How does sponsoring an event work

For an organization, good events are good culture and good business. This is a statement of truth. Sponsorships are the most effective and mutually beneficial way to provide events with a powerful return on investment and positive culture. At their best, sponsorships raise the brand value of both parties and reinforce their heritage and visions for the future.

Good businesses, the kind that you want to partner with these days, are profitable for certain, but for many people, where culture matters most, they are also likable, creative, innovative, energetic, purpose-driven, responsible, and sustainable. The kinds of places you would want to work for. These days the money alone is not enough. There is an iceberg effect created from all of these intangibles that can give all of that which sits above the water stability.

Get it wrong, and it runs the risk of sinking the ship. Far too often, event organizers are applying a spray-and-pray strategy, meaning trying to chase any opportunity to find sponsors for their in-person, virtual, or hybrid events.

They neglect the importance of having in-depth knowledge about what their potential sponsors are looking for and what drives them to get involved in an event, or in the worst case what turns them off. Building a solid partnership between the organizer and the sponsor requires serious groundwork and a clear understanding of factors that matter to sponsors.

Event sponsorship is when an organization provides financial assistance to an event to achieve promotional advantages. Sponsorships can come in the form of a cash exchange for assets or a barter exchange involving products or services. This guide will focus on the importance of building a solid partnership between the event organizer and sponsors.

It starts with building relationships, showing value, giving them an unbelievable offer, and teaching them how to engage with attendees. The success of a majority of events depends on sponsorships. Dozens of events are reviewed by sponsors every day and many are sent back or are denied because they are not a good fit.

And many of their drawbacks could have been easily avoided. Here are some common mistakes event organizers make again and again when reaching out to sponsors. Reaching out to sponsors isn't the same thing as reaching out to attendees. You need to provide tailor-made information for sponsors. Sponsorship packages with descriptions that are clearly copied and pasted from an event profile is a major turnoff for sponsors. Organizers need to think of their event from a sponsor's perspective, which means looking at the audience and not as a member of it.

All the elements of a sponsorship package need to be revised and oriented towards the sponsor, paying particular attention to the visibility and added value the sponsor can expect while getting involved in the event. Continuing with sponsorship packages, many organizers make the mistake of only having one or two sentence descriptions in their package. With a lack of information, sponsors will struggle to think of event organizers as reliable and professional business partners because sponsorship is B2B.

Of course, the description texts should remain reasonably short and concise, but the organizer shouldn't forget to clearly highlight why businesses should sponsor the event, instead of just providing basic event information.

It's one of the most crucial points in the whole package. That means that they want to bring their brand, product, or service in front of the right audience.

In this case, the right audience means the sponsor's exact target group. The most fundamental demographics that every event organizer should have ready for their event are gender, age, income situation, and education level.

Additional information about the marital or employment status, as well as regional demographics, might also be crucial depending on the type of the event. Seasoned event organizers will not have any problems when it comes to providing this information to sponsors, but newer professionals may not always think to be prepared. Always assume that the sponsor will ask for these demographics. Sponsorship has a boring history - and it is still often boring today.

Luckily this is changing with a shift in mindset towards interactive sponsorship techniques. An increasing number of sponsors have become aware that they need to be seen as added value for an event instead of being a necessary evil.

Organizers have an obligation to come up with compelling proposals of how to include sponsors and how to add value to their events, while sponsors today have to contribute to the success of the event.

This can only happen if the organizers involve the sponsors early on in the event planning process and give them a certain amount of space to develop creative ideas.

Coming up with interesting ideas means a lot of brainstorming, as well as the willingness to disrupt tradition and follow new paths. It's surprising how many event organizers are missing out on the opportunity to sell their event to sponsors by messing up the sales follow-up instead of learning how to apply proven sales techniques.

Of course, it is time-consuming to follow up on every contact, but organizers should not make the mistake to hope for a quick sale after the first contact has been established. The bigger the sponsorship is, the longer it will probably take to close the deal.

The way to go is to establish a working sales funnel. There are plenty of great tutorials on how to build a sales funnel. Setting milestones and a clear schedule for follow-up activities is an obvious choice - yet many organizers neglect these basic rules.

The search for the right event sponsor can be a long, difficult, or even grueling task, and the process is unique for every planner and for each type of event. Working these considerations into your event strategy will have a lasting effect on how well each sponsor will fit into your event, how long it will take to establish the sponsorship, and how effective the sponsor will be in terms of partnership engagement and quality. Money, of course, plays a crucial role in sponsorship and its potential delays.

Generally, the larger the sponsor along with the costs associated with it , the longer the onboarding process will be. In fact, higher budgets can easily take a couple of months of negotiation before the sponsor will commit and transfer the money. To help speed up the process, planners need to be able to calculate event ROI and justify it to their sponsors. For event planners looking to ensure a more reliable budget, especially those who plan annual events, it could be worth investing in session tracking event technology to prove to your sponsors your ROI in a measurable way.

Smaller companies and larger corporations bring different strengths to the table. In a small company, typically the owner of one of the partners decides whether to sponsor an event or not. This essentially speeds up the process and facilitates the negotiations. Getting to know these leaders, what their company stands for, and what they can bring to your event, are all important facets of the event sponsorship decision-making process.

Bigger companies—on the other hand—typically follow a hierarchy and workflow for approval, and quite often your contact person might not have the power to decide over a budget alone. Depending on the number of involved persons, this can take a few days, up to even a couple of weeks in the worst case.

Additionally, there are far more opportunities for plans to fall through. Do your best to evaluate which type of sponsor is best for your event, and always have a backup plan. Taking time to really personalize your pitch will pay off in the long run. The more complete the pitch is, the more streamlined the negotiations will be. Be sure to include these key elements for your pitch:.

Event planners have an obligation to come up with compelling proposals of how to include sponsors and how to add value to their events, while sponsors today have to contribute to the success of the event.

It is always extremely helpful to put yourself in the position of the sponsor to anticipate the questions they will ask you.

This will speed up the process and avoid unnecessary pitfalls and roadblocks. It can be helpful to see the sponsor as someone who is investing in your mission and event, rather than simply considering them a cash cow.

Do you have everything ready in advance like contracts, invoices, asset lists, etc.? The sponsor might ask you to provide these things even before anything is signed, and if no one has them prepared, it can considerably slow down the process. It not only puts you in a stressful situation, but you will make a very unprofessional impression on the sponsor. CRMs provide great ways to streamline the sponsor outreach and to handle the entire deal flow.

They might include tasks, to-do lists, document management, tracking emails, and many more things that help event planners getting things done.

Starting early and being efficient pays off. It is time-consuming to follow up on every point of contact, but event planners should not make the mistake to hope for a quick sale after the first contact has been established. Set milestones and deadlines, and stay on top of them often. Organizers have an obligation to make sponsorships compelling and they shouldn't dare come up with any outdated proposals sponsors no longer respond to.

Sponsors are companies and companies that want to sell more. Therefore, they are looking for solid ROI or, more often today, ROO return on objectives to measure the success of their sponsorship.

As an event organizer, you can make a couple of tweaks that can make your sponsorship proposal more attractive for sponsors. As an event organizer, you can make a couple of tweaks that can make your sponsorship proposal more attractive for sponsors, such as:. These factors are hard to quantify in numbers except for the price of course. It requires excellent sales skills, pristine preparation, and a solid foundation of relevant data to make sure sponsors will trust you.

The interesting thing about any set pricing is the subjective component: everyone is ready to pay a premium as long as they feel the premium is justified. There are many easy examples to see in sports and so it is a good place to start, but it really has grown to include, causes, not for profits, non-sporting events, associations, municipalities, airports and all kinds of social media.

It is usually in conjunction with a property, venue, personality, or event. Most often the sponsors may use the images and logo of the partner and call themselves an official sponsor of the property. Sponsorship is particularly effective when the sponsor and the property have similar goals, values and vision. Sponsorship is much more than an outfield sign at a baseball park or a logo on a racecar. Sponsorship provides, business access, connections, hospitality, affinity, audience access, data, and helps to shape public perception in a way that can be hard to achieve using your own marketing and branding efforts alone.

Sponsors and properties working together can create a broader reach and shared objectives, multiplying the resources they have and leveraging the combined power of the relationship. Sponsorship is much more than advertising. Well-conceived sponsorships include an investment in activation. By connecting with the event holder on social media, you can find relevant audiences to target.

According to ESP, 98 percent of sponsors uses social media to promote their involvement. Popular events get a lot of engagement, which you can use to create content themes or promote your own hashtags. The Event Marketing Institute reported that 98 percent of consumers create social content during events.

When attendees share photos, quotes, videos, and blogs, you get exposure to much larger networks. User-generated content has a greater impact on customers, so make it easy for people to tag your business on social media.

Established organizations and member associations often hand out data about the event performance. Thirty percent valued business ideas they gained from events, and 34 percent valued info on audience perceptions.

Event sponsorship is a beneficial learning experience for new and veteran business owners. After all, a roomful of great minds is better than one. You get a firsthand look at how other businesses differentiate themselves and attract customers. Are you in the market for new partnerships or supplier relationships? Events are great places to find non-competing businesses you can collaborate with in the future.

Small business owners are busy folks, so most are happy to share leads and cut their legwork in half. Find out what businesses are participating, and prepare pitches to introduce yourself to key players. Whether you plan to sell or not, events are about starting quality relationships. The goal is to leave with a list of leads to follow up on afterward. To make the most of your event sponsorship, decide what you want to achieve before you go.

Come up with a metric to measure your efforts, so you know if an event is worth attending again. The benefits of event sponsorship are endless if you put in the effort to forge connections. Take advantage of every resource the event holder offers to help businesses, especially as a new participant. Just like any other transaction, sponsorship roles can be negotiable.

Before you sign any contracts, make sure the agreement gives you the level of exposure you want. Shop Now. Consumer Perception Few people are motivated to check out a store that always looks sad, shabby, and empty. Efficient Lead Generation Think about the amount of time you normally spend hunting for 10 qualified leads.