How to Optimize Your Post-Event Survey

Post event survey measures meeting effectiveness

You want to ensure that your event is effective and successful, right? One proven way to measure this is by using post-event surveys. Post-event surveys allow you to evaluate the return on the experience (ROE) so that you can continue to improve your participants’ experiences at future events.

The team at Miller Tanner has compiled some best practices for boosting your survey response rate in addition to optimizing with key questions that will best measure your meeting’s effectiveness. That way you can stay ahead of the curve in providing an event that meets both your goals and your attendees’ expectations.

3 Tactics to Boost Survey Response Rate

Association Now recommends using these tactics as a guide to help boost your survey response rate:

First, explain the importance of survey feedback so that the participants know that their input is valued and crucial to future event planning.
Be concise and simple. Limit to a small number, yet essential, questions and use a yes/no or multiple-choice format.
Have one open-ended question which allows participants to give more personalized feedback.

3 Powerful Open-ended Post-Event Survey Questions

Start Us Magazine lists post-event survey questions that can determine your meeting’s effectiveness. These three questions can drive a lot of insightful feedback from your participants.

#1 What is your level of satisfaction for this event?

Start with a big picture question to get a sense of whether your participants were satisfied with the event experience overall. Use open-ended questions or create a scale (example: 1-10).

#2 What elements did you like the most/dislike the most?

This is a powerful open-ended question that can give you a lot of insight into what resonated best with your participants. The answers might surprise you so make sure to create a list of the feedback to be applied when planning your next meeting. This allows you to also address any negative feedback that you might receive and improve upon it.

#3 What was the highlight?

This question is not only helpful for post-event surveys but also for multi-day events. If you are conducting daily surveys, using ARS or other engagement tools, during your meeting, this question allows you to effectively gauge what participants enjoyed the most – possibly allowing you to add the activity to the next day’s agenda. For example, if the highlight for a majority of your attendees was a 30-minute break for networking, consider adjusting the agenda to accommodate your participants’ interests.

Get Specific

If you want to be more targeted with your survey questions, Get Feedback offers these following post-event survey questions as a way to dial into the details. You can add a few of the following specific questions to your survey to generate more detailed feedback:

Which event or speaker were you most pleased with?
Did you have ample time to network?
What can we do to make next year’s conference even better?
What kind of speakers would you like to see next year?
Do you feel as though the conference had a cohesive message?
Did you learn actionable information that will help you in your work life?
What features should we add to the event?

Be Concise

And if you’d like to keep your questions more scale-based, Meetingsnet offers these six post-event questions that will reveal the effectiveness of your meetings using a question set called the Event Performance Indices or EPI. Based on Meetingsnet’s analysis, using the combined set of the following six post-event questions will best reflect the effectiveness of your meeting:

How satisfied are you with the meeting’s overall value in helping you improve your on-the-job effectiveness?
How satisfied are you that the meeting was well worth the investment?
How satisfied are you with the overall meeting experience?
How satisfied are you that the meeting was motivating to you personally?
How satisfied are you with the quality of the education sessions at the meeting?
How satisfied are you with the quality of the networking opportunities at the meeting?

Summary

We’ve highlighted a few different ways to approach your post-event survey.

The bottom line: Every event needs a post-event survey in order to improve upon its success. Post-event surveys help you better understand the needs and wants of your audience, while also identifying how and where to focus your time and attention for future events. Your participants will value being heard, and likewise, you’ll gain insights for creating an experience that will leave them eager to attend your next event.

Our team can help design post-event surveys that measure your event’s effectiveness. Reach out to our associates to learn more.