Inspiration Hub

Sponsors unlock a world of opportunity for your event and its attendees. But approaching sponsors without an introduction can be awkward at best. The challenge is especially daunting when you don’t have a point of contact within the organization. Which is why many sponsorship-seekers turn to the internet’s oldest and most trusted tool: email.

Sponsorship used to be a thinly veiled euphemism for advertising. Counting on big brands to bankroll the festival, organizers would plaster logos everywhere in sight. But the sponsorship as advertising model is outdated. Not only does the blatant advertising not drive brand engagement — it can actually make fans dislike a brand or a festival.

There’s no denying it — improving your event experience doesn’t come cheap. To offset the costs, you can use VIP packages to charge more for deluxe experiences. Or, you can use the enhancements to fuel your marketing and sell more tickets. But one of the best ways to fund a more advanced experience is through sponsors. Specifically, you can partner with your sponsors to create experiential marketing campaigns.

Does your association struggle to acquire event sponsors? What about sponsor retention? Once you acquire sponsors, do you then struggle to get them to stay and support your association’s initiatives (both old and new) year-after-year? Many people do. The sponsorship game is a tough one. Fortunately, Charles Popper, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Naylor Association Solutions, had several good ideas to offer on an OSAE webinar last week. 

After spending months on your event’s sponsorship proposal, you email it out to everyone on your list — then nothing happens. Your team double checks the contact information for typos and errors, but everything looks good. What went wrong? According to a recent survey, email is the method of choice for event professionals contacting event sponsors. If this includes your team, note that sponsorship experts say that you should never lead with a proposal or package.

Leverage these seven essential tips to bring in the cash, attract clients with ease and network like a ninja through small business events.

The seventh of the TED Commandments — “Thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy company, thy goods, thy writings, or thy desperate need for funding; lest thou be cast aside into outer darkness” — is especially timely advice. As more sponsors embrace content marketing or thought leadership as arguably the most powerful strategy for improving perceptions of their brand, conference-speaking slots are increasing in value.

How much should you charge an event sponsor for a logo placement? What about a mention on social media or a speaking opportunity? Are you charging too much? Or too little? Deciding how much to charge for sponsorship — commonly referred to as sponsorship valuation — can be elusive step in the process of selling event sponsorship. The good news is: it’s less complicated than you might think.

What do sponsors want? If you’re asking yourself this question, you’re already in the right mindset to win sponsors.

Sponsorship expert Todd Uglow teaches this principle to the next generation of event professionals. Before teaching event management at UNLV, Uglow worked with heavy-hitting brands like Major League Baseball, National Football League, and Professional Bull Riders. In a recent webinar, he shared the essential reasons brands want to sponsor your event.

You have to invest in marketing to create excitement, attract press, and ultimately sell tickets to your event. But it’s challenging for a busy organizer to stay on top of marketing trends and know which efforts to invest in. This month, we’ve curated the most on-point marketing insight from experts around the web to help you take your event marketing to the next level.

Want to have a flashy and memorable event? We have some event signage ideas to share with you to bring out the dazzle and razzle of your event.

Start by wowing attendees with 3D video mapping on the venue’s outer wall as they arrive. Inside, litter your location with classic neon signs to give it a homey diner atmosphere. And to increase engagement and participation, give out digital badges to the best attendees. Btw, attend our webinar for more tips and tricks to increasing event engagement.

Your team spent countless hours putting together tiered sponsorship packages. But then you send your proposal to prospective sponsors — just to get no response.Event sponsorships are won (or lost) by how well you can demonstrate the value of sponsoring your event. If your sponsorship prospectus isn’t making a splash, it’s time to revisit the what you’re including — and how you’re presenting it.

Getting corporate sponsors to contribute to your event is not just about securing additional financial support. When executed properly, such sponsorships can turn into valuable partnerships and culminate into long-term business relationships with mutually beneficial results.

We all know the importance of event sponsors - they’re the ones who make our events possible, plain and simple.

But finding event sponsors? That’s a whole different story. Where do you even begin? How do you find potential candidates, and more importantly, once you do, how do you encourage them to participate?

If it wasn’t for your sponsors, your event might not have gotten off the ground; that’s what makes the relationship so important. Part of that relationship is based on your willingness to promote sponsors throughout your events, and it’s an obligation you should take seriously.

When you want to stand out from the crowd as a brand you need a constant stream of sponsorship ideas that are creative, fun and ahead of the game. Here are 15 more ideas to keep in your back pocket for next time. Using creative ideas will help you to create a perfect sponsorship proposal for trade shows, exhibitions or conferences. Event planners need to step up their game from previous sponsorship success so here are 15 more creative sponsorship ideas to see you through.