BPA Worldwide Blog

Event audits can help prove ROI to marketers

A recent survey on BPA’s homepage asked, “How important are trade shows and events in today’s media mix?” Not surprisingly, more than 51% of you voted that face-to-face events are “more important”, and another 26% indicated trade shows hold the same importance as they have in the past.

Media owners understand that today’s advertisers/exhibitors are making strides toward an integrated marketing mix, including print, online and face-to-face. But while print and online data are relatively easy to quantify their return on investment, event data remains somewhat elusive.

Recognizing the need for events marketers to prove ROI, the International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE) has developed an ROI Calculator designed specifically for pre-event planning and post-event measurement. This tool aids exhibitors in their decision to exhibit or return to the show, provide guidance with respect to their marketing investment in areas such as booth size and number of personnel, products/services to be displayed, and measure their performance and potential for ROI from exhibiting.

Of course, the ROI Calculator is only as good as the data that is entered into it. That’s why independent and accurate event audit information is so valuable. Without audited data to plug in, the results of the calculator are no better than a wild stab in the dark. And event audits are standardized so that users can make accurate comparisons between two or more events.

If you already have an event audit, check out the ROI Calculator. I would be very interested to hear back from you in the “Comments” section below.

Mandatory telemarketing recording initiative gets tweaked

Last month our Board of Directors approved changes to several existing rules (click here for the latest updates). The most interesting—and wide-reaching—of the changes looks to be the amendment to the mandatory telecommunication recording initiative that provides an exemption to those subscribers who—while otherwise meeting all qualifying criteria—refuse to be recorded.

In these cases, telemarketers are permitted to fall back on asking the Personal Identifier Question to prove personal request of a publication or magazine.

One question I have already heard regarding this rule is this: “What if a publisher comes back to BPA claiming that half of their telemarketing file refused to be recorded?”

Here’s what I’ve been telling them: Over time BPA will build trend data on the results–as we have now for confirmations. We will know what the normal refusal rate is overall and by market. If three publications in a market have 2% refusals and the fourth has 59% refusals…well, draw your own conclusions.

I’ll be interested to hear your feedback regarding this rule amendment or any of the others.