Introduction
Event Sponsors create positive outcomes and offer key advantages for both parties involved.
Whether you need brand collaborations for a venue, fair, or festival, event sponsors are crucial for increasing brand awareness, sustained funding, shared publicity, and credibility for your events. Individually, sponsors gain more brand recognition and awareness, enhanced direct engagement with attendees, and a target exposure with direct connection with a specific audience.
Establishing long-term event sponsors is incredibly important for your event. According to Eventbrite, sponsors bring in about 37% of revenue, which event organizers rely heavily on. They establish consistent bonds and provide steady, continuous support that is based on trust. This consistency and trust will boost brand awareness, facilitate more efficient long-term planning, and create chances for more in-depth partnerships and creative thinking.
Finding the Right Event Sponsors
Finding the proper sponsor for your event is vital. You want to find a sponsor that aligns with your audience and your event in general. Oftentimes, sponsors will even ask you what your audience is, according to Eventbrite. You must look in-depth into your audience data like their demographics, psychographics, hobbies, values, and more. This information will guide you on which sponsor may be the best fit for your event and your audience. Create an extensive list of brands that align with your attendees and fans, and that include all their interests and more.
Once you have a solid list of those brands, make another list of those you want to reach out to. Within a particular industry, record the names of the brands you’re interested in having and specifically communicate who they are, what their values are, and what they may bring to the table. Research these brands and dig deep into their website, social media pages, and more. If they’ve sponsored events before, research those types of events as well. Set yourself and your event up for attaining future sponsorship success.
Creating and Developing an Effective Event Sponsorship Pitch
When you have a good list of event sponsors you want to reach out to, you should reach out to them. At first your goal is to introduce yourself and the event and begin to establish a relationship and learn of any interest on their part. You are not pitching them at this point, but instead learning if they might be open to sponsorship pitch from you event
Only after learning who might be interested, will you make a pitch or proposal to those brands. According to Eventbrite, “a strong proposal secures sponsors.” Some of the key elements you should show the potential sponsor and include in your pitch, as stated by Sponsor United, are:
- A deep understanding of the brand
- Definitive objectives and goals
- Analytics based market insights
- Comprehensive sponsorship assets and opportunities
- Idea generation and strategic planning
- Benefits, results, and KPIs
- Explicit call to action
Proposals for event sponsors shouldn’t be too long or be pushy, but they should be clever, sharp, and communicate the value of your pitch. You must give brands a reason to open your email or letter. Tailor your proposal to the sponsor’s goals and values. Additionally, add data to your proposal to make it even more engaging and persuasive. You want the brand to know that you have quantitative results to show, and you want to be able to give them data about your audiences and engagement level. You want it to be a win-win situation where your event and the sponsor are both getting equal value out of the exchange. Make everyone’s time worthwhile, and it will help establish a good relationship to start off your collaboration.
Emphasize Relationship Building
Putting relationship building first with your secured event sponsors is important for you to have a long-term commitment and collaboration with them. As said in an article by The Event Planner Expo, you should continue to communicate openly and frequently to your sponsors, making sure to keep them informed and in the loop with your events and any happenings. Some additional information you may want to keep them updated with is your audience demographics, event planning and organization, as well as any shifts or changes that may affect their participation and collaboration as your sponsor. Retaining direct and transparent communication will help instill trust in one another and increase confidence levels.
Be sure that all your promised outcomes are fulfilled, and go beyond what was expected. Delivering on your commitments on a regular basis demonstrates your dependability as well as your professionalism and commitment. Make sure that you are accurately displaying brand placements, engaging your audience, and exceeding all standards and expectations.
Enhance the Sponsorship Experience
To keep the sponsor engaged and interested in what you have to offer, continue enhancing their overall experience at your events. You must be willing to do more than just offer a logo placement. Get creative and think of ways to create a unique experience for your sponsor.
Naming Rights
One example can include naming rights. According to Eventbrite, you could include the name of your sponsor in your venue, fair, or festival name, or even the event’s name itself. This allows sponsors to gain more recognition from your fans and attendees but also gives you more recognition from the sponsor’s customers.
Naming rights not only enhances brand awareness and visibility, but also a stronger bond and engagement. It creates a strong connection between the brand and the fans, which can help foster a more emotional connection. Attendees are also more likely to remember a brand when it’s connected to or associated with a venue, fair, festival, or event they enjoy going to.
In turn, this connection can lead to enhanced loyalty from fans as well as brand advocacy. It can also give you a competitive advantage by differentiating yourself with your competitors. Naming rights are commonly long-term agreements, so it allows sponsors to create a dependable and long-lasting brand association. It can enhance your brand image, while also building increased brand reputation and trust for the sponsor and its customers.
VIP Experiences
Giving both your event sponsors and fans exclusive experiences and benefits can positively impact your long-term relationship with sponsors. For example, you can offer a variety of different perks including premium VIP seating, backstage passes and access, meet-and-greets, and other exclusive opportunities at your venue, fair, or festival.
VIP experiences create a more valuable and engaging relationship with your sponsor. They can make your attendees as well as your sponsors feel valued and offer personalized engagement. These premium experiences also can evoke strong feelings in sponsors and guests, making the emotional connection even stronger and creating an enduring impact on the sponsor’s brand. Offering these benefits puts the partnership above and beyond simple logo placement and gives sponsors a reason to believe they’re receiving first-rate service and value for their money spent at your fair, event, or venue.
Additionally if the VIP experience is memorable, they will share them on social media. Sponsors gain natural brand exposure and favorable word-of-mouth when participants share their exclusive experiences on social media. Sponsors can also have direct connection and communication with your attendees. Sponsors gain valuable interaction with attendees, which can improve business prospects and lead to potential loyal customers in the future.
Sponsors are more likely to stick with a collaboration when they link their brand to unique, memorable events. VIP experiences demonstrate to sponsors that you are not just investing in their financial support but also in their reputation and visibility.
Utilize Results to Gain Further Support
You should continuously analyze your event results and adjust your strategy accordingly, in order to optimize future sponsorship performance and keep the relationship healthy for long-term support. According to Field Drive, you can estimate sponsorship success, spot new opportunities, and make data-driven forecasts about which sponsorships will probably have a higher return on investment by examining past data and industry patterns.
Make use of lead generation, brand research, audience insights, and engagement tracking to give sponsors observable and quantifiable value. For all parties participating in the cooperation, this will guarantee long-term success and collaborations that benefit both parties.
Additionally, while quantitative data is extremely important, use qualitative data like testimonials, attendee feedback and quotes, as well as any social media highlights you may have seen posted by your attendees. Sponsors value and appreciate understanding how actual attendees responded to their presence at events.
Turn these results into actionable improvements. Apply what you’ve learned to present event sponsors with new or enhanced prospects. For example, proposing a customized activation or branded VIP experience for your next event. This exhibits initiative and forward-thinking, which makes your relationship with the sponsor even stronger and a positive sign for continued support in the future. Finally, if you have previously collaborated with the sponsor and would like to work with them again, demonstrate how outcomes have improved over time. This demonstrates the importance of a long-term partnership and your capacity to provide ROI.
Conclusion
Establishing a solid partnership with your event sponsors is critical for your fair, festival, or venue events. They are a central piece in event reliability, credibility, awareness, and increasing your overall earned revenue. Some key strategies that will help ensure a sustained long-term sponsorship collaboration include choosing the right sponsors for your event, developing a cohesive and strong proposal, emphasizing relationship building, enhancing the sponsor’s overall experience, and using real data to further improve and develop continued support from your sponsors. By making smart, relationship-driven sponsorship investments, you’re laying the groundwork for long-term success and expansion rather than just financing your next event.
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Get Event Sponsorship Brands Using Good Data
Sources:
https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/academy/concert-sponsorship-music-venues/