Events are a consistently growing proporition of B2B marketing budgets – and an industry in themselves. According to a report by the Convention Industry Council, about 225 million people attend more than 1.8 million events sponsored by companies and associations, including 270,000 conventions and 11,000 trade shows per year. That’s a lot of events: and a lot of event marketing spend. According to Forrester Research, events account for 21% of B2B marketing budgets (although this is a slightly outdated figure).
Interesting article from Frank Cespedes at Harvard Business School about maximising and measuring your return on event spending including harnessing event technology to ensure engagement and followup, and best practice for data and analytics.