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Secrets to Winning Sponsorship
This document summarizes a workshop for association event managers on securing sponsorships. It discusses preparing for sponsorships by profiling the event audience, making a list of potential sponsors from magazines and annual reports, and designing sponsorship packages that include marketing messages, entitlements, and ways to measure sponsor satisfaction. Potential sponsors are more likely to support events that help them achieve objectives like promoting their brand or fulfilling corporate social responsibility goals to the right audience. The document emphasizes starting sponsorship efforts early, retaining sponsors by delivering promised benefits, and using surveys, social media, and attendance data to evaluate whether the event met sponsors' goals.
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Secrets to Winning Sponsorship
- 1. Secrets in WinningSponsorship Workshop for Association Event Manager Roy Ying 1.9.2015 | Manila
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- 5. Q1 – Isit easy to sell sponsorship? (QR Code Scanner)
- 6. Are you seeingthis on your screen?
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- 8. Why Wechat? Infographics extractedfrom Chairman Media (24 March 2015)
- 9. Why Focus OnChina?
- 10. Q2 – Howmuch associations get?(send in your response via wechat) • Assuming the global market for sponsorship money is USD 53 billion, how much do you think associations get in terms of percentage? –1% –3% –4% –5% –9%
- 12. Ask not whatsponsors can do for you But what you can do for your sponsors
- 13. Why Should SponsorsPay You?
- 14. Sponsors’ Motivations • Logicalmatch between the sponsor and sponsoree (i.e., the event organizer) such as: – The event’s audience matches the profile of the sponsor’s potential clients; – The event can help the sponsor achieve certain corporate objectives (i.e., compliance, CSR, crisis recovery, public engagement)
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- 20. Q3 - Howmuch do your events rely on sponsorship?
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- 28. How to translatewhat members want into revenue generating activities?
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- 30. Members want… Associationcan organize… Business Development Exhibitions, Investment Forums, Market Places Brand Profile Awards, Competitions, Conferences, Annual Dinners Advocacy Policy Submissions, Surveys & Researches, Town Halls Publicity Press Conferences, Blogger Events Learning CPD Seminar, Training
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- 36. 6. Town HallMeetings
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- 39. How do youstart?
- 40. Q4 – Atwhat stage do you start engaging potential sponsors? 1. When the event is ready for promotion 2. When we need to commit expenses 3. When the event is still at inception stage 4. When last year’s event comes to a close 5. When there is a revenue shortfall from ticket sales 6. Others (please specify)
- 41. Before You ApproachSponsors
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- 43. 1. Event AudienceProfile
- 45. 2. Make aList of Potential Sponsors Where to look? • Magazines related to your trade • Competitor’s events • Organizing committee members • Annual reports of listed companies • PR agencies representing your target sponsors • Sponsorship agencies
- 46. 2. Discussion I amgoing to go around to ask the following question: • How can flipping through magazines* help you find prospective sponsors? * Interchangeable for 2-6
- 47. 3. Design SponsorshipPackage
- 49. 3. B2B UsuallyWants ROI in terms of:
- 50. 3. B2C usuallywants user experience, mass media exposure, sales leads
- 51. 3. Price Tagson Entitlements
- 52. 4. Marketing Messages (Reasonsto Sponsor)
- 53. 4. Marketing Messages (ProgramHighlights)
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- 55. 4. Marketing Messages (Videofrom Previous Events)
- 56. 4. Marketing Messages (ImageGallery)
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- 58. 4. Marketing Messages (SponsorshipPresentation)
- 59. 5. Secure RepeatCustomers (Tips to service sponsors) • Commit to sponsorship agreement • Show how their entitlements are delivered • Involve sponsors in major decisions / activities • Know your sponsors’ branding guidelines • Develop a plan to fight ambush marketing • Measure effectiveness with sponsors • Solicit interest for next year’s event by offering content contribution opportunity
- 60. 6. Plan toMeasure
- 61. Q5 - Measurementof success
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- 63. From Sponsors’ Perspective 1.Are we talking to the right audience? 2. Is the sponsorship justified in terms of achieving corporate objective(s)? Ask your sponsors what they want to know!
- 64. If you knowwhat to measure….. (Demographics) • Collect the kind of information you need (for analysis) from attendees during registration stage • Try not to ask too many questions
- 65. If you knowwhat to measure….. (Psychographics….by onsite surveys)
- 66. If you knowwhat to measure….. (Post event surveys) • Tailor questions in a way that helps you assess whether the event has met the sponsor’ objective
- 67. If you knowwhat to measure….. (Social media engagement)
- 68. Questions? (Raise your handor ask via Wechat)
- 69. Thank you! Find meon….. roy_ying_0112 royingfai Roy Ying
Editor's Notes
- #2 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen Very happy to be in Manila today to talk about my favorite subject – sponsorship management. A lot of my colleagues have told me that they love organizing events but don’t like selling sponsorship. I can understand that not all event managers are cut out to be sales people, but it’s almost inevitable to have to look for sponsors in just about every major event that we organize. That comes with the job. Why is sponsorship management my favorite topic? It is something that forces an event manager to think very hard on the value it brings. Sponsors are very practical. They will only show interest if the event is able to help them achieve certain corporate objectives. It’s up to the event manager to figure it out, hopefully before the program has been developed. I hate to say this but a good event automatically draws attention from ticket buyers and commercial sponsors.
- #3 These icons pretty much sum up my life. For the past 5 years, I was the Head of Communications and External Affairs for Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors based in Hong Kong but had a regional portfolio of about 250 events a year around the North Asia Region. The previous job was with Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, and before that I was the Assistant Director of External Affairs for Mission Hills Golf Club. These are all membership organizations, they all run plenty of event, and I had to find sponsors in every one of these jobs. Currently, I am employed as Senior Manager, Corporate Communications for the Mass Transit Railway Corporation. Finally, I get to sit on the other side of the fence to be evaluating sponsorship proposals from event organizers.
- #4 I know this is the grave yard shift so I do intend to make this session as interactive as possible. So my first house keeping announcement is not to ask you to put away your phone, but rather to take it out. You will need it throughout this session.
- #5 I hope you are able to find WIFI connection. Throughout the next 90 minutes, you will be asked to answer questions and provide feedback through a number of platforms. May I trouble you to download a QR Code Reader and We Chat on your phone? I know We Chat may not be very popular in this part of the world, but I do want to show you how powerful it is in China.
- #6 Ok…..Can everyone scan this using your QR Code Reader?
- #7 I could have asked you to raise your hand to answer this question, but based on my experience, the response could range from zero hands to maybe 30% of the audience, but it’s not where near the level of response I get via Google Forms. It’s free. It’s easy to use. I’d recommend you to use it in your conference to make it more interesting for your audience.
- #8 Now please turn on wechat. I know some of you may still be struggling with the profile set up. You can deal with it during the Q&A session. The purpose of showing you this is to create a platform for everyone in this room to get to know each other. For those who have Wechat, please use the QR code scanner to enter the private chat room called MICECON 2015 Sponsorship. Within a few seconds, you should see dozens of people joining this group and they are all people sitting in this room. I sincerely hope that some of you will become friends or business partners after this session via this platform.
- #9 The purpose of using social media is to engage audience. I could have asked you to follow my hashtag, or create a LinkedIn discussion, or ask you to like my facebook fan page. I wanted you to try Wechat because it is the most powerful tool in China and whether you like it or not, there is a chance that you will need to interact with a Chinese sponsor in the future. I can pretty much bet every penny I have that he / she prefers to communicate with you via Wechat than on email.
- #10 When I started organizing events 20 years ago, the only Chinese sponsor I had to deal with was the Bank of China’s Hong Kong branch. Now, almost half my sponsors are from China so I really have to speak their language, use their platform and create value that they appreciate in my events.
- #14 We are all association managers. We know that sponsorship revenue is very important. In fact, we probably have in our budget a target to reach in terms of the amount of sponsorship money to bring in. Do you have it? I certainly do. Well, I did. But is this the message we want to tell our sponsors? Is it the reason for sponsors to want to support your event?
- #15 There are a lot of books and articles written on sponsorship management. I am not going to repeat the theories and best practices. Based on all the events I have organized, there are just 2 approaches I found useful in appealing to any potential sponsor. Of course, there were the sponsors recruited by my boss via his own personal charisma, but that’s not what I could do at my level.
- #16 We are all association managers. Well I was one until about a week ago. My CEO was very clear in asking everyone in the office to help him achieve his targets. They are…….
- #17 This is the Headquarters of my former employer – The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. It’s a heritage building located just across the Big Ben. I extracted these numbers from the 2014 annual report. Global revenue: 65 million pounds, 65% from membership, 30% from commercial activities and 5% from others. There are 180,000 members around the world, serviced by a staff body of 700 in 42 countries.
- #18 Yes. Annual subscription. Best that we don’t even have to chase them to pay up, and that the subscription fee can be adjusted annually to match inflation. You must think that I am dreaming.
- #19 Every member will want to buy tickets to our events. In fact, all our events should be over-subscribed that we only welcome members to join. The revenue from events should eventually match the revenue from membership subscription. I don’t know about you but my former boss was quite serious in asking me to achieve this objective. That’s why I had to manage a very busy event calendar to fulfill my CEO’s vision.
- #20 Every event needs to make money. It’s not enough to break even. CEO wants a healthy profit margin so we must sell sponsorship packages to corporate accounts. It’s best that we have the annual calendar of events planned 12 months in advance and have all the potential sponsors lined up for us to choose from. Believe it or not, this was on my business plan last year, and I did make some progress.
- #23 Where do we usually start to look for sponsorship money? Our members first of course. Let’s look at what members want, and see if what we want matches with what they want.
- #24 In my former job at the RICS, members are all in the real estate and construction sector. Some are in the more technical roles, but many of them are keen to meet potential clients through events organized by the institution. To them, business development is what they want from their membership.
- #25 RICS is a professional institution. There’s some status in becoming a member, but that’s not enough to motivate them to keep paying their annual subscription, buying event tickets and budgeting for sponsorship. They need high profile conferences with top government officials, thought leadership round table discussion with globally renowned experts and brand recognition activities such as awards and competitions that give them a chance to be on the spotlight.
- #26 As with many membership organization, RICS is a collective voice. Members do want the institution to actively respond to government consultations, collect views from the membership and offer useful recommendations to the authorities.
- #27 I think this is self explanatory. Publicity is an effective tool to make members feel proud of their membership. It’s even better if you involve them in formulating views and recommendations about current issues.
- #28 We are a professional institution. Members expect to be able to learn something from RICS. That’s pretty much a given.
- #29 Knowing what members want is the first step but you won’t get any budget to organize events unless you are able to turn these insights into activities that can contributes towards your KPIs……. annual subscription, event tickets and sponsorship.
- #30 I spent a lot of time trying to understand what we as association managers are doing vis-à-vis what members are expecting us to do for them. Yes, there is a huge expectation gap but it’s not that difficult to fill. From the annual membership surveys, I notice that members don’t mind paying for conference tickets. Their employers budget for event sponsorship every year. However, the quality has to be up to standard, and the content must be relevant to their needs. I then tried to produce a matrix based on what members want vis-à-vis the kind of events that the institution can offer.
- #31 We are all association managers. The kind of events on the right hand side should not come as a surprise to anyone. We do these for a living. However, in the past, we were asked to organize these events for the wrong reason. I have talked to a lot of my peers, they would give me reasons such as: It’s an annual event. We just have to do it. No choice. Our revenue comes a little short, we need to organize more events to make up the shortfall. The boss wants it. Let him have it. Our competitors are having their own flagship events. We ought to have our own. Unfortunately, none of these reasons fulfills what members want out of the association. Remember what I said about sponsorship in the beginning? The key word is “Match.” If we plan our event without considering what’s in it for the members, I honestly cannot think of a reason why they should sponsor or even purchase tickets.
- #32 This is the world’s largest property market with 22,000 trade visitors conducting transactions on real estate projects around the world. RICS has been a co-organizer for a number of years.
- #33 It’s an investment forum I organized in Shanghai last year. Guess why Savills sponsored?
- #34 I just had lunch with this chap yesterday. He received the highest accolade from RICS as the property person of the year. In the same dinner, other awards were presented to the best agency, the best property managers, the best CSR projects and the best professional service providers. These are recognition that companies want as they go a long way in marketing their brand names. I remember this event started in 2012. In the beginning, we had to pull some personal connections to secures sponsorship money, but today, the big firms have already marked this event on their diary and budget is automatic. I hardly have to sell anything. It’s really a matter of doing sufficient promotion to draw people’s attention. Money comes in without having to do any cold calls.
- #35 This is an event I organized in Beijing this year. The person speaking is the former lord mayor of London Sir Michael Bear. Members want top government officials. Let them have it. Sponsors want to be associated with key decision makers. Let them have it. To be honest, having him in the conference is not really important as his speech was neither thought provoking nor informative, but I did spend a lot of time trying to secure his attendance because I know his presence is important in terms of my ability to draw sponsorship and sell tickets.
- #36 This is self explanatory. We just need content that attracts media attention. Members love it to see their institution’s spokespersons appear on the news. Again, if you have expertise in your membership, I’d strongly suggest you use them. Make them feel proud being a member. I guarantee you that they will be so much more supportive when you want their help in organizing events, marketing sponsorship and selling tickets. At the very least, they will be willing to offer their connections.
- #37 This lady is the Chief Secretary for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Mrs. Carrie Lam. Remember in the matrix that members like to see town hall meetings? Well, what I did a couple of years ago was to engage the top officials in the government. I ended up targeting Mrs. Lam as her former role was the Secretary for Development. She has a wealth of knowledge in planning and development, land administration, engineering and construction. I went through all the red tape to get her office to agree to accepting an honorary fellow membership from RICS, but before that, I went through a bigger hell to sort out more red tapes from my London Headquarters. The end result was a very proud moment for members as they see the number one official in Hong Kong shaking hands with our President in becoming a fellow member. There were members who purposely made the trip to London to this event from Hong Kong.
- #38 Continuous Professional Development seminars. We have about 200 of these every year.
- #39 It’s quite a lucrative business yet members love it because they get to learn Best of all, their employers pay for it and they get to spend a day outside their offices.
- #40 Of all the events I have organized, the easiest way to get sponsorship is a phone call from my Chairman to a number of his friends calling for support. It’s top down. No questions asked. There’s not a lot of expectation from the sponsors as they are doing my Chairman a favor. However, these are also the kind of sponsorship money that we as event managers cannot pull off, and hence not sustainable nor repeatable. My approach is a little more time consuming. It takes a bit more effort, but if you plan your approach well, there is a good chance that you can win support from a few potential sponsors.
- #41 First, it’s your mentality. At what stage would you normally involve your sponsor? I am not referring to when you should engage them, but rather in reality, what stage do you start thinking about your sponsors? A lot of my peers would start at 5. The more experienced event managers would start at 1. The commercial event organizers would start at 2. I would either start at 3 if it is a new event, or at 4 if the same event was held last year. The earlier you can engage your sponsors, the more likely that they will want to be a part of the event organization, and therefore, the more likely that they will put it into next year’s budget plan.
- #42 I think these questions are quite self explanatory. If you need clarification, please feel free to drop me a line via wechat. I will try to go through as many of them as possible during Q&A.
- #43 Ok. Now you are ready to put together a sponsorship marketing plan. Just exactly what preparation do you need before you try to secure your appointments?
- #44 Step 1 – audience profile. I know this is very basic. It’s something that every sponsor would ask. Of course, if your brand name is famous enough, you can probably still get some sponsor’s interest if they know your event well enough, or they are already associated with your association. That was where RICS was when I joined 5 years ago. I did ask my colleague how they managed to secure sponsorship without telling the sponsors what type of audience they are facing. The response was quite simple……every sponsor was part of the organizing committee. However, in order to appeal to a wider pool of potential sponsors, the demographics of your audience is necessary.
- #45 Find out what type of target audience your sponsors are interested in. If your event is populated with a number of potential clients, I am sure your sponsor would be interested in at least attending, if not being associated with your event in some way. Of course, your next task is to collect the relevant data and produce a summary in a clear and concise fashion.
- #46 Step number 2 – make a list. Again, it’s very basic. You really need to know who your target sponsors are. Of course, I am assuming that you have already approached sponsors who have supported your event in the past. This list is geared towards new sponsors. I generated this list from the sources of sponsors I had recruited in the past. It’s not something I found in any text book or trade journals so this is not an exhaustive list, but this should give you an idea in terms of where to look.
- #47 Perhaps you may wonder how flipping through trade magazines can help you find sponsors. Instead of me doing all the talking, I am going to come down and pick on someone to answer this. Do I have a volunteer? You can interchange the question with other approaches such as attending your competitor’s event……
- #48 Step 2 is actually quite time consuming. Please make sure that you have allocated sufficient manpower resources to do a proper job in researching the right contact person in each potential sponsor. Now step 3 – designing your sponsorship package. Gone are the days where sponsors only get a logo on the backdrop, some free tickets, an advert on the event program or a hyperlink on the event website. Don’t get me wrong, these are still expected but we as event managers need to come up with new ideas or tailor the package so that it matches the sponsor’s corporate objectives. Also, with technology playing an increasing role in association conferences, please make sure that your sponsorship packages include exposures on your event’s social media, youtube channel, and mobile APP via CVENT or EventBrite.
- #49 Before you decide what entitlements to include, please make sure you understand your sponsors’ needs. Are they B2B or B2C businesses? They may have different needs.
- #50 We are association managers. Most of us should be in the B2B business, especially when it comes to sponsorship marketing. We deal with companies. They usually like exclusive status, speaking opportunities, video showing, exhibition booth, one to one client interactions, email penetration etc.
- #51 We don’t really have a lot of B2C events, maybe except the golf day, the valentine cocktail and Christmas parties. Even then, we are still approaching the employers of our members to support, but in our business, it’s really the HR side who would be interested in working with me as their target audience are on an individual level.
- #52 So, knowing your sponsors’ needs can help you design your sponsorship package in such a way that you know how much value they are willing to pay you. You may also want to check what you can offer vis-à-vis what the sponsors want. For example, every sponsor will want you to share your registration database, but are you legally allowed to offer this as a sponsor’s entitlement?
- #53 The next step is to craft a number of key messages that outline the reasons for people to come to your event. It’s pretty self-explanatory, except that I would advise the event manager to focus on what’s in it for the audience or the sponsors. It’s best to craft different messages for different types of audience. Please go easy on the history of the association or the legacy of the conference. These are not the reason why people want to spend money to support.
- #54 Show as many big names as you possibly can as they may very well be potential clients of your sponsors. Also try to offer ways for sponsors to be seated close to the sponsors on welcome dinners or opening ceremony.
- #55 If your event was held last year, please make sure that you have interviewed your sponsors or VIPs. Their testimonials can go a long way in securing your next sponsor as 3rd party endorsement.
- #56 Again, produce a simple video promotional teaser. It can be used on website, youtube, and even in your sponsorship sales presentation. Take advantage of every opportunity to re-use and recycle content that you have from last year.
- #57 I think this is pretty standard if you have an event website. Please make sure that you know who’s downloading your images because they could potentially the ones who are either interested in attending or potentially sponsoring.
- #58 Do invest in producing a professionally looking sponsorship prospectus. Sponsors do get a lot of invitations from many conference organizers. You do need to stand out from the rest to have a chance.
- #59 If you are able to secure a meeting with a potential sponsor, please make sure you have a simple, easy to understand and professionally crafted sales presentation.
- #64 Remember these 2 approaches?
- #65 Make sure you know what to measure, or the sponsors will not be able to evaluate the effectiveness of their sponsorship money in your event.
- #69 Feel free to ask any questions, or anything to clarify as I understand there was quite a lot to cover in 90 minutes.
- #70 Thank you! Please note that some of the images I no longer have the right to publish so I cannot upload this on slideshare. What I can do is to send it to the private wechat room but you will have to join the chat room first.