Acquiring a new attendee will cost you 6-7 times more than retaining an existing one. But if you’re not taking attendee lifetime value into account, your return on investment (ROI) doesn’t paint an accurate picture.
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Attendee lifetime value (or customer lifetime value) measures the revenue an attendee generates across multiple events. If you define success by the number of events the average person attends, or how much they’ll spend over time, you’ll change the way you promote your event to new attendees.
Why attendee lifetime value matters
Common sense tells you that spending $50 acquiring an attendee who pays $100 for a ticket or registration means you’ll make a $50 profit. But when you consider the attendee’s lifetime value, you may discover that some attendees are more valuable than others.
Instead of looking at your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) for a single event, attendee lifetime value allows you to evaluate your marketing spend against the total revenue they’ll generate across multiple events.
Let’s say you find out people attend a total of 5 events on average. That means if you spent $50 acquiring each of them, your profit margin would be $450 per attendee — that’s an 800% increase from what was previously calculated!
How to calculate attendee lifetime value
To calculate the lifetime value of your attendees, you’ll need to analyze your attendee data.
When attendees purchase tickets or register for your previous events, your event ticketing and registration platform should capture basic information about them — their name, location, and email. You should also be able to compare this data to see how many events they’ve attended in the past.
If you’re an annual conference with a handful of workshops throughout the year, you might find that a majority of attendees return for three or four events. A music venue with a different show every night may see more repeat attendees over a shorter period of time.
As you can tell, this number could vary greatly depending on the nature of your event. Regardless of how frequently your attendees return, this insight will change how you acquire new attendees, as well as retain them. For example, if your average attendee will attend three events, you may want to offer them an incentive to attend a fourth.
Unlock more value from your attendees
Now that you know how to project the revenue your attendees will generate across multiple events, you can rethink how you acquire and retain them.
Want more actionable advice on creating a promotion plan that encourages early interest and maintains momentum until the last ticket or registration is sold? Check out this new guide, From On-Sale to Sold Out: Marketing and Promotion for Events.
