Event Sponsorships: Do’s and Dont’s
Well, you have your event plan all ready, you invested in the first parts of getting your event in the air, now what? Chances are you can’t bootstrap the entire event from your own cash, so you may need to turn to event sponsors for the first few events you throw. Even if you have the cash, event sponsors can put a cushion on your out-of-pocket costs. Here’s what you need to do to get a line-up of kick-ass event sponsors.
Your Unique Selling Proposition
Your USP is instrumental to gaining any type of sponsorship. You don’t necessarily need to have a 65 page business plan, but having a concise elevator pitch-style text that lets you know why your sponsors should bother with you is a must.
The USP should be one of the first things a potential sponsor sees. With the right one, you just earned a sponsorship. Have a few mistakes in yours? It just lost you a lot of money.
Specific Offerings
What exactly are you going to offer your sponsors?
There are a million ways to answer this question, including, but not limited to:
- Speaking opportunities and/or special audience access
- On-stage announcements
- Logo placements
- Website marketing
- etc.
All of this has been done time and time again. While these are classic, try incorporating the sponsors a little more heads-on when it comes to your event and your brand.
Examples of unique sponsorships are branded food trucks, custom lanyards, custom hand sanitizer (events can be a germ garden!) and more. Use your imagination, and make sure whatever you come up with aligns with your event’s theme and values.
Email, not Phone.
You want your sponsors to be comfortable when you first reach out. I would highly recommend you go with email for two reasons:
- The prospective sponsors can respond on their own time.
- They can research you, your company, and your event for as long as they need to.
When you give this kind of power to the prospective sponsors, it puts them in a lot easier of a position to say yes than an initial sales call.
Don’t Let People Fall Through Cracks
It’s easy to let people slip away. Maybe they didn’t respond to an email. Are you going to bother them and ask what the deal is? Of course you should! Probably in nicer terms, though.
It’s very important that you continue following up with each of the sponsors until they give you a definite “yes” or “no” answer. Not only will this help you close more sponsorship deals, it will also help fine-tune your attention to detail and organizing.
Custom Packages
If you have a “sponsorship package”, you shouldn’t expect to sell any. At least, not how it looks right now.
Each specific sponsor is different, and you need to recognize and celebrate the fact that companies are different by providing different packages (and the option to customize your packages) through your sponsorship program.
If you don’t have the ability to be flexible, then some companies may choose to go elsewhere for their sponsorship needs. It’s important to remember: the company sponsoring stands to get something out of this as well.
If you found this article helpful, you’ll definitely find value in what we’re building as a company. It’s an event management software that is easy to master and even easier to pick up. Say hello to the software the has the capability to run a 40 person film festival, to a 80,000 gaming convention, and other things that help make us the #1 upcoming event software.
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