The university shared its records for the past ten years. The first thing we did was breakdown the database into important segments: registered, attended, in-state, in-country, out-of-country, repeat attenders, etc. Because we could now evaluate each segment independently, the data showed clearly which segments have recovered and which segments remained low. We then overlapped audience segments to further additional levels of detail that could identify the core problems. Within a few weeks we were able to also identify which segments would offer the greatest ROI in terms of effort to engagement.

We created a questionnaire that had two sections: universal questions for everyone surveyed and segment-specific questions. For example, international audience members were asked questions about traveling to the US including visas, international relations, or political/social happenings in their home country. This survey was sent to everyone who had registered for the event in the past 10 years, and we dug through the data to further identify reasons people did or didn’t participate in recent events.

We quickly noticed there was a strong correlation between someone’s level of involvement before 2020 and the likelihood of them attending the conference after 2020. If someone spoke at a conference or won an award before 2020, they were 3X more likely to return to the conference. The majority of those surveyed also said they would have attended the conference if they were personally invited by event organizers. These two factors point to a need to make people feel wanted.

Event learning outcomes, networking opportunities, and cost were not major issues; and the main corrective action needed was to personally reach out to and invite people to come back.