Budgeting

Allocate a Winning Event Budget in 5 Steps

Victoria Rudi
September 14, 2023

Table of Contents

Your budget is the biggest indicator as to where your event is heading and ultimately how successful your event is going to be. This is why effectively allocating your budget can make or break any event. Now the big question is, how do you go about achieving this?

To anyone involved with events it comes as no surprise that budgets are often greeted with a great deal of caution. Allocating your event budget can feel like a juggling act. After all, you’ve got multiple areas to invest in and a whole array of constantly changing factors that you need to consider and more importantly, get right.

Every event has different goals and objectives, from launching a new product or service to generating qualified leads and creating brand awareness. The hard part is knowing how to allocate your budget to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula, but with these 5 steps, we’ll show you how to start getting the most out of your event budget.

Goals and Achievements

The first step is to identify why you want to achieve from hosting the event and how this aligns with your overall business goals. What you want to achieve will influence where you should consider investing your money. So, before you start deciding on the more minute details of how you’re going to spend your event budget, first, identify your priorities, and then what you’d like to accomplish. This will enable you to decide where to allocate your budget and the areas which will need the most money.

Expected Costs and ROI

When planning your event budget, it’s vital to factor in the expected costs and what the ROI should be. This is important because every event should have tangible results, especially for executives who will measure the success of your event on these metrics. By calculating the amount of money you expect to generate against your total costs, you can then adjust your budget.

To get a good grasp of this, ask yourself questions such as: Do I want to focus on building brand awareness or driving sales revenue? Or, if I’m choosing to drive sales revenue, do I want to generate leads or generate pipeline value? This quickly helps to form the basis of your event budget.

Past Experience

Leading on from this, it’s essential that you delve into past performances from previous events. It’s imperative that you know what has worked and what hasn’t worked, and why. After all, a successful event budget is one that doesn’t waste money on activities that aren’t bringing results. Continue to invest in the methods that provide a good ROI and then explore new areas and trends which can provide further opportunities. By monitoring and tracking all of your activities, you will quickly become aware of trends that are going out of fashion.

Segment Your Budget, Find What Works For You

With so many different factors to consider, it is common for your budget to become misaligned with your overall event plan. This is why it is essential to segment your budget by breaking it up into different parts that can be easily tracked. The best way of doing this is through the event plan, where you already have an overview of each of the segments.

Track Your Results

After any event, it is essential that you keep hold of all relevant data as this will allow you to assess your event budget with a new, more informed perspective. By calculating your ROI along with the actual amount spent for each metric, you will be able to see what performed best. This is a great way of identifying what was actually spent and the return that you’re getting on it.

Summary

There’s a lot that needs to be considered when allocating a budget, however, by following these 5 steps you can start to create an event budget that reflects your needs and evolves after each event that you host. The main takeaway here is that you fully utilize all of the data that you have before and after the event, as this is what provides the building blocks to allocate a winning event budget that can create growth for your company.

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Victoria Rudi
Senior Content Specialist
With a Master’s degree in Event Management and a keen follower of SaaS technologies, Victoria is an event content master, producing insightful and valuable for Eventtia’s blog and beyond