Landing the Right Event Sponsors
As an event planning professional who organizes large-scale events such as award ceremonies or trade shows, you often need to find sponsors to lower your client’s cost. However, developing a truly profitable event sponsorship package and landing the right event sponsors entails that you consider your client’s organizational DNA—a concept that, put simply, refers to the company’s personality and performance.
Know Your Organization Inside and Out
Your client’s organizational DNA is the most important element to consider when developing a corporate event sponsorship package. But what do we exactly mean by that? An organization’s DNA is made up of different components, including its mission, vision, values, objectives, and target audience. The leaders, philosophies, brands, and products also play a pivotal role when it comes to identifying an organization’s DNA. More importantly, reflect on your client’s organizational DNA. What does the company stand for? What does it excel at? Who specifically does it sell to? And how is the event an actual reflection of this?
Knowing the client inside out and mastering your sales pitch will allow you to relay all the important bits and pieces in your corporate event sponsorship package. Click To Tweet
Potential sponsors who are not familiar with your client’s organization will want to quickly identify what’s in it for them. Specifically, they’ll want to know who will be in attendance at the event. Furthermore, having your facts straight will allow you to answer trickier questions you may be asked along the way, increasing your chances of securing a sponsor and making the event more profitable. For instance, what would you tell a potential sponsor worrying about the repercussions of a recent scandal at your client’s organization?
As a corporate event planner, having a good grasp of who you represent will help you identify potential sponsors who share similar views or offer complementary services—the ones that are the right fit for the event and who see it as the right fit for their business. It will also prove handy when you start customizing your offer based on their needs and the value you know the event brings to the table.
Now more than ever, out-of-the-box, non-traditional solutions are treasured by event sponsors who look for opportunities to stand out and get a better ROI. Indeed, it is the holistic understanding of your client’s organization that will allow you to come up with creative solutions—knowing their mission, their values, their target audience, the event details, and the event’s purpose.
Don’t Overdo It
No matter what type of event you are organizing, don’t go overboard with sponsorships. Your client’s guests could feel annoyed and you could impact the overall vibe of the event. People enjoy getting freebies, but remember they are not attending the event to be bombarded by advertisers. Overdoing it could also mean diluting other sponsor’s visibility and contribution, which could leave them feeling frustrated and disengaged.
You don’t want your client to be perceived as greedy. A good way of sorting through event sponsorships is to, indeed, remind yourself of your client’s organizational DNA: its mission, vision, values, objectives, and target audience.
If a sponsor is not the right fit for the event, move on. You may leave money on the table, but, at the end of the day, the credibility of the event and your client’s organization will be at stake. Click To TweetWant to learn everything there is about event planning including how to make your corporate events more profitable? For real-world event education, sign up for E.P.I.C., the Event Planning Intensive Course available to take online.