10 Steps to Getting Sponsorship for your Festival or Event
The following is an extract from all the experience and knowledge that we got from building our sponsorship marketplace. We did a lot of interaction with Brand Managers and marketing agencies regarding their requirements for the event sponsorship. On the other side, the demand from the event side is quite high and every other event organizer wanted brands to be associated with them in order to boost their event`s presence.
1. Plan the Event with interested brands in mind
When starting your event planning, recognize that sponsorship is a form of brand advertising. The basic objective of sponsorship is to build up positive associations between the corporate brand and the event. This is done by displaying brands (especially their)logos at events or venues and in the media that advertise the event.
Events are often planned and venues are chosen solely based on the needs of the participants and spectators. If possible, chose a venue with the marketing brands’ needs in mind. You may even go a step further and plan the event with potential brands which will become sponsors of your event. So, for future event ask all the potential sponsors how you can accommodate their needs.
2. Identify what all you can sell
Walk through the event set-up offline/online both and identify all the potential places that a sponsor might advertise their brand name, set-up stalls, coverage. Generally, the common places for logo placement are banners over entrances, signs visible by passing traffic, backs of spectator seats, booths erected on the site, programs that are used by participants, t-shirts for participants, etc.
In addition to logo placement, identify other opportunities/mediums for your sponsoring brands to meet their marketing needs. Usually, better and unique opportunities fetch better conversions. Each of the places a logo can be displayed and each of the other marketing opportunities is known as inventory/assets. Make a list of all your marketing inventory/assets. Using a spreadsheet can be a handy way to keep track or you can use www.eventscrunch.com to track all the assets available or sold.
3. Calculate the ROI
Today sponsorship has become competitive and has been seen as an alternative to digital marketing. So three key things determine its value for the sponsors
a. Number of impressions (people looking at the logos)
b. The demographic of the people interaction with the sponsoring brand
c. The value each impression brings it to the associated brand.
So, track the number of impressions you are getting for each asset you have listed. You will need to know how many people will be attending the event much prior to the event, which is very important to the brand which makes it imperative for you to know as well. You can you smart tools like hashtag travel to check the activity of the event prior to the event. In addition to this figure, add up how many people will receive programs and other material, like goodies, pamphlets etc. Get a count of traffic passing the venue every day (usually these numbers can be obtained from your civic administration, but will give you only an idea about the footfall of the event).
4. Evaluate your marketing mediums
Once you have statistics for each asset in your inventory, you can begin to evaluate the value attached to these assets and attach a price to each asset. We have found from past experience and information that no rule of thumb for evaluating each asset it is about the reputation of the event property, category of the event, market sentiment and budget of the sponsoring companies.
But you can definitely set up a baseline for sale. So as an example, if 10,000 people attend the event, each logo they see will be worth about ₹4000–5000. This amount can be adjusted depending on the prominence of the logo and the number of impressions. Also, the number may be adjusted depending on the quality of the impressions that it gets. This is based on how closely the impressions are to the sponsor’s target market and how much is the sponsor is willing to spend.
5. Club assets into packages
Obviously, you don’t want to sell each asset such as logo placement for ₹1000. It is better to bundle the multiple assets into packages for sponsors at incremental amounts like ₹50,000, ₹250,000, ₹500,000 and so on. You may wish to bundle according to research you did while keeping in mind interested brands. The locations in the venue, parts of the event program, or other natural ways that the event might be segmented are important for sponsorship packages.
You may also consider special bundles for naming sponsors such as Gold, platinum etc. to differentiate between the sponsors and presenting sponsors. Many events use naming sponsors as their main sponsors as all brands are looking for this opportunity as this fetches the best impressions. A naming sponsor will essentially rename the event and be associated with all advertising/marketing. Offering this exclusively to a single sponsor may result in a larger price from that particular sponsor but may also exclude other sponsors. These are things you just have to work through. If you seek a naming sponsor, do this before going to other potential sponsors with your offer.
6. Write a pitch for the sponsors
Often the best way to make an initial approach to potential sponsors is to write a one-page proposal that highlights all the important details like the impressions, the type of people that will be participating in the event, the marketing opportunities at the event and the potential sponsorship opportunities available. Tailor the proposal to the kind of sponsorships that particular brand has been interested in the past or likely to be interested in your event.
7. Research prospective sponsors
Before connecting with brands for sponsorships, research thoroughly on prospective companies that you think might be interested in sponsoring your event. Usually, potential sponsors are companies with large advertising budgets that are doing a lot of local advertising, large public companies, like utilities, that want to maintain good community relations, companies trying to gain market share in a particular market or new companies that are trying to establish their brand. Research can be done through government directories, company websites, advertising directories and local media.
8. Find the decision-maker
Once you have a list of potential brands, call each company and find out who is responsible for buying sponsorships or as I should say responsible for the marketing budget. Large companies may have a team dedicated to this task. Medium-sized companies will usually have a marketing or advertising manager that makes marketing decisions. In small companies, the decision will likely be made by the owner or president. Send these people the one-page event pitch for evaluation.
Follow-up with the interested people and request a meeting. During the first couple of meetings, find out what the brand objectives are and what is it looking for when they consider sponsorship opportunities. Ask if they want user engagement or lots of media attention, a place where they can take clients, access to a specific group of people, association with a social cause, and that sort of thing.
9. Negotiate terms with sponsors
When you and the sponsor have determined the best package to meet their needs, put this in writing in a more detailed proposal. Add details like deliverable, terms of payment, logo specifications, payment for logo signage, benefits to attendees from the sponsoring company and so on. Depending on the size of the sponsorship, a countersigned MoU may also serve as your sponsorship agreement.
For bigger sponsorship deals, such as the naming sponsor of an event, you should develop a more detailed contract. Legal advice may be required to ensure risk is mitigated in the case of any accident. A few meetings with the sponsor may be necessary before you agree on what you can provide and what they need for their marketing purposes.
10. Delivery and post-event reporting
If your sponsors attend your event make sure they are taken care of and given special treatment anyhow. After the event, be prepared to supply each of your sponsors with reports as evidence that you fulfilled your commitments to them. This can be done by taking photos or videos of the event, monitoring audience engagement level with hashtags, media coverage of the event and any evidence that it was successful and generated the impressions you estimated in your proposal. Connect with the sponsors to review the event performance and fulfillment of their expectations. This is the first step towards renewing the sponsorship for next year. Be sure to send them formal thank-you letters.
