Sponsors hold a vital role at events, such so that without sponsors events can easily fall flat. Including sponsors in your event help to encourage diversity, reliability, inclusion and additional opportunities throughout an event by being included as exhibitors, speakers, workshop trainers, or even simply a presence at a networking portion of the event. For this reason (and so much more) it is essential to meet the needs of your event sponsors to the best of your abilities, creating a lasting business relationship that encourages them to return year after year. Follow along in this article to explore how to engage with your sponsors, simple way you can boost sponsor inclusion, and the best ways to follow up with sponsors after an event.
Start Engaging
Whether you are selling sponsorships yourself or collaborating with a salesperson, how you begin to converse with a sponsor can set the tone for their entire experience at your event. Therefore, as the conversation begins setting a friendly and reliable manner can quickly create a successful working relationship. This can be easily done by simply being the friendly face that the sponsor can count on before, during, and after the contracts are signed and payments are made. When sponsors ask questions, whether by phone or email, answer the questions promptly and honestly. If you do not have the answer right then and there, tell them so, that you will check on it, and provide an estimated amount of time for when you can send an answer by. As with speakers, it’s crucial not to over-promise, even with the smallest things. Create reasonable expectations for the sponsor that you can likely exceed.
Boost Inclusion
Speaking of exceeding expectations, sometimes you have a sponsor who knows exactly what they want to do during a live event, others that ask for guidance, and others still that prefer to only appear in name. Regardless if the event is in-personal, virtual, or hybrid something you should always do is to encourage your sponsors to be present even in the smallest of ways. If a sponsor is going to send representatives to staff an exhibition booth but don’t know what to do or where to start, here are a few things you can suggest they do at their booth:
Present a short, topic-relevant talk during a break time
Create an interactive competition for event attendees to participate in with a prize(s) for the winner(s)
If your conference is within the technology industry, a coding competition is a very low-maintenance, fun way to interact with the developers in attendance. There are even resources to assist with this, such as DevOlympics.
A simple raffle with branded, swag prizes
Hand out branded swag items such as stickers, water bottles, t-shirts, bags, etc.
With all of the above options, sponsors may need some assistance setting up their exhibition booths. Whether this assistance is accepting packages pre-event, bringing materials to the venue, or helping set up the booth itself before the event begins, as the organizer you must keep your promises. Showing up for your sponsors on the day(s) of the event and checking-in on them during the event continues the friendly and reliable manner you set at the beginning of the relationship. By continuing to be reliable, you truly ensure that every sponsor feels appreciated and included at the event.
Follow-Up
When the event has concluded, the relationship with the sponsor has not. As your live event concludes, be sure to check-in with sponsors one final time. This provides a more informal window to receive initial feedback on your event as a whole as well as insight on the sponsor’s individual experience. Use this information (whether good or bad) to follow-up with the sponsor. You will want to send this within one week of the event and use it as an opportunity to thank the sponsor for helping to make the event a success. One addition to this email that is always appreciated is statistics from the event. This can be included as text within the email itself or attached as a PDF. Some common event stats include total tickets sold (or total live/in-person attendees), top attendee job titles, where people traveled from to attend, and any leads the sponsor received at the event.
If applicable to your organization, when you have some information about when the next edition of the event will take place, use this as another opportunity to reach out to the sponsor. This is a perfect opportunity to offer a returning sponsor a special or limited-time discount. A special offer can include (but are not limited to) additional event tickets added to a sponsorship package or a presentation on stage during the event. On the other hand, if your organization only hosts one-time events, you can still reach out one final time about one or two months after the event has concluded. Rather than thanking the sponsor again, you can check in with them to see if they are hosting anything you can help to promote or provide them with insight on a new event that they may be of interest to them. Assuming your sponsor felt welcomed and taken care of before, during, and after your event, this outreach will keep the relationship you have built alive. There are endless opportunities with sponsors at events and it go both ways. At the end of the day, a happy sponsor is a returning customer.