Event budgets diminishing? It might be time to rethink your post-event measurement process. According to new findings from EventView 2009: North America, companies that have a process for post-event measurement are twice as likely to receive increases in their marketing budgets than those that do not.

The annual study, conducted by George P. Johnson with support from Meeting Professionals International and the Event Marketing Institute, surveyed 300 North American senior sales and marketing executives between December 2008 and February 2009. Full results of the study will be released later this month and made available for download on each of the organizations’ Web sites.

Here are some highlights from the early findings, revealed at MPI’s MeetDifferent conference in Atlanta last week:

• The majority of respondents said event marketing is the most effective way to accelerate and deepen relationships with target audiences (53 percent).
• One in four respondents chose event marketing as the marketing channel that drives the greatest ROI—a 4 percent increase from the 2008 report.
• Fully 29 percent of respondents are transitioning from event marketing to experience marketing (integrated live and online experiences that drive deep brand interaction through storytelling and brand immersion) in the next 12 months—33 percent have already transitioned.
• Two-thirds of respondents plan on implementing or have already implemented green initiatives within their events—a 32 percent increase from 2008 findings.
• Marketing budgets account for roughly 10 percent of the overall corporate budget, on average, with 25 percent of the marketing budget spent on event marketing.