It seems rather obvious why organisers would want event sponsors for their event. For one to increase revenue, securing sponsorship can be the difference between making a profit and running at a loss. The other obvious reason is to have enough capital to host the event in the first place. There are many resources online to help you get started, some useful and a bulk overloaded with information that you may not need so we’ve decided to remove the clutter and list the essentials.
[bctt tweet="Securing sponsorship can be the difference between making a profit and running at a loss."]
Before we dive into the core details you need to understand why? Why do companies sponsor events? Companies generally sponsor events to get some marketing value in return e.g brand awareness, public relations, customer loyalty and the common feel-good factor with all these leading to a sizeable return on investment. So without further ado. Here’s our guide to finding the right event sponsors.
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Draft up Sponsorship Proposal
With the above in mind, it’s time for you to draft your event sponsorship proposal.
About Your Event and Audience Audience?
The first step in finding an event sponsor is to write a quick summary of your event. This may include a description of the event, Why are you organising the event? Who is it for? Venue? Date and more. This would help ensure you know your event before pitching it to event sponsors.
| Segmentation Model | Segmentation Method |
| Demographic Segmentation | gender, age, occupation, marital status, income, etc. |
| Geographic Segmentation | country, state, city and down |
| Psychographic Segmentation | personal attitudes, values, interests or personality traits |
| Technographic Segmentation | preferred technologies, software, and mobile devices |
| Behavioural Segmentation | tendencies and frequent action, feature or product use, and habits |
Finding The Right Event Sponsors
Remember organisers who target the right sponsors from the start are more likely to have successful feedback. Don’t be lazy, do your research, find out who wants to reach your audience, their values, and their goals and note their details on a spreadsheet (be organised). Make a list of potential sponsors and prioritize them based on their relevance, size, and potential impact. You can find our event sponsors template here, this covers what you need to manage your event, in this case, it includes an excel file to list the event sponsors names, event sponsors’ contact phone numbers or points of contact, value and if you’ve contacted them.
What Value Can You Provide?
The next step is to understand what value you can provide to event sponsors. Depending on the type of your event, this may be along the line of the following:
Visibility: As an event organiser, you can promote your event sponsor on varying outlets ranging from flyers, banners and different screens. This can be quantified by understanding the potential views you’ll get at each outlet, summing them up and multiplying the cost per impression of your industry.
Data: Another value you can provide to event sponsors is data. This data may include consumers’ preferences, surveys or emails (opted-in). You can value this by understanding the average cost per lead for event sponsors in your industry and multiplying it by the number of contacts you are providing them. For example, the average cost per lead for the retail industry is x and you are providing y contacts to your event sponsor. The value you are providing to your event sponsor is z = X x Y.
Direct sales: Another value you can provide to event sponsors is by providing them access to direct sales with your attendees. This can include having a stall at your event at high footfalls location. It’s highly difficult to estimate this but you can go with a ballpark figure, in our case we used around 5-10%. The next step is to find out what your potential event sponsors sell and their average price. Once you have it, you can quantify the value by multiplying the total expected attendees by 5% and the cost of the event sponsor item.
Similar cause: The last reason, is a similar cause. This is mostly for charities, in this case, you can state the level of impact you’ll resonate with current and existing customers. Surveys and market research can back this up.
Create a sponsorship proposal that outlines the benefits of sponsoring your event and how it aligns with the sponsor’s goals and objectives. Be sure to highlight the reach and impact of your event, as well as any promotional opportunities that sponsors will have.
Creating and Pricing Package
The next step to finding an event sponsor is writing a tailor-made information section for event sponsors or sponsorship packages. Although information about your event is useful, most companies would like to know what they’ll be getting and for how much. The previous section should feed into this. An ideal event sponsorship package should summarise your event, visibility, cost, audience and other rewards you think would benefit the business. It is important to look at it from the event sponsor’s perspective.
[bctt tweet="Although information about your event is useful, most companies would like to know what they’ll be getting and for how much."]
Example of a sponsorship package:
| Gold Event Sponsor Package – £50,000 | Silver Event Sponsor Package – £10,000 | Bronze Event Sponsor Package – £5,000 |
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Offer sponsors various levels of benefits based on the amount of sponsorship. The more they invest the more benefits they should have, such as visibility, access to attendees, or even speaking opportunities.
Contacting Event Sponsors
Now it’s time to contact them. Tailor your approach to each potential sponsor by highlighting how your event aligns with their specific business goals and interests. Remember to be polite and persistent, but don’t come across as pushy. Your communication strategy should follow your marketing strategy starting off with preparation, acquisition, engagement and retention. Start by finding out who is in charge of marketing, and filling in the information on the template provided, reach out to them detailing why sponsoring your event aligns with their objectives, and keep them engaged throughout the process.
Remember to always follow up with potential sponsors in a timely manner. Send a reminder email or call to check on the status of their decision and see if they have any questions or concerns.
Once you secure a sponsor, make sure to show your appreciation. Keep them informed throughout the event planning process and thank them publicly at the event.
Outreach Email
Dear [Event Sponsor],
We are excited to invite you to be a sponsor for our upcoming event, [Event Name], taking place on [Date and Time] at [Location].
This event is an excellent opportunity for your company to reach a large and diverse audience, as we expect to have [Number of Attendees] in attendance. We have planned an exciting program, including [list of activities or speakers].
As an event sponsor, your company will benefit from exposure to our audience, as well as the opportunity to showcase your products or services. Your sponsorship will also help us to continue providing valuable programming and services to our community.
We have a variety of sponsorship levels available, with benefits such as:
[List of benefits for each event sponsorship level]
We would love the opportunity to discuss this further with you and answer any questions you may have. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more, and we will be in touch to schedule a call.
Thank you for considering our event sponsorship request. We look forward to the possibility of working together.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
P.S: Please find our event brochure and sponsorship deck attached for more information.
Calculate metrics
Finally and the most important aspect of your sponsorship, How do you help event sponsors measure their ROI? This is one of the most important stages yet the most difficult thing to do, luckily there are some tools to ease your burden:
- Google Analytics and URL providers: Create custom URLs which can be followed up to check the views, click-throughs and sign-up rate.
- Industry data: Make use of the industry average for the number of attendees converted to customers.
- Vivus Create: Use the Vivus Create tool to monitor how the ad on your event page, tickets and social network provides value to your sponsor. You can also use it to sell tickets.