a great system to use. You have to have a system, and this is really my first point around getting notice within your business. All right? Coming to your executive leadership, showing a methodical system, this is how you stand out. And especially with everyone kind of racking their brain with measuring event ROI, this is an easy way to synthesize down and start to benchmark the programs that you're executing or the event portfolio in which you manage. And by doing so, this is going to allow you to, again, look for future planning and really measure that success going forward, but making changes and improvements to your system. Because if you can measure it, you can make it better. And that is a really, really important part, is you always want to be improving. There's new events popping up left and right. There are millions of events that happen every single year, and it's your job as a marketer based on the strategic strategy of the company in alignment with marketing's goal. Our goal as marketers is to capture the attention of our audience and then hand them over to sales or work with a product team and allow them to take that attention and convert that into business. And events are that tactic. So make sure that you pay attention to that and that you're using this system.