How to understand the success of your franchise conference.

Franchise conferences are a vital opportunity to connect franchisees, share knowledge, and drive growth. But how do you measure whether your event truly succeeded? 

A successful conference goes beyond high attendance numbers—it creates meaningful connections, delivers actionable insights, and leaves franchisees better equipped to thrive in their businesses. 

Here’s a guide to understanding the success of your franchise conference, with tips to collect the right data and use it effectively.

Define success: what does it look like for your franchise?

Success looks different for every franchise conference, but there are common metrics that matter. Start by identifying what aligns with your goals.

Some metrics we track with our clients:

• Networking opportunities: Did attendees make valuable connections? Consider whether franchisees left with partnerships that could benefit their businesses.
• Return on investment (ROI): Was the cost of the conference justified by the outcomes, such as franchisee growth or retention?
• Franchisee performance: Are attendees implementing what they learned to improve their operations?
• Learning outcomes: Did your sessions deliver practical takeaways? Are franchisees applying these lessons?
• Marketing outcomes: Have franchisees integrated marketing strategies or tools introduced at the event?

• Budget: Did we hit our budget and revenue goals?

All of these metrics might be important to your team, but make sure to highlight one or two of the top ones to report on after the convention.

Set clear goals before the conference.

The first step to understanding success is knowing what you’re measuring. Establish specific, measurable goals before the event begins. 

For instance:

• Increase franchisee implementation of new marketing strategies by 20% within six months.
• Facilitate at least 100 one-on-one meetings between franchisees and corporate staff.
• Achieve a 90% satisfaction rating for workshop sessions.

These goals will shape your conference design and provide benchmarks for evaluation. Make sure to communicate these goals with the others in charge of planning the event so you all can work toward the same success.

Collect the right feedback.

Collecting feedback is crucial, but not all feedback is equally useful. A complaint about the food, for example, doesn’t provide actionable insights about your conference’s core objectives. And as much as you want to please everyone, some complaints are simply that.

Focus on gathering feedback that helps evaluate your goals:

• Design surveys wisely: Ask targeted questions that align with your success metrics. For instance:
  • “Did this conference provide actionable strategies for your business?”
  • “How many meaningful new connections did you make?”
  • ⭐ Still make sure to ask those open-ended questions like “what would you improve?” just so you don’t miss anything important!
• Use technology: Platforms like Cvent or Slido can help distribute surveys and analyze responses in real time.
• Analyze qualitative data: Pay attention to comments that highlight key themes, like session relevance or networking challenges.

One great way to capture positive feedback is to interview people onsite and capture video content to reuse for promotions next year. This is also a great way to amp people up about what they’ve learned and the people they’ve met – creating an overall exciting atmosphere.

Measure networking success.

Networking is one of the most important elements of franchise conferences. To measure its success:

• Track attendance numbers: Are people showing up to your networking events and staying for a while? Do they show up on time? Do they just grab a drink, walk around a bit, and then leave?
• Ask people: The best way you can understand if your networking events are working is by asking your attendees. Did they enjoy a specific evening event you put on? What did they like about? What didn’t they? If your overall sentiment is positive, then it’s likely a success.

• Take pictures: Get photos of the networking spaces to review later. Do people look engaged or are they standing off by themselves? Are they engaging with vendors? Do they look happy? All of these qualitative data points are useful for future events.

• Track app engagement: Use event apps to log connections made, such as how many attendees exchanged contact information or scheduled meetings.

Evaluate ROI.

ROI is often top-of-mind for franchise companies. To calculate it:

1. Track costs: Include venue, travel, marketing, and other expenses, and balance that against sponsorship numbers and ticket revenues.
2. Identify outcomes: Measure direct outcomes (e.g., increased franchisee revenue) and indirect ones (e.g., improved franchisee retention).
3. Use technology: CRM tools can help link event attendance to post-conference sales or franchisee performance.

For example, if the conference cost $1,000,000 but led to a $2,000,000 increase in franchisee revenue, you can likely attribute a lot of that success to the convention. (Obviously, this is hard to directly track, which leads us to the next section on long-term outcomes.)

Track long-term outcomes.

The true success of a franchise conference often unfolds long after the event ends. To track long-term outcomes:

• Follow up: Survey attendees six months later to see if they’ve implemented what they learned. For example:
  • “Did you apply any strategies from the marketing workshop?”
  • “Have your revenues increased as a result of new practices?”
• Analyze trends: Look for patterns among high-performing franchisees and correlate them with their conference participation.

Your convention isn’t just a one-and-done strategy, so make sure your analysis of its success isn’t limited to just one post-event survey.

Final tips for success.

• Mix technology with human insights: While data is essential, personal observations and conversations with attendees also provide valuable context.
• Iterate and improve: Use insights from each conference to refine your approach for the next one.
• Communicate results: Share success stories with attendees to reinforce the value of participating in future events.

Ready to plan your convention? Let’s chat about how GoGather can help you take your franchise events to the next level.