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...]
High-Stake Conference Partnerships
As brands evolve, they are increasingly looking for marketing investments where they can make an emotional impact with a defined target market. Most of them can do it with or without you (ambush marketing), but most would rather partner and support organizations that are already serving a demographic that matches up with their best customers. Often, these are the ones that you want to target for potential partnership and sponsorship opportunities. Choosing the Right Partners For … [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...]
Proving Conference Emotional Marketing Sponsor Spend
Exhibit-booth footprints are shrinking across nearly every industry. The Good News There is a silver lining though: the opportunity to develop fruitful strategic partnerships. Just be ready to prove why a sponsor’s dollars are well spent on your organization. The Bad News More companies are demonstrating their products and services via digital technology rather than face-to-face events. That’s the bad news for your convention’s revenue-diversification model. Proving Sponsorship … [Read more...]
Sponsorships Change Dramatically In Radical Ground-Breaking Revolutionary Conferences
Think about your conference attendees for a minute. And think about the lives they lead on a daily basis. Now think about the roles corporate brands want to play in their lives as conference sponsors. That’s a hard thing for a brand to accomplish at a conference or even in the real world. Consider Your Attendees Again Keep thinking about your conference attendees for a moment. Think about the relationships they have with other things. Things like sports, music, art, movies and … [Read more...]
The Sponsorship Whisperer Builds Trust With Each Encounter
Horse whisperers move carefully, listen intently, and earn trust through each encounter, even with the most unruly of horses. And there's a lot they can teach us about sponsorship sales. Many conferences struggle with flat or declining revenue from exhibitors and sponsors. For some, it’s because their attendees don’t have enough buying influence or authority. If your event attracts the right attendees, on the other hand, you have an opportunity to strategically grow sponsorship … [Read more...]