Open Air Business August/September 2018

EVENTS
GETTY IMAGES
Event
Sponsorship
Eventbrite presents advice from Nicola Lloyd, head of event
marketing for Pearson Frank, on how to attract event sponsors
IT FEELS like almost stating the obvious, but
securing sponsorship for your events can be
the difference between generating income
and making a loss. It is also fair to say that
sponsorship can be the difference from your
event idea sitting on your hard drive and it
actually going ahead in the first place.
On the flip side, as a sponsor, it’s a great
opportunity to get your brand visible in front
of hundreds or thousands of your target
audience, which can lead to new leads and a
sizeable profit for your business.
With so much on the line, making the right
impression to potential first time sponsors
for your event is crucial. So once you’ve got
a great idea for an event that’s unique and
interesting, it’s time to try and attract some
support to bring it to fruition.
Nicola Lloyd, head of event management
marketing at Pearson Frank, is here to pass
over knowledge that she has picked up over
the years.
GIVE SPONSORS
1 THE INFORMATION
THEY NEED TO MAKE AN
INFORMED DECISION
It’s all well and good if you have an idea
of who your attendees are, but sponsors
are equally keen to find out that
information. You need to let prospective
sponsors know who is likely to attend
- age-range, gender, occupation,
interests, etc. This is important for two
reasons:
› Firstly, sponsors need to know that
if they are going to invest money
into your event, the people that they
want to attract to their business are
attending
› Secondly, sponsors can often use their
own lead generation tactics to attract
more attendees to ensure they receive
a significant return on investment.
The easiest way to gather this data is
by collecting it at the point of purchase; if
guests need to register online to attend then
you can gather a lot of information that way.
Once you have all of this information at your
disposal, you can pull together a customer
profile to demonstrate to sponsors who
will be attending and how they can convert
attendees into customers (obviously watch
out for GDPR compliance).
In your initial proposal, you should also
cover all of the ‘obvious’ information. What
will be the name of your event? When is
it? How long will it last? Is it a one-off or
a repeating event? Where will it be held?
The location is especially important for
potential sponsors. If attending, they need
to know if their staffing capacity allows for
representatives from the company in that
area to physically attend without significant
loss of business.
USE PREVIOUS EVENT
2 EXAMPLES AND
EXPERIENCES WORKING
WITH SPONSORS
If you’ve held similar sized events in the
past you could provide case studies that
demonstrate to potential sponsors that you
know what you are doing and can be trusted
to deliver a high-quality event.
Try to provide evidence of how sponsoring
one of your previous events has benefitted
similar companies in the past, whether
it be through growth in their customer
base, increases in social media numbers,
or positive brand recognition through
association. If sponsors can see how their
competitors have benefitted, it’s more likely
they’ll be interested in investing in your next
event.
72 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM