How do I get sponsors for my conference?

Isaac Watson: 00:00:13

How do you as a leader of a growing community, Truly make a

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conference or event that has impact, a gathering with purpose and an attendee

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experience that knocks their socks off.

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An event that leaves your audience in awe and wondering where you've been

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their whole life, Make It Kick Ass is the podcast that explores these questions

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by uncovering the strategies, tactics and tools that we use every day to

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bring our clients' conferences to life.

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I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer of Kickass Conferences, and we are

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here to help you make it kick ass.

Isaac Watson: 00:00:51

Welcome back everyone for another episode of Make It Kickass I am

Isaac Watson: 00:00:55

executive producer at Kickass Conferences Isaac Watson, and with me as always,

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dependable, reliable, amazing.

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Nessa Jimenez, operations Manager.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:01:06

Hi everybody, welcome back.

Isaac Watson: 00:01:08

I'm just gonna try and come up with a new, -hilarious intro for you.

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They're not hilarious, they're dumb, but somehow I will convey

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how much I value the work you do.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:01:18

I love them, so that's what matters.

Isaac Watson: 00:01:20

Alright if you are fresh into joining us for this season,

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We are changing up the format a little bit from what we did in season one.

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This season is focused on ask, answering those frequently asked questions from

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people we talk to about the work that we do whether they are clients or people

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interested in our services, or people who just find out that we organize events.

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These questions inevitably come up but what we've learned over the years is

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that the question that gets asked is not necessarily the question.

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That they're really asking.

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So in each episode, we are teasing out one of these questions and digging

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into what they really mean, what's maybe some of the underlying concerns

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or problems are that are leading to these questions and how we can reframe

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or think about things a little bit differently to offer solutions for that.

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On that note, today's question is actually a twofer.

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It's two questions that often come hand in hand.

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And as we were diving into planning out this episode, we thought that it made

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sense to just tackle both at once because the underlying questions and issues.

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Behind them are the same.

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First part of the question is how do I get sponsors for my conference?

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And the second part of the question is how do I make a sponsorship

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deck for an event so that I can get those sponsors right?

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So this episode's gonna be a, a bit about sponsorship which is

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a hot topic for a lot of people.

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It is also an ever-changing situation but hopefully we can

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offer a little clarity around this.

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Let's start by figuring out what people actually mean when they ask how they

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get sponsors for their conference, or how do they make a sponsorship deck?

Isaac Watson: 00:03:06

Nessa, why don't you spill some tea on what is the

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real question behind it all.

Isaac Watson: 00:03:13

right.

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So when we sit down with a new client and start having these conversations about

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sponsorships, what they're actually asking is, How am I gonna pay for all this?

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How do I generate revenue from this event?

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I've been to conferences and I see logos on the conference website

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and I and I know that logos means that somebody paid for that.

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So I, I wanna do that cuz I need money , so let's try to do that.

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like they come in understanding that sponsorship's a thing, but they don't

Isaac Watson: 00:03:47

really understand like beyond, Okay, they put the logo on the page right.

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So that's the first one, right?

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I've seen this in other conferences.

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I know that there's some money involved in this, so I think that'll help

Isaac Watson: 00:04:01

me and I want to do that, right?

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But I don't know how or how to start.

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The second one is how do I convince strangers to give me a lot of money?

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Because maybe they understand how sponsorships work.

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Someone who's a little bit deeper into the event world, conference world, right?

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They just don't know, like how do you do it?

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Like I know it happens, but how does that conversation, how do

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I even start that conversation?

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How do I go up to a big old company and say, Can I have $10,000 please?

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Like it is, It's a big ask and it, they feel like I have

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to ask a stranger for money.

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And related to that, like the Part B is how do I ask these

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strangers to give me a lot of money?

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So it's the logistical of what does that email look like?

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Or what does that call look like?

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And then it's the strategic behind what do I need to do?

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What can I give them?

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What do I have to do to make that money come my way?

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And I will add that I think that the, some of this line of questioning and

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this reasoning comes from the desire to.

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Leverage sponsorship revenue to to decrease the amount of ticket revenue

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you might need from the audience.

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And so it's a little bit of a give and take in trying to tease out how do I.

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Get people to essentially subsidize my attendees to attend

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because I don't wanna charge the attendees anymore than I have to.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:05:39

Correct.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:05:39

And this could be the case of a an event where they know they want it to be free.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:05:44

So sponsorship money would literally be the only revenue coming in.

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Or a host who understands their audience and they understand that the

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ticket cost that their audience can afford is really not going to be enough

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to cover everything they wanna do.

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So that sponsorship dollars can really help complete the whole budget package.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:06:09

So now that we know what they're actually asking, right?

Nessa Jimenez: 00:06:12

So it's this world of I get that this is a thing I wanna do, but

Nessa Jimenez: 00:06:15

I don't actually know what's up.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:06:18

What is the actual problems that we tend to encounter

Nessa Jimenez: 00:06:21

with these kinds of questions?

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I think one of them going to this like how do I convince

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strangers to give me a lot of money?

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The actual problem under that is, is not having or knowing how to

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utilize preexisting relationships.

Isaac Watson: 00:06:37

Correct.

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With this notion that it's all essentially cold.

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And call to emailing.

Isaac Watson: 00:06:43

Exactly.

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And that they don't know you from anybody else in the world.

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And here you are asking for $10k, $50K, $2,500.

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It doesn't really matter how much the amount is.

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It's about this kind.

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Fear of the cold pitch.

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And so if you don't if you aren't I don't wanna use the word leveraging if

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you are not leaning into the preexisting relationships that you have for your

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sponsorship asks, then it's gonna make that process a lot harder now.

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Some people might counter and say but I don't wanna, I don't wanna destroy the

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relationships I have by asking for money.

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And that's not necessarily what you need to do.

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Your preexisting relationships are not just like your, the people

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in your network are not wallets.

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That you get to raid, right?

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These are relationships that you have.

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They could be people who can introduce you to others.

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They could be people who are willing to support your event

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from a marketing perspective.

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And some of them may be financial contributors.

Isaac Watson: 00:07:56

But it's really about that, like not understanding who your existing

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relationships are and what value they can bring to what you're doing.

Isaac Watson: 00:08:06

That can cause that issue of feeling like you need to go

Isaac Watson: 00:08:10

after strangers all the time.

Isaac Watson: 00:08:11

Yeah.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:11

That, that's a misconception.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:13

This idea of it's literally like a cold pitch, cold call email, and then

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:18

something happens and I get money.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:20

Like the vast majority of the time wanna say gosh.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:25

With the clients we've worked with, I wanna say like 80% at least, of

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:29

the sponsors that they get, it's from people they already know.

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Somebody who.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:35

Someone who they know works at a company and that person connected

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:38

us with the sponsorship or the marketing department.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:42

And it went from there.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:43

Like the vast majority of sponsor relationships comes from people that

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the client already knows and they maybe didn't realize Oh yeah, that

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:54

person could totally help me connect.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:57

It's not a big ask to.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:08:58

To ask someone that you know, Hey, do you know someone in your company who is

Nessa Jimenez: 00:09:02

from this department that could help me?

Isaac Watson: 00:09:05

Yeah.

Isaac Watson: 00:09:05

I think another one of the underlying problems that gives

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rise to these questions is not Not building or not having confidence

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in a compelling offer, right?

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Not having substance from a benefit standpoint or from a value standpoint to

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offer potential sponsors that would get them to make that decision to commit.

Isaac Watson: 00:09:30

And if you don't have, if you're not thinking about your event in that context

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that's gonna make it really hard to then.

Isaac Watson: 00:09:39

Do any kind of ask, whether it's a warm intro or someone you already have a

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relationship with it makes that kind of disingenuous because you haven't really

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thought through what you're offering.

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And that goes for what you're offering to your audience too, right?

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Sponsors wanna support something that's going to benefit the audience.

Isaac Watson: 00:09:56

Cuz usually the audience is who they're trying to build a relationship with.

Isaac Watson: 00:10:00

And if you haven't really thought those pieces through, that's gonna make that

Isaac Watson: 00:10:04

a lot more challenging to deliver.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:07

Yeah, we talk.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:07

And when we talk about offerings I wanna say like in the last five years we've

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:14

seen how the sponsor relationships and the sponsor needs have changed a lot.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:20

I.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:21

And this is where we get into kind of needing a certain specialized knowledge.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:27

But I think it's something that I've learned just from doing it, right?

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:30

Like I, a lot of the times I end up having a lot of communication

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:34

with our sponsors, right?

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:36

And it's understanding what do they need, what do they want?

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:41

And how can I serve that need and that want for that sponsor,

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:46

but at the same time giving my audience something of value.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:50

Yeah.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:51

So the offering is essential.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:54

If you have no idea what you're gonna even offer them, you

Nessa Jimenez: 00:10:58

should not be asking for money.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:01

Yeah.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:01

And you certainly don't want to sacrifice the attendee experience at the expense of

Isaac Watson: 00:11:05

a good sponsor experience either, right?

Isaac Watson: 00:11:07

That's correct.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:09

Because then that puts the attendees and the sponsors at odds with

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each other and the attendees at odds with you as the organizer.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:15

I think the other underlying issue is not either not knowing how to or not

Isaac Watson: 00:11:21

choosing to solicit the correct sponsors.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:25

For your event.

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It's one thing to look around say you're organizing a conference in a

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particular sector, and so you look at some other conferences doing similar

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work, and you look at their sponsor list and you're like, Oh, they so and

Isaac Watson: 00:11:37

so and so sponsored this conference.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:39

I'm gonna go after them too.

Isaac Watson: 00:11:40

Are those actually the right sponsors to come after your event?

Isaac Watson: 00:11:45

Are there better choices?

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your particular offering and goals?

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Is there is there a smarter way that you can partner with different companies,

Isaac Watson: 00:11:55

like maybe your going after a lot of smaller dollar amounts as opposed

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to a couple big headline amounts?

Isaac Watson: 00:12:03

There are many different ways that you can approach your sponsorship strategy.

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And leverage that to target the correct types of sponsors that will

Isaac Watson: 00:12:13

both serve your attendees goals, and also be more willing to commit

Isaac Watson: 00:12:17

funds to supporting your event.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:20

and there is a bit of an art to it as well because we

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:23

talk about the right sponsors, but it isn't stereotypical like, Oh,

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:29

it's a tech conference, so I can only have tech companies that sponsors.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:34

It's no.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:35

There's plenty of creative ways.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:38

Companies that aren't tech companies, but they want to talk to that

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:42

audience so picking the right sponsors doesn't mean they have to be

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:48

in the same industry as your event.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:51

It means the audience.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:12:55

Is the right audience for whatever the product, whatever the company is.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:01

So let's talk about some of the solutions.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:03

So as we work with our clients principally through the event

Isaac Watson: 00:13:07

lab process, and then as we dig into deeper production process with

Isaac Watson: 00:13:13

them we start to we think about.

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First of all how much sponsorship money do you need?

Isaac Watson: 00:13:21

If you don't know how much you're targeting and what your goal is it's

Isaac Watson: 00:13:25

really hard to break that down, especially when it comes to putting together a deck.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:29

Right and even using that information to target the different.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:36

Potential sponsors for what kind of amounts you're asking for.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:41

A massive Fortune 100 company is gonna have a different kind of

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sponsorship budget approach than a small studio or a small business

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that has more limited funding.

Isaac Watson: 00:13:54

And to that extent you need to understand what your sponsors want, and that's where

Isaac Watson: 00:13:59

this evolution is happening the fastest.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:02

Because we have seen sponsor priorities changing dramatically.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:07

Dramatically, yes.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:09

In the past few years, largely in response to the pandemic and the

Isaac Watson: 00:14:13

kind of the economic volatility that's come out of that.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:18

But even if we think.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:20

Pre 2020 where we were doing 100% in person events that sponsor Sponsor

Isaac Watson: 00:14:29

goal and sponsor desire and like the types of things that they would wanna

Isaac Watson: 00:14:33

sponsor has changed dramatically.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:34

So it's gone from everything from we wanna do experience we want to Yes.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:40

We wanna sponsor the party.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:41

We'll just bankroll this, right?

Isaac Watson: 00:14:42

Yes.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:43

Yes.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:44

And so you organize it we'll bank roll it.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:47

to we wanna set up a fancy we don't like booze anymore.

Isaac Watson: 00:14:51

We wanna do like a branded experience in a space.

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And we, as we've seen this happen, it very early on, it occurred

Isaac Watson: 00:15:01

to me that there are three key reasons why someone wants to sponsor.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:05

There's just plain old marketing for their product or service.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:10

There's.

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Thought leadership, which is and dovetailed with that

Isaac Watson: 00:15:16

would be community support.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:18

And then there's recruit.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:20

Talent attraction finding people to work and this kind of like varies

Isaac Watson: 00:15:25

depending on what industry you're in and what space you're working

Isaac Watson: 00:15:28

in, where your community falls.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:31

But what we've seen over the past couple of years is that recruitment has taken.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:36

The lead as the number one reason why companies want to sponsor an event.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:41

And this comes out of the quote unquote great resignation.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:45

This massive shift that the pandemic induced from office work

Isaac Watson: 00:15:50

to remote work from home flex.

Isaac Watson: 00:15:54

Like how are we creating a good work environment for people?

Isaac Watson: 00:16:00

And a lot of companies, especially in the tech space, in the design

Isaac Watson: 00:16:04

space, are putting a lot of effort into recruiting at events.

Isaac Watson: 00:16:11

And it's not like active recruiting, like filling immediate roles.

Isaac Watson: 00:16:16

This is What they call talent attraction, right?

Isaac Watson: 00:16:18

Like making their workspace attractive to people over a longer term, and that

Isaac Watson: 00:16:24

changes the way that they wanna show up and what they want to contribute to that.

Isaac Watson: 00:16:28

So just having a really clear idea of who your target sponsors

Isaac Watson: 00:16:32

are and what they want is gonna help you target the right people.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:36

All they wanted a few years ago was to get, and I'm talking

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:40

about tech and design mostly couple years ago, all they wanted to do was get

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:44

their product in people's hands, right?

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:45

Getting in them on the demos, trying to sell them, and now, Everybody just

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:50

wants to do that talent attraction.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:53

That is all they care about.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:54

They want to know is the audience, people who might be looking for work

Nessa Jimenez: 00:16:58

or people we could talk to to create those relationships for the future.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:02

It's really fascinating how quickly it has shifted and it will shift because

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:07

I, it's just people can't hire forever.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:10

I wonder what the next shift will be.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:13

But pulling back and generally speaking like.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:17

. I remember when sponsorships and this as an attendee, I remember when

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:20

sponsorships was just like a bunch of branded plastic crap in a bag.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:26

Yeah.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:26

. That's what sponsors wanted to do.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:29

Because that was the thing.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:30

It gets your logo and people's faces.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:32

And now it's, you've got people sponsoring experiences, you've got them doing.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:38

Sponsoring a coffee bar sponsoring self care things it, it's, it really

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:44

has shifted and it needs attention.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:17:47

We have to pay attention to these trends and

Isaac Watson: 00:17:50

things.

Isaac Watson: 00:17:50

Yeah.

Isaac Watson: 00:17:51

So coming out of that knowing how much money you need, knowing what sponsors

Isaac Watson: 00:17:56

are targeting and why they want to show.

Isaac Watson: 00:17:59

that support your event you then need to understand what you have to offer

Isaac Watson: 00:18:03

them that will help them achieve that.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:05

How are you crafting your programming in a way that supports that without

Isaac Watson: 00:18:08

sacrificing the attendee experience?

Isaac Watson: 00:18:11

And and that helps you craft.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:15

A deck that will speak to them and say, Look we understand you.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:19

We know why you wanna show up.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:21

Or at least if we don't know, we know that these are the

Isaac Watson: 00:18:23

different ways you can show up.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:25

And so we've made space for that to happen and then here's how

Isaac Watson: 00:18:29

we're prepared to recognize that.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:31

And having that kind of baseline understanding is going to support

Isaac Watson: 00:18:36

even if you do end up cold calling.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:39

Or cold emailing.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:42

That's gonna support the sponsorship effort way more because a

Isaac Watson: 00:18:45

sponsor's gonna review that deck and go, Oh yeah, this fits.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:48

This is, here's our priority, this is what we're looking at.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:51

They'll look at their budget and they'll say, Yeah we wanna show

Isaac Watson: 00:18:54

up here, or let's find some way to, to work in between these two tiers.

Isaac Watson: 00:18:59

Or I have an idea like, what if we did something like this instead of x?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:06

And then it becomes much more of a collaboration than it does a sales

Isaac Watson: 00:19:10

process where you are working with a sponsor to develop something that's

Isaac Watson: 00:19:16

special and that speaks both to their strengths to yours as an organizer

Isaac Watson: 00:19:20

and serves the audience's goals.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:19:23

And it adds to the event and makes the event better.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:19:25

It makes the sponsor experience at the event better.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:19:29

Everybody walks away happy.

Isaac Watson: 00:19:31

Okay, so let's recap a little bit.

Isaac Watson: 00:19:34

The core questions that we get asked around sponsorship are, how do I get

Isaac Watson: 00:19:37

sponsors for my conference and how do I make a sponsorship deck for an event?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:41

The underlying questions that feed into this is what I think

Isaac Watson: 00:19:45

I want question is how am I actually gonna pay for all of this?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:50

How do I convince strangers to give me a lot of money?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:54

How do I even ask them to give me a lot of money?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:56

How do I know which strangers to ask?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:58

How do I find them?

Isaac Watson: 00:19:59

How do I do so from a cold pitch perspective?

Isaac Watson: 00:20:04

We can avoid that line of questioning by first identifying how much

Isaac Watson: 00:20:09

sponsorship money you actually need to support the event and where the

Isaac Watson: 00:20:13

balance is between sponsor revenue and earned revenue ticket revenue.

Isaac Watson: 00:20:19

By understanding what sponsors actually want from your audience from their

Isaac Watson: 00:20:23

goals, how do they serve their own business needs by supporting your

Isaac Watson: 00:20:28

event, and then how you can then offer value to the sponsors through

Isaac Watson: 00:20:33

that support in a way that doesn't.

Isaac Watson: 00:20:37

Comment, the expense of the attendee experience, but that adds to it.

Isaac Watson: 00:20:40

That enhances that attendee experience.

Isaac Watson: 00:20:43

If you can do that, if you can identify those things up front, that will help

Isaac Watson: 00:20:48

you craft a sponsorship strategy that will then inform the creation of a

Isaac Watson: 00:20:53

good sponsored deck that will then help you solicit the right kinds

Isaac Watson: 00:20:59

of asks from the right sponsors.

Isaac Watson: 00:21:03

And I will add that it is a lot about knowing what existing relationships you

Isaac Watson: 00:21:09

have and how they can help facilitate talking to sponsors or potential

Isaac Watson: 00:21:15

sponsors that will help you avoid needing to cold pitch, cold email.

Isaac Watson: 00:21:21

Send inquiries to those generic info, a emails or sponsors, add

Isaac Watson: 00:21:27

emails and actually get the right people looking at your materials and

Isaac Watson: 00:21:31

considering supporting your event.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:39

All right, so thanks for listening to Make it Kick Ass.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:41

We hope our dive into sponsorship Land has got your gears turning

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:44

with new amazing sponsorship ideas.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:47

And if you want to explore this topic more, then go to geteventlab.com

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:52

and there you can get a free copy of the questionnaire we use with

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:55

our clients to help them find the best sponsorship strategy for them.

Nessa Jimenez: 00:21:59

That's geteventlab.com and I will see you in the next episode.