Managing Event Marketing Field Staff Data

Managing event marketing field staff data is one of those tasks where the more you do it, the easier it seems. By that, I don’t mean practice makes managing it easier. The more quickly and frequently you respond to problems, the less likely you are to end up with a mountain of work to finalize at the end of an event marketing campaign.

I’ve seen this happen with many event marketing programs before. We receive field staff reports, and then spend a few days addressing inconsistencies that are showing up during our analysis. Having to clear up all these different inconsistencies adds time to the project workload and leaves everyone a bit more stressed.

That being said, there are some basic things you can do to make sure that the end of the event marketing campaign goes as smoothly as possible.

Related Article: Collecting Event Marketing Data

1. Updating Field Staff Data at the Root Level

First, it is fundamentally important to make sure you always update your data at the root level, whether that is an online measurement system or a local file. Even if it means more work right now, having to re-download the data, it is worth it in the long run.

There is nothing worse than cleaning the field staff data, realizing the same mistake has been repeated and that it is going to take extra hours of work to correct it again. By always making the change to your data at its source it guarantees that you have an accurate file from which to begin should you have to start over for any reason or if you need to confirm the validity of any analysis.

2. Properly train every user on the system

Second, and this goes a long way, make sure that everyone has a complete and accurate understanding of your field staff data management system.

A brief, 15-minute training should be all that is needed. By explaining the definitions of all your metrics, you can avoid unnecessary confusion.

3. Use Excel SUM Functions where possible

Finally, avoid using a formula that adds individual [Microsoft Excel] cells. Trying to confirm the accuracy of one hundred formulas that all look like this…

=A12+A16+A25+A36+A45+A54+A63+…+A139

…is not only stressful, but it is incredibly easy to miss small errors.

If possible, always use sum ranges, as that only requires checking two cells per formula. Even if you need to copy the data and create a new document to organize it in a new way, there are additional benefits to having a second sheet for your data.

Having two different copies to compare helps you to confirm that your field staff data is accurate.

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