MPI survey shows event marketing has the highest ROI for marketers

This great market study surveys every year above 1,000 marketing executives from large companies, and is organised by the Meeting Professionals International (MPI) Foundation, the Event Marketing Institute (EMI) and George P. Johnson (GPJ). Among the findings are the following:

· 23% of respondents choose event marketing as the marketing discipline that provides the greatest ROI followed by public relations (19%)
· Companies that measure their events are two and a half times more likely to receive increases in their event marketing budget than those that do not measure
· 62% of respondents state that they engage in some form of post-event measurement
· 43% choose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships, followed by public relations 25%
· Event marketing (30%) and Web marketing (26%) are the first marketing channels to benefit from an increase in the overall marketing budget; Events (28%) and print advertising (28%) are the channels first affected by a decrease
· 48% of respondents indicate that event marketing is considered  along with other mediums and 25% characterise events as a vital component of the marketing plan; 11% say events are a lead tactic
· 13% of the overall corporate budget is dedicated to marketing with 26% of the average marketing budget spent on event marketing
· The majority of respondents rank the influence of procurement in marketing decisions as low with 21% of respondents indicating that the role of procurement/purchasing is increasing in their organisations
· 58% of respondents plan on implementing or have already implemented green initiatives within the event function; 48% are doing so as a result of a corporate responsibility mandate and report that these initiatives account for 15% of their event budget
· 33% of respondents say they will move from event marketing to experience marketing in the next 12 months; 23% already transitioned.

Commenting on the findings, Bruce MacMillan, MPI´s president and CEO said:  “These findings prove that meetings are the solution, not the problem, at a time when the industry is facing challenging times. Meetings continue to be a powerful marketing tool that can directly impact on a businesses bottom line.”