Recruiting and Keeping Event Sponsors: A Guide to Event ... · Communicating the qualities that make an event worthwhile demonstrates a compelling, thoughtful event planning strategy

Recruiting and Keeping Event Sponsors:

A Guide to Event Sponsor Happiness

by Ellie Chalphin and Lauren Collalto-Rieske

2 • Contap Events | Recruiting and Keeping Event Sponsors: A Guide to Event Sponsor Happiness

Introduction:

Why Event

Sponsorship Matters

Brands in North America have more options than ever on which to spend their marketing dollars and the competition for these dollars is fierce because many marketing budgets are shrinking. 1 Event organizers should be happy to know that one category that is seeing a steady 4.5% growth each year is sponsorships. 2 Sponsorships are popular with brands because they allow brands to connect directly with consumers in a way that’s inherently social and meaningful. 3

However, not just any brand sponsorship will enhance an event. Following is a step-by-step guide for how to recruit, foster and maintain long-lasting relationships with the right sponsors. Establishing long-term relationships with the right sponsors ensures both attendees and sponsors will be delighted and will come back to an organizer’s events time and time again.


Before the Event:

How to Recruit & Develop

Relationships with Ideal

Sponsors

Target Event Sponsors

The most important part of event sponsorship is to ensure that an event organizer recruits and builds long-term relationships with his or her ideal event sponsors. At the beginning of this process, an organizer acts as a matchmaker, with the end goal of matching a sponsors’ business needs with attendees’ interests. Here are three tips to help any organizer get started on the matchmaking path:

• Verify sponsor-event attendee fit:

Make sure a sponsor’s product or service is relevant to the attendees at an event.4

For example, the Chicago White Sox chose Modelo Especial as their official import beer, because it offered the Sox an opportunity to connect with their growing Latino fan base, which has more than doubled since 2005. Plus, when the White Sox and Modelo inked their sponsorship deal, Modelo was the second-largest beer brand in the Chicago area. Since Modelo was prominent in Chicago, it meant Modelo’s sponsorship would also be relevant to the Sox’s non-Hispanic fans, making the beer brand’s three-year sponsorship contract a win for all Sox fans. 5

• Show sponsors consumer insights:

Go beyond standard age, marital status and income level demographics; sponsors want details about what attendees’ relationships with brands and products in their categories are, so they know their sponsorship will be relevant. 6

• Provide details on past events:

Show a sponsor data and anecdotal evidence illustrating that an organizer has experience driving engagement with other sponsors. An easy way to do this would be to review social media images posted for a specific event, select all of the images that featured a particular sponsor, and count the number of likes those images had. 7 When this information is tallied and shared with a potential sponsor, it shows that an organizer has a strong brand with a following and can secure sponsors all-important visibility. In turn, this gains a potential sponsor’s confidence in an organizer’s abilities.

Highlight an Event’s Key Value

After getting a sense of an event’s audience, it’s imperative an organizer shows sponsors the key value their event will offer. To determine an event’s key value, think about what someone would miss if he or she did not attend that event. Is it a particularly compelling keynote speaker, networking opportunities with prospective clients, or presentations on the latest industry


trends? Perhaps it’s a combination of these different attributes.

Communicating the qualities that make an event worthwhile demonstrates a compelling, thoughtful event planning strategy and underscores that an event will be well-attended. Mitra Sorrells of BizBash, a leading online event planning publication, agrees: “if you have good speakers for your event, [ just] say so.” 8 To Ms. Sorrells’ point, good speakers will attract a substantial audience and will help complete the critical matchmaking exercise needed to recruit the right sponsors.

Know Sponsors’ Strategies

Effective sponsor recruitment requires a solid understanding of a potential sponsor’s sponsorship strategy. According to Kris Mathis, the founder of SponsorPitch, a market intelligence and analytics resource for sponsorship professionals, “‘we often see sponsors...stick to a strategy that’s working and sponsor the same types of events over and over again [such as] ...music festivals, Meetups, or N.F.L. teams.’” 9 For instance, The Coca-Cola Company, which spends roughly $280 million each year on sponsorships, primarily spends their sponsorship budget on two types of events: music and sports. 10 Therefore, if an organizer has large-scale music- or sports-related opportunities and knows people who drink Coca-Cola products will attend his or her events, it would make sense to pitch his or her event

sponsorship packages to Coca-Cola. Likewise, if an organizer is planning a healthcare industry networking event, it would be wise for them to research companies, like pharmaceutical and medical device companies, who typically sponsor events in their industry.

Treat Sponsors Like Partners

Once an organizer pitches a sponsor, negotiates a sponsorship agreement and that agreement is signed, prioritize creating a culture of collaboration by treating sponsors symbiotically. To do this, it’s important that an event organizer:

• Understands the business goals a sponsor has for participating in one’s event

• Uses these goals to co-develop strong content and/or displays that highlight the event organizer’s and the sponsor’s brand

• Discusses, together with the event’s sponsors, how best to market this dual-branded content and/or displays before, during and after the event

An excellent case-in-point is Amgen’s 2015 sponsorship of an award at the 28th Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Ball. Since the pharmaceutical company wanted to showcase its commitment to research, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society provided it the opportunity to sponsor the James L. Eichberg


Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to a family who long supported blood cancer research. This collaborative approach to sponsorships proved to be a win for the Society as well: the Ball netted the nonprofit an additional $200,000 over the previous year’s fundraising achievements. 11

Personalize the Relationship

As the partnership between an organizer and a sponsor begins, it’s helpful to strengthen this business relationship by personalizing it. Vince Thompson, founder of Melt, one of the US’ leading sports and entertainment marketing firms, notes:

“‘If we’re doing an event for a charity and we have a major [sponsor], we try to find out if that [sponsor] has an emotional stake in the [charity’s] cause. So, if we’re doing a fundraiser for arthritis...we find out if [the charity has someone] in their family that suffered from arthritis.’” 12

As Thompson mentions, diving into the DNA of the sponsor company allows an organizer to understand why a sponsor invested in an event. In turn, this ensures that the sponsor feels like it is making a meaningful contribution.


Executing a Great Event

Deliver Top-Notch Sponsor Integrations

Now that the organizer and their sponsor have cultivated a solid relationship wherein both sides fully understand the other’s goals and brand, it is easier to deliver a sponsorship integration that’s meaningful and authentic. A great example of successful sponsor integration is Groupon’s 2016 sponsorship of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. At the festival, Groupon constructed a photo booth that invited festival attendees to “Discover your city from top to bottom.” In the photo booth, attendees took photos with props that were anchored to the ceiling. The playful integration promoted Groupon as a method of city discovery, which was exactly how the online marketplace wanted attendees to use their app during and--especially after--leaving South Beach. Plus, by taking photos, attendees were interacting with the Groupon brand in a meaningful, authentic way, which is always preferable to merely displaying a sponsor’s branded banner at an event. 13

Provide Relevant Perks and Networking

Opportunities

In addition to delivering successful integrations, providing sponsors with perks can further strengthen business relationships between organizers and their sponsors. These value-adds can range from making business

Although it may seem obvious, fast, reliable Wifi with good bandwith is a necessary component of

making sure anyactivation is successful!


introductions that will help sponsors expand their networks to providing relevant exclusives, like separate seating areas or celebrity meet-and-greet events, to top sponsors. For their 2016 annual gala, which was “Penguins in Paradise” themed, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo created custom, beach-themed cabanas for their top sponsors’ sole use. The cabanas had beachy, sunset-inspired hues, cushy seating and tables with snacks and drinks. According to the gala’s cochairwomen, Lisa Genesen, and Christine Tierney, “‘the cabanas were a fitting feature...[that] allowed us to offer something special to our larger donors. Many sponsors took advantage of the cabanas, noting it was such a nice touch.’” 14

After the Event:

Demonstrate Value

and Maintain a Solid

Relationship

The importance of having established a strong relationship with a sponsor does not end when an event ends. Andrew Coleman, who oversees Diageo North America’s sponsorships in California, shares:

“‘It is shocking to me that working with as many pro sports teams and other major properties as we do, that we only sit down with a handful at the end of the year and measure and assess what happened. Very few [sports teams] even send us [an annual sponsorship] recap.’” 15

Coleman advocates for post-event meetings and underscores that the organizations that assess the past year’s sponsorship experience are the ones that are more likely to retain Diageo’s sponsorship. He notes that Triple-A baseball’s Sacramento River Cats are best-in-class when it comes to this: “The [River Cats’ leadership insists] that before we start planning for the next year that we meet and talk about what happened the previous year--what worked, what didn’t, what added value we received and [Diageo’s] future plans.” 16 Having post-event meetings and sharing event statistics and an event’s strong ROI lets sponsors know that they made the right decision in sponsoring an organizer’s


event. Being transparent about an event’s successes and opportunity areas also plays a crucial role in maintaining long-term relationships between organizers and their sponsors.

A Successful Post Event Recap Includes:

• Photos of the event

• Statistics on the number of and typeof attendees

• Specifics regarding the amount of media a sponsor received, such as social media posts, likes and impressions

• Any other results specific to the sponsor

….and, is ideally sent within 48 hours of an event! 17

After the Recap is Sent, Don’t Forget to...

• Stay in touch:

Be sure to stay in touch with sponsors with mailings and in-person check-ins throughout the year, as this ensures that a sponsor will remember an organizer’s successful events

• Give a heads-up about forthcoming

opportunities:

Let sponsors know about future opportunities and partnerships by checking-in regularly

If organizers keep these tips in mind throughout the year, it will help them retain sponsors. In turn, this will make an organizer’s job easier by removing the sales pressure of recruiting new sponsors each year. 18

Consider delivering a custom edited video as apost-event recap. It could

expand on an event’sperformance with data

and visual displaysof the sponsor’s activation

in-action.


Conclusion: Keeping

Sponsors Happy

Before, During, and After

an Event

Well-executed sponsorships offer an opportunity for robust and ongoing business relationships that grow organizers’ and sponsors’ businesses while resonating with attendees’ passions. Since attendees’ passions can stoke emotional touchpoints, these touchpoints offer an opportunity to create lasting impressions of organizers’ events and sponsors’ brands. In turn, both sponsors--and attendees--will be willing to participate in an organizer’s events again and again. Here’s a reminder of how to make sure one’s sponsorships continuously deliver results:

• Before the event: Focus on recruitingand building strong, personalized relationships with the right sponsors, so that these sponsors can benefit from and enhance one’s events

• During the event: Treat sponsors likepartners to create effective sponsor integrations and make sponsors feel appreciated with perks onsite

• After the event: Demonstrate anevent’s value through an insightful, timely event recap and maintain communication with sponsors to facilitate long-lasting partnerships

Endnotes1 “Overall marketing budgets shrink even as digital spending rises,” Gartner Report, November 15, 2017.

2 “Sponsorship Spending Forecast: Continued Growth Around The World,” IEG Sponsorship Report, January 4, 2017.

3 William Rosen and Laurence Minsky, “Six Steps to Successful Sponsorships,” Harvard Business Review, July 28, 2011.

4 Mitra Sorrells, “10 Tips for an Effective Sponsorship Strategy,” BizBash.com, February 9, 2017.

5 Greg Trotter, “White Sox, Modelo partner on multiyear sponsorship deal,” The Chicago Tribune, March 10, 2017.

6 Sorrells, “10 Tips for an Effective Sponsorship Strategy,” BizBash.com, February 9, 2017.

7 Wendy Keller, “How to Land a Sponsorship Deal,” Entrepreneur.com, December 13, 2016.



10 Coca-Cola Sponsorships, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coca-cola-sponsorships, Accessed December 2017.

11 D. Channing Muller, “Why Listening to Your Sponsors Matters,” BizBash.com, April 1, 2015.

1 2 Jenny Berg, “Checklist: 9 Ways to Keep Sponsors Happy, Before and After the Event,” BizBash.com, August 8, 2015.

13 Tracey Block, ”South Beach Wine & Food Festival 2016: How to Make an Event Fresh for Returning Sponsors,” BizBash.com, March 1, 2016.

14 Jenny Berg,“The New Way an Elegant Gala Thanked Top Sponsors,” BizBash.com, July 28, 2016 and Berg, “Checklist: 9 Ways to Keep Sponsors Happy, Before and After the Event,” BizBash.com, August 8, 2015.

15 “Sponsors Reveal What It Takes To Make, Keep Them Happy,” ESP Sponsorship Report, April 2, 2007.


17 Berg, “Checklist: 9 Ways to Keep Sponsors Happy, Before and After the Event,” BizBash.com, August 8, 2015.



About Contap Events:Contap Events is a mobile-first event app that makes it easy to organize better events. Our comprehensive platform combines event organizing, attendee networking, event surveys, push notifications to attendees and from sponsors, and event analytics. Take your events to new heights. Discover us for free today at events.contapsocial.com or in the Google Play or Apple App stores.

About Contap Social:Contap Social is a networking and event organizing app whose goal is to make networking and event organizing fun and easy. With just a few taps, users can share all of their socials, emails, documents and phone numbers with a new friend or colleague--or organize a brand new business or social event. Contap Social even integrates with DropBox and several popular CRMs. Discover us for free today at app.contapsocial.com or in the Google Play or Apple App stores.

About the Authors: Ellie Chalphin is a former Contap Social intern and current Wellesley College student. In her spare time, she enjoys playing lacrosse, finding dinner, and promptly devouring it.

Lauren Collalto-Rieske is Contap Social’s Chief Marketing Officer. In her spare time, she enjoys caffeinating, trying new chocolates, and creating photo collages of her travels.

Contap Social:

Jason Craparo

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To learn more about how you can use Contap Events today, please contact Jason

Craparo at [email protected].

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Recruiting and Keeping Event Sponsors: A Guide to Event ... · Communicating the qualities that make an event worthwhile demonstrates a compelling, thoughtful event planning strategy