Are you struggling to maintain good relations with your event sponsors? Maybe you’re an event newbie and don’t know where or how to start.
Events are one of the most effective lead-generating and marketing strategies nowadays. Many people are excited to participate in events to meet new people, establish connections, and experience fun and meaningful activities. However, organizing an event involves a large sum of money to pay for the venue, audiovisual equipment, backstage crews, flyers, and more. That’s why event sponsors are essential to the success of any event.
Event sponsors range from family and friends to community leaders and local business owners. Building a good network of sponsors for your events is important to encourage them to fund your future projects.
This article is for business owners, managers, charity organization administrators, and event organizers who want to learn how to maintain good relations with event sponsors.
1.Deploy Donor Response Management Services
Donor response management can be a huge struggle. So, if you want to maximize the sponsorship impact of your fundraising events, deploy a donor response management specialist to handle response handling.
Proper response handling of potential event sponsors is critical in building trust, rapport, and a good business relationship. For instance, you must process their responses quickly when you run a fundraising campaign to boost loyalty. In most cases, event sponsor responses may come as a payment, a survey, a letter, a query, or an email request.
Event organizers can check and compare charity response handling services of different providers, such as Woods Valldata. In that way, they can achieve their event goals, such as raising more money for cancer charity programs.
2.Set Proper Expectations
Most business owners, angel investors, and other sponsors expect something in exchange for event sponsorship. For this reason, setting and communicating proper expectations, goals, target markets, and strategies for the event is important. This way, proper alignment of goals will result in a more successful event and good relations with sponsors.
Event organizers should have a good communication workflow. Determine the best mode of communication for each sponsor, including their available schedule to follow up and provide updates, especially for sponsors located miles away. Remember that transparency in event management is vital to acquiring more loyal sponsors and attendees.
3.Provide Great Value To Your VIPs
Building a relationship with event sponsors entails providing them with great value. For instance, you can introduce new sponsors to long-time sponsors and other contacts. This strategy will make them like VIPs.
Ask your event sponsors if they want to meet particular leaders or personalities at the event. Give board members and C-suite level positions a list of sponsors, individual names, and tables. Dedicate time for sponsors to meet and greet, such as a pre-fundraising event huddle.
The ultimate goal of these efforts is to let sponsors feel they can reap great value in their sponsorship for their branding, product goals, and speakership. Make sponsors feel that your event is important. Hence, they must attend to meet influential business contacts.
4.Boost Your Email Marketing Tactics
Event planning is a smart move for entrepreneurs. This lucrative career is evolving with the advancement of digital technology from traditional in-house events to virtual events, such as webinars, RSVP peer-to-peer talks, executive round tables, and fireside chats.
Whether you cater events to business-to-customers (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) companies, improving your email marketing tactics is crucial to establishing and maintaining good relations with event sponsors.
Check out the following best practices for event promotion email marketing to maintain good sponsor relations:
- Hold a special pre-launch series via teaser emails to create buzz, encourage sponsorships, and excite attendees.
- Provide exclusive offers to potential event sponsors. For instance, you can include their company logo or name across all offline and digital promotions.
- Send emails that show social proof, such as reviews, testimonials, and social media photos, of your past successful events to entice more sponsors to participate in your next project.
- Send event reminder emails and encourage loyal sponsors to promote and refer other potential donors to a cause.
- Send thank you emails to all sponsors and attendees after the event.
- Don’t forget to include the goals you have accomplished, such as the total amount you have raised for a fundraising event.
Conclusion
There are many ways to maintain good relations with event sponsors, such as deploying response handling services and boosting your email marketing tactics.
To help ensure a long and healthy business relationship, event organizers should be familiar with the goals and strategies of their sponsors. Moreover, make your sponsors feel special by showing your appreciation and sharing with them all the accomplishments of your event.
