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Sponsorships are one of the most important sources of funding and revenue for event organizers – so the more you can attract, the better. However, finding companies that are willing to sponsor events and convincing them to work with you can be tough.
In this post, we’ll be helping you to overcome this challenge by revealing six expert tips that will show you how to get more sponsors for your event.
1. Identify what you have to offer in return
Event sponsorship is a two-way street. Companies don’t sponsor events out of a sense of charity or goodwill – they do so because they get something valuable out of it in return.
The key to attracting more sponsors is to understand what value you can offer them in return for their investment and to make that the focus of your proposal. It might be:
- A boost in brand awareness: Events can help sponsors reach a large audience within their target demographic, thus boosting brand awareness and sentiment.
- Lead generation opportunities: You might want to offer sponsors the opportunity to speak to event attendees. They can use opportunities like these to capture data from potential customers and generate new leads.
- Access to data: Events often give you access to a ton of valuable data about your attendees. Providing sponsors with access to this data can help to inform their marketing strategy through predictive analytics.
To identify what you have to offer in return, you can start by looking at the data. Nearly 25% of event organizers don’t provide any sort of event analytics for proving sponsor return on investment (ROI). Don’t be one of them.
If you’ve held sponsored events in the past, you might want to reach out to your previous sponsors and ask them about their results. Was there a noticeable uptick in brand sentiment post-event? Did their sales increase at all over the next 12 months?
If so, ask if they can share their data with you – this will serve as valuable social proof and help you to create value for future sponsors.
For instance, in 2013, Pax Prime organizers created a QR code scavenger hunt to promote their sponsors, Doritos and Mountain Dew. Participants would get points for every QR code scanned. These points could be redeemed at the Mountain Dew and Doritos marketplaces.
Over 150,000 codes were scanned and 5,000+ prizes were redeemed at the event.
2. Target the right companies
Pitching your event to potential sponsors takes time and effort, so there’s no point wasting time reaching out to companies that are never going to be interested in what you have to offer.
Instead, you’ll want to focus your efforts on pitching to companies that are a good fit for the event, which means they should:
- Be in the same niche: For example, if you’re hosting a sports event, you’ll want to target companies in the sports industry.
- Have a customer base that aligns with your audience: Companies usually want to sponsor events that give them access to a specific audience segment that aligns with their target market in terms of both demographics and interests.
- Be interested in sponsorship opportunities: Ideally, you’ll want to reach out to companies that you know are actively looking for sponsorship opportunities. For example, companies that have sponsored similar events in the past are a good target.
- Have the right spending power: If you’re looking for seven-figure sponsorships, you’ll want to target big brands with big budgets.
One way to find companies that are a good fit is to look for similar events to yours that have been held in the past, see who sponsored them, and reach out to those same companies.
Here’s an example of an event sponsorship email you can send.
3. Find the right contacts
Once you’ve made a list of potential sponsors, you’ll need to find the right point of contact for each of them.
Ideally, you should reach out directly to a key decision-maker in the company you’re hoping to secure sponsorship from who’s capable of making these kinds of strategic marketing calls and allocating budgets.
Different companies have different hierarchies and job roles, so you might need to do some digging here to find out who that is. It might be the head of marketing, brand partnership manager, or even a dedicated ‘sponsorship manager’.
Once you know who to speak to, your first port of call should probably be to email them (unless you have a mutual connection who can introduce you).
In your email, you’ll want to outline your proposal and invite them to schedule a call/meeting to discuss it further.
4. Nail your event sponsorship proposal
Your sponsorship proposal is the most important part of your pitch. It’s your opportunity to outline exactly why they should want to partner with you and convince them that it’s worth it.
In general, your proposal should highlight any incentives you can offer. It should explain who your audience is and what kind of ROI sponsors can expect from the event, and back all of this up with data.
It’s also worth personalizing your proposal for each individual company that you’re pitching to. Take the time to understand what their values and marketing goals are, and highlight how your event aligns with these values and can help them to reach these goals in your proposal.
Here’s a snippet from JSConf Budapest’s website about their past events. It comprises crucial information that would be included in an event sponsorship proposal.
Source: JSConf Budapest 2022
5. Offer several sponsorship packages
Another tip to attract more sponsors is to offer multiple tiers of sponsorship packages. This allows you to cater to sponsors with different budgets. For example, you could offer:
- A gold package ($10,000) that includes banner ads, sponsor branding on all printed event materials, an exhibition stand, and an opportunity to address attendees via a speaker session.
- A silver package ($2,000) that includes an exhibition stand and branding on all printed event materials
- A bronze package ($500) that only includes a small logo printed on event materials
These kinds of combo sponsorship packages that combine awareness and value offering made up 67% of all event packages in 2019.
6. Leverage your existing relationships
Your relationship with event sponsors shouldn’t end when the event is over. It’s important to maintain and nurture those relationships as they can help you to secure sponsorships in the future.
For example, including testimonials from your past sponsors in your proposal can help boost confidence in your event and help you to attract new sponsors.
You can also reach out to previous sponsors to see if they want to sponsor your upcoming event again. If they saw good returns last time and they have the budget for it, they might just take you up on that offer.
Conclusion
There you have it – six ways to get more sponsors for your event. We hope you found this useful.
Author’s bio. Adela Belin is a content marketer and blogger at Writers Per Hour. She is passionate about sharing stories with the hope to make a difference in people’s lives and contribute to their personal and professional growth. Find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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