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An insightful post-event report offers a range of long-term benefits. Discover what you need to include in yours.
When organising events, the success of one can set the stage for the next. To help you understand what worked well for your events and how to improve in the future, it's important to create a post-event report. This provides a snapshot of your event's success and identifies areas for future improvements.
While some elements of the report like attendance numbers, budget breakdowns, and client feedback may seem straightforward, including additional elements can make your report more than just another report, but a tool to make future events even better.
We've got all the essential elements you need to include in your post-event report to take it from good to great.
What to Include in Your Post-Event Report
Executive Summary: Beyond the Basics
Your executive summary should clearly describe how your event performed in line with its objectives. Tailor this section of your post-event report to the interests of key stakeholders by emphasising the most relevant outcomes.
For instance, if your event aimed to encourage networking opportunities, highlight how specific activities facilitated professional connections and explain the benefits to participants. Include relevant metrics to support your claims (i.e. "networking sessions saw a 40% higher engagement rate than anticipated"). This provides a narrative that aligns these achievements with the event’s strategic goals.
Objective Alignment Analysis
There are two types of objectives to consider when planning your events: one to measure things like attendance or survey results, and another to measure the impact of the event on things like brand perception.
To analyse these objectives in your post-event reporting, look at the strategies used during the event, what the outcomes were, and whether these strategies were effective. For example, if the objective was to introduce a new product, we need to look at how it was presented, how the audience reacted, and whether there was an increase in interest or sales. This analysis should also assess how well your planning and execution phases aligned with set goals.
Detailed Financial Reporting
Your post-event report should include a detailed breakdown of budgets, expenditures, returns, and financial management insights. Your event management software can help you to break down event costs into categories like catering, technology, and venue, and compare them to the expected budget. If there are any discrepancies between the projected and actual budgets, the insights gained will help you understand why. This will allow you to explore ways of improving financial efficiency in the future.
For example, if venue catering spending went over your expected budget, it might be better to consider more cost-effective packages or re-evaluate food and beverage costs for future events
Stakeholder and Participant Feedback
Include all feedback in your post-event report. Make it easy to understand and digest by segmenting it into different stakeholder groups—attendees, sponsors, vendors—and highlight common themes and unique insights from each. Event management software can also help you gather feedback via surveys and polls.
Use analytics tools to quantify sentiment where possible, such as measuring positive vs. negative feedback percentages. Instead of just listing comments, take it a step further by accompanying feedback with strategic insights, like recognising gaps between what attendees expected and what they actually experienced. Use feedback to inspire future event innovations, like new activities or changes based on what attendees and stakeholders suggest.
Marketing and Outreach Effectiveness
Next, identify the performance of all your event's different marketing channels, including digital ads, email campaigns, and social media posts. Provide metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement levels.
In your post-event report, discuss how each channel contributed to your overall marketing plan, and determine which ones did the best job of getting people to attend. These marketing insights will be able to help you to smart choices for future marketing, like focusing more on the channels that worked well or making changes to the ones that didn't do as well.
Risk Management and Contingency Planning
Outline any risk management strategies that were implemented throughout your event planning and delivery, such as security measures, health and safety protocols, and event crisis communication plans.
Discuss any risks that actually happened, how we responded to them, and how well our backup plans worked. This part of your post-event report is a great opportunity to look at how well you were prepared and flexible, and identify ways to improve risk assessment and management in the future.
Sustainability Practices
Your post-event report should also feature any sustainability initiatives undertaken throughout planning and delivery, such as digital documentation, recycling programs, or energy-saving measures.
Discuss the response from attendees regarding these inituatives and include any observable benefits or drawbacks of these practices. This section should also include suggestions on how sustainability could be better integrated into your future events, potentially drawing on emerging practices or technologies to enhance environmental responsibility.
Visual and Statistical Appendices
Finally, include informative and visually appealing appendices for your post-event report. These appendices should contain graphs and charts that show key information and data, such as who attended the event, feedback scores, or how money was spent.
These visual aids make it easy for readers to understand complex data quickly, and can provide valuable insights that complement the written content of your report. Consider using infographics that tell stories about the event's successes or case studies.
Level Up Your Post-Event Report
Creating a post-event report is not just about documenting what happened to report back to supervisors; It's a valuable tool for improving your events and keeping attendees engaged. Remember - the ultimate goal is to use your insights to drive the planning and execution of more impactful, memorable events. Let your report be the groundwork upon which you build not just another event, but a reputation as a seasoned event professional.
