Hybrid Events

Are Hybrid Event KPIs Mapped Any Different?

Eventually Learning Team

02 October 2022

Read time 5 minutes

“If it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed.” - Peter Drucker

The past few Covid-struck years have been a pandora’s box for event creators – earlier what was the zoom fatigue has now metamorphosed into spoilt for event accessibility choices.

In 2022, Hybrid events have become the new normal for global employee trainees, industry workshop attendees and networking champions.

But, until now, marketers who provided the proof of the pudding with social shares and online chat numbers on virtual dashboards are now left with more question marks than ever about the hybrid event metrics and data analysis approach.

The reason? Number crunching hybrid event attendee data sets creates two further subsets – online and offline attendees, which have to be tracked differently. Consider these examples. An online product demo may not get as many likes as an IRL one. Closed-wons from virtual participants may be more surpassing.

So, does one look at the disparate, granular conversion picture or the bigger 'mix attendee' KPI picture? Let’s plunge into the answers and take the calculated risk!

Determine Your Registration Rate

Knowing the number of registrations to your hybrid event overrides everything else. It forms the base of your entire event planning procurement and logistics landscape. It would be best if you had an absolute demarcation determining who will attend the event online and who will be present on-site.

Next comes the Registration Rate. Again, the formula simply goes as:

  Number of Hybrid Event Registrations
    Registration Rate                 = _______________________________

  Number of Hybrid Event Invitees

So, the Registration Rate at a hybrid event is calculated as a cumulative of the on-site and online Registration Rates to get a clearer picture of the attendee presence at the two channels of event viewership.

On-Site Registration Rate + Online Registration Rate = Hybrid Registration Rate

A Markletic survey suggest about 56% of attendees prefer attending hybrid events in-person while 44% prefer virtual settings.

Building Brand Awareness, Engagement and Metrics Around it

Branding is the essence of an event. So whether you're tapping brand impressions, website traffic or referrals, strategizing your hybrid event brand can rake in significant revenues if done right.

Some Pre-Hybrid-Event Brand Awareness Metrics that you can bank on are:

Engagement of New Voices on Social Media
In-person and Virtual Attendee Buying Behaviors on the Website
Media Mentions
Backlinking

A bit more about in-event branding! For the on-site version of your hybrid event, you can conceptualize banners, color themes, logos, signposts, and event swag; for the virtual version, you can opt for a white-label virtual event platform with tailored branding features. The in-event attendee engagement feedback can be tapped through session sign-ins and Q&A interactions, clicks on the 'call-to-action' buttons at the virtual booths, the networking meeting-accepted to networking meeting-rejected ratios, in-event downloads and more such parameters.

Responses, along with Surveys are wonderful tools to discover and tap into the attendee satisfaction levers. When it is about post-event surveys you'll have to segregate on-site and online attendee responses, as along with the above matrices. The formula you can try out is:

Survey Feedback from In-person attendees Survey Feedback from Virtual attendees Total Survey Feedback
----------------------------------- + ---------------------------------- = --------------------------------
Total Surveys shared with attendees Total Surveys shared with attendees Total Surveys shared with Attendees

The Dual Attendee Acquisition Cost!

The cost per attendee for a hybrid event is an important metric for understanding the segmented profitability of the event. The attendee acquisition cost can be calculated as the average spending done vs. the average revenues built. Try these two equations out:

Total Event Attendees
----------------------------------- x 100
Total Event Expenses Made

Total Event Attendees
----------------------------------- x 100
Total Event Revenues Built

The event expenses can include venue costs, F&B catering, hiring of third-party vendors, event décor rentals, marketing and registration expenses and administrative costs. The above formulas can be applied individually to the virtual and in-person components of the hybrid event.

Are my Sponsors Engaged at my Hybrid Event?

Your Sponsors are your key supporters, but asset listing at Hybrid events can be tricky! Your physical event-provided benefits could be signages and event program naming deals. The virtual event could include sponsor banner clicks, chats mentions and website traffic. So, it is essential that you list down all the online and offline assets to present their apt valuations in your event sponsorship package.

By tracking the above parameters statistically, you can give ROI backing to the sponsors' investments and encourage them to back your future events as well. Here's a lister to get you started on monitoring event sponsorship ROIs at your hybrid event.

Tap into Brand Impressions (Social Media, PR Releases)
Gathering of Referrals
Swag and Collateral Distribution or Downloads
On-site Purchases, Email Open Rates, Click-through rates
Results of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey

Afterword

Hybrid Event Metrics can give you insights into your future attendee engagement strategies. As a result, you can meet your sales and marketing objectives better with personalized hybrid event setups.

FAQs

What are some Hybrid event trends in 2022?

The current hybrid event trends in 2022 are:

There will be more investments in event technology
The Remote workforce will be connected through hybrid event meetings
There will be more academic hybrid events this year
Mobile Event Apps will be popular at Hybrid Events

What is the Hub and Spoke Model?

The Hub and Spoke Model is all about splitting up a large-sized event with thousands of attendees into one central event venue and several regional venues. This format encourages attendee participation and engagement during the current prevalent Covid-19 pandemic.