This month’s blog will be focusing on something crucial to most of our events; the importance of event sponsorship, and the ways in which more companies could agree to sponsoring your event in 2019.

Our larger events rely on securing sponsorship to help ensure the event costs are covered.  Whether it’s a small financial requirement such as a contribution towards event stationery, or a much larger fee to help cover venue costs, the ways in which sponsorship should be pitched to potential backers should be the same. Ultimately, you must offer them something worthwhile in return for their money.

First of all, it’s important to understand the reasons why a company would sponsor an event;
  • It helps them raise awareness of their brand
  • It helps them reach their audience via a new and direct channel
  • In some cases, it may be for corporate social responsibility/ethical reasons

Realistically, the thought process underpinning all of these reasons are, will the company be getting a good return on their investment? Will the sponsorship lead to additional sales?

So, here’s some of our suggestions on how to secure more event sponsors this year;

1.      Talk to your sponsors! Ask them what they want and how you can make it happen for them!

2.      Create a case study – have you run this event before? How have the sponsors benefited? What are their thoughts on the event and how worthwhile it was? If you can provide them with some positive feedback if will make them feel more comfortable about parting with the money

3.      Do the sponsors have staff or key customers that would benefit from coming to your event? If so, offer them free places to attend. It’s an incentive for your sponsor but also some additional attendees to fill up seats at your event

4.      Offer sponsors a number of branding opportunities at the event. The opportunities for branding are endless; signage, screens, stationery, posters, event website – the more exposure you can offer your sponsors the more appealing it will be

5.      Allow sponsors the opportunity to host speaker sessions where they could present a talk, hold a discussion and get in front of your audience in a more engaging way

6.      Create a killer sponsorship pitch deck which can be sent out to your potentials – make sure it provides real statistics and numbers which will demonstrate how sponsorship of the event could add to the company’s bottom line and generate worthwhile leads. Make sure the pitch is short, sharp and to the point about the benefits of sponsorship

7.      Try and initially approach companies face-to-face – sometimes sending a blanket email isn’t going to capture attention or stand out from the crowd. Research the relevant persons name within the company you need to talk to and give them a call, or arrange a meeting where you can provide them with all of the information and form a more personable relationship

8.      If your only option is to email – make sure your subject line and body of the email is worded in an eye-catching and interesting way. The average person receives 120 emails per day, so write something different which grabs the leads attention

9.      Angle your pitch to the sponsor as a win-win, you may want their money, but you can also offer them a unique opportunity to get in front of their customers. Don’t come off desperate for business, as you also have something really valuable to offer them!

Although it’s a competitive market place, with many events bidding for company’s sponsorship money, there’s also many companies out there which budget for these kinds of events. So, with the right pitch, the right approach and the right offering you should be able to secure that sponsorship you need.

If you found this content useful, have some feedback or have a suggestion for future blog posts, we would love to hear from you, drop me a line at mica@cfsevents.co.uk.