How To Leverage Data Before, During And After Your Retail Event
By Kevin Hubschmann, Splash
Retailers, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: units per transaction, sales per transaction and in-store sales aren’t the only ways to measure retail event success. True event success lies in the data that you collect from your event program.
…And it’s a lot of data. When used properly, data collected at your retail events will not only inform your future omnichannel marketing strategies, but will also help you optimize your event program, elevate the guest experience, and measure and prove your efforts.
So what data is crucial for you to collect throughout the entire event lifecycle? From RSVP forms to post-event feedback, below are some of the key opportunities to collect data at your retail events, plus sample data points for each:
1. High-Level Event Data: Event Type, Time and Location (Store)
This data will help you better understand which types of events draw the most attendees, create the most engagement, and even what days and times are most effective.
For example, let’s say you throw a VIP loyalist event in the evening on a weeknight, and your attendance number increases. But your product sampling events got the most foot traffic when they took place on Sundays. This is data you can use to optimize and iterate your event program to what’s most successful to your business.
2. Basic RSVP Data: Name, Email, Phone Number, Opt-In Data
RSVPs aren’t just for understanding venue capacity. Collect this data to define and build better customer profiles, as well as nurture and grow relationships with your customer base i.e. future marketing communications, loyalty member programs, or a liability waiver in the instance of an active event (for example, a cross-training event thrown by Nike).
3. Secondary RSVP Data: Phone Number, Social Handles, Apparel Size, Favorite Activity/Sport, Photo
This extra information is an opportunity to complement your guests’ Consumer Profiles in your CRM, so you can further profile and clientele your consumers.
With this data, you can leverage personalization — for example, you can invite them to another event that’s similar to the one they already attended, or send them a big sale around a product they listed as interesting to them, etc.
4. Check-In Data: Check-In and Walk-In Capture
Understanding if someone showed up to an event is critical in knowing not only if the event itself was successful, but if you are serving up the best experience to that customer. It also helps you better understand your customers and how you can best market to them in your various channels.
Besides the fact that you can now know they attended, what’s most important to get from walk-ins is how they found out about the event. Did they hear about your event through your marketing materials, or were they just walking by your store and noticed all the buzz?
5. On-Site Survey Data: “What was your favorite product?,” “Rate your experience with our new product”
If your event’s goal is for consumers to sample your product, on-site surveys are a great way to collect feedback in real time. You can set up iPad stations throughout your event, making it easy for guests to give feedback when it’s fresh in their mind.
6. Post-Event Survey Data: “What did you think about the event?,” “Would you come to more events?,” “What did you think about the new product?”
You can’t really understand how your event performed unless you receive honest feedback from the people who matter (your guests!). Post-event survey data is important in measuring the sentiment of the guests at your event, as well as optimizing for future events. Bonus: this is also a great extra touch point reminding your guests about the event they just went to.
Next Steps: Start Proving Your Impact
Events are finally just as trackable and measurable as digital — as long as you have the right systems in place.
Integrate your event data with your CRM (or whatever acts as your “single source of truth”), and you’ll be able to see if the guests who engaged with on your event(s) performed another action like purchasing a product, signing up for your loyalty program, visiting the web site, etc.
This view will help you understand how your events influenced and impacted your overall business and, more importantly, how your online and offline experiences work together.
Kevin Hubschmann is the Head of
Retail Strategy at Splash and works directly with our retail partners to
drive effective marketing, management and measurement of retail initiatives.
He’s also dangerous with a Karaoke microphone — come to one of our happy hours
to find out.