You’ve just held your annual conference and it’s been a great success; delegate numbers exceeded your expectations, the exhibition was bustling throughout, and you have no worries about pulling another successful event out the bag again next year. So, what is the importance of post event surveys?
International conferences, as well as national conferences, attract delegates from across the world, so it’s no secret that we want to know where people are coming from and why the event might be of interest to them. As association management professionals, Fitwise are entrusted to keep delegates coming back year on year and to attract new delegates to association conferences and annual scientific meetings, so understanding all aspects of a potential delegate’s decision-making process is hugely important.
Detailed insights provided by post event surveys
Post event surveys provide a detailed insight into exactly why delegates decide to attend an event, how they discovered it, how successful they found it, and what they would like to see from future events.
Firstly, it’s important to know how your delegates found out about your conference or event. This will let you know the best ways in which to market your event in the future. If most people discovered the event via social media, then this is the ideal place to focus a lot of your marketing for the next event.
Alternatively, if no one advised they found out about your conference or event through the newspaper advert you paid for, then you can decide to leave this out of your marketing plan next year. It’s a great way to focus your marketing and to help save a little bit of money on areas that don’t provide as much return.
It’s also key to understand the importance of asking delegates about the sessions they attended at the conference or event. Event speakers and their educational sessions will appeal to some people and not others, so it’s important to get feedback on how these sessions went from a delegate’s point of view. This will give you an overall picture of how many people might be interested in a similar topic or speaker in the future. Additionally, providing open ended questions will encourage delegates to spill their real thoughts and suggestions they might have to make sessions more interesting or appealing.
Post event surveys really hold the greatest importance when it comes to planning your next event by asking what people want to see and hear about. Delegates will often suggest topics you hadn’t even thought of, or a different structure that might increase interaction. They will tell you what they enjoyed most about the event so you can continue to do more of it and what they enjoyed least so you can consider what you might like to remove from the event.
And it’s not only delegates you can ask for feedback from, but also your sponsors and exhibitors. Their opinions on how delegates interacted with them will confirm whether you are attracting the right exhibitors for your event and if your delegate profile is correct.
Questions to ask in a post event survey
As well as understanding the importance of post event surveys as a whole, it’s also important to know what questions to ask. The best place to start is by splitting your event up into the areas you want to find out about, think marketing, sales, and programme. This way you can allocate questions to each of these areas and gather the most useful information to take forward.
For feedback on your conference marketing, ask questions about where delegates are from, how they discovered the event, and try to retain their details if you can. If you are an association or society, see if delegates are interested in becoming members or if they are currently members and would be interested in spreading the news about your event.
When it comes to the sales and exhibition side of your conference or event, ask your sponsors and exhibitors if they found the audience relevant to them, what improvements they would suggest and if they are intending to come back again next year. This will give you a good understanding of which companies will be good for the delegates of your event and how to improve their experience.
The programme for an event or conference is the glue that holds it all together, so improvements for your association event or international conference is something you should be keen learn about. Asking delegates how relevant sessions were and what they found most useful will give you an insight into the best types of sessions and topics you should be looking to include in future programmes. Asking what delegates would like to see at future events will also give you some inspiration for future talks at your event.
Want to know more about association events and how we can help market your upcoming conference or event? Get in touch.