Marketing Conference Grader

Conference season is in full force, with several marketing events happening this week, and even more around the corner for the remainder of the year and in early 2011.

The question is: How do you know what conferences are worth your investment of time and money?

Conference Grader*

Enter Conference Grader — an Excel workbook designed to evaluate conferences as objectively as possible, based on five opportunity value variables:

• Buzz Potential: Opportunity to spread the word about your company.
• Knowledge: How much do you stand to learn?
• Connections: What kind of people attend, and how much can you expand your network?
• Opportunity Value: Potential to gain leads and sales.
• Historical Performance: Based on personal and social feedback from this and similar conferences.

In addition to the Pre-Conference Grader defined above, which pits cost against potential, the spreadsheet also includes worksheets to set objectives (Conference Goals) and evaluate results (Post-Conference Grader). These sheets look at the following variables:

• Number of Leads
• New Customers
• Site Traffic
• Blog Subscribers
• Content Downloads
• Twitter Followers
• LinkedIn Connections
• Media Coverage
• Social Buzz
• Revenue

Free Conference Grader Template

Sound interesting? Download a free template Conference Grader now, and let us know what you think.

Is it perfect? Heck no. However, as an Excel Sheet, you can adapt the variables to reflect the metrics most important to your business. And, we find it pretty helpful, so we hope you do too.

Needless to say, we are not developers. That being said, if you are, and you feel inspired to make this Excel sheet something way more interactive and awesome, take advantage of the remix attribute of the creative commons license, and let us know what you come up with.

*Not part of the HubSpot Grader family. Though, Dharmesh if you’re interested let’s talk.

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