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Post-Conference Feedback: Why Polls & Surveys Are Important

Conferences are an event planning feat in themselves, and depending on returning attendees and successful experiences, they can be regular events either throughout the year or on a yearly basis. Post-conference feedback is pivotal for understanding your attendees’ experiences. The data gathered also helps you understand what went well for the conference, what to change in the future, and how to optimize attendance and rapport with attendees. As your NYC company or association looks ahead to conferences, product launches, and corporate events in 2025, remember to incorporate surveys and post-event feedback. Today, we’ll share why they’re so important to your event’s success.

Why Use Post-Event Surveys at All?

Surveys and post-conference polling can do so much more than simply rank how much conference attendees enjoyed their time. It can lend insight into what struck home with attendees, what didn’t resonate, and even how they liked the take-home gifts or food (which is a significant portion of a conference experience, believe it or not!) By using post-event data collection, you can:

  • Build trust with your target audience by valuing their opinion
  • Make more informed decisions regarding content, entertainment, even catering and venue
  • Measure the potential of future conferences and plan for scaling-up, if warranted
  • Improve future conferences and prevent stagnation
  • Engage with attendees after the event to further build connections and relationships with them
  • Better measure ROI of the conference
  • Present actionable insights to any conference exhibitors or sponsors

What Does a Post-Conference Survey Look Like?

Post-conference follow-up and feedback can be customized in a few different ways. There are the more traditional email and text options for shorter polls, but unfortunately, texts can be ignored, and emails can become lost. Other methods of data collection can include interactive means like app/push notifications, QR code scanning, and even kiosks throughout the conference to gain real-time feedback, all of which are useful. Questions can range from open to close-ended or have a Likert Scale to rate satisfaction or opinions of certain aspects of the conference.

What Kinds of Questions Are Most Helpful?

This depends on the goals of your conference and the subject matter. For example, medical professional priorities are different from those hosting a start-up tech conference. Ideally, you’ll want to create a series of prompts that allow for anonymous feedback in an easy format. These formats can include:

  • Rating scales
  • Multiple choice
  • Open-ended
  • Likert Scale

Mixing up the type of questions is best, but remember not to ask too many questions. Overloading a survey means people won’t be as keen to complete them in their entirety, and this means you may miss out on valuable feedback. Keep it brief, meaningful, and convenient.

Take some time and think about what aspects of a conference you want to measure to determine success or weak points. Including general and specific questions is helpful, as well. Some examples of this can include:

  • Did you find X speaker engaging and interactive?
  • How relevant did you find X session?
  • How would you rate X speaker’s presentation skills?
  • How would you rate the catering of this conference? Why?
  • How would you rate the technology used in this conference?
  • Did this conference meet your expectations?
  • What was your favorite part of this conference?
  • How could we improve conferences in the future?

Have EMRG Media Handle Your Post-Conference To-Do List

EMRG Media understands all stages of conference and event planning, from inviting guests and securing a premier NYC venue to gathering post-event data. Our knowledgeable and passionate NYC event planners at EMRG Media can help you make the most of your upcoming conference! Take the extra event-planning stress off yourself and inquire here about your next corporate event, product launch, or industry conference. No matter the scale, see how EMRG Media can elevate your next event from beginning to end and beyond and help you maximize every post-event data opportunity.