Often we feel that conference sponsorship is a necessary but unpleasant activity to support an event. We are uncomfortable asking organizations for money to support our endeavors. Sometimes that uncomfortable feeling is more a reflection of our personal beliefs about money than our beliefs about our conference’s impact. Raising conference sponsorship dollars should actually be proclaiming what we believe about our event in such as way that we offer other organizations the opportunity to … [Read more...]
Conference & Trade Show Sponsors Want Relevance
As we strive to deliver outstanding attendee experiences, our eyes turn to sponsorship. After all, somebody has to pay for this. Yet sponsorship tends to follow the same random path: Logos are slapped on every last bit of real estate. Banner ads and app alerts multiply. As the promotional noise increases, attendee attention plummets – thus making sponsorship less appealing. While eyeballs and clicks might have mattered to some degree in years past, that era is ending. Sponsorship investors … [Read more...]
The Wrong Way To Approach Conference Sponsorship
Logos hanging from the ceiling at the tradeshow. Ads covering windows, elevator doors and escalator ramps. Symbols, signs and emblems stuck to the floor, carpet and wrapping columns. Logos on lanyards, room keys and conference bags. All of these are the traditional ways conferences approach sponsorship. And the majority of them have little value or ROI. Most of them are the wrong way to approach conference sponsorship today. Sponsorship Disruption Through Experiential … [Read more...]
Sponsorship: From Uninspiring To Really Mattering
When attendees interact with your sponsors, do they feel marginalized or like they really matter? Are you forcing your sponsors’ messages on your conference attendees or helping sponsors offer insights that attendees may actually value? Remember That Last Event You Attended Think back to an event that you attended. Quick: Do you remember any of the sponsors? Who were they and why do you remember them? Did you get something unexpected, participate in something memorable, or were you … [Read more...]
Time For Your Conference Sponsorship To Grow Up
Has your conference sponsorship grown up? Or are you still offering first generation sponsorship that flashes logos on any and all available space at your conference venue? If you are, you have bought into the concept that displaying logos to masses of cynical consumers equals marketing return. Guess what, it doesn't! Four Generations Of Sponsorship Kim Skildum-Reid, one of the world's leading sponsorship mavens with more than 25 years of global sponsor experience, has written a white … [Read more...]