The Ultimate Guide to Increasing Revenue from Event Sponsorships

Get Smart About Revenue: 16 Road-Tested Ways to Make a Sponsorship Strategy Stick

Sponsorships are what make events go ’round. They’re essential to any event’s revenue picture. And when done right, they add a little fuel to the fire around the sponsor’s brand.

“What’s different about sponsorship is it is something that really accelerates your exhibition time and adds a little bit of a runway before the show and after the show,” says Shawn Shapiro, show manager of the Canadian Meetings + Events Expo (CMEE).

But any good accelerant needs to be implemented thoughtfully and in the right context. After all, you don’t want to be pouring diesel into your average SUV.

Sean Soth, the founder and board chair of Professionals for Association Revenue (PAR), argues that this comes down to building a strong relationship that shows you understand the sponsor’s market. That gives both sides room to grow.

“When you’re working with a sponsor, I think it’s important to understand where they wanna go and what kind of value your products have,” he says, “and then, finally, can you expand on that?”

With that in mind, here are 16 road-tested ways to build a sponsor strategy that connects.

Finding a Great Match

1. Avoid “random acts of revenue.” Soth warns that while revenue opportunities are often easy to find (maybe a board member has a pet project they’re trying to pitch), they might prove ineffective without an associated strategy. “They’re usually incredibly difficult to deliver,” he says. “There’s usually mixed expectation on how the sale is valued and how it’s going to be delivered.” He recommends leaning on projects with a clear path.

2. But don’t forget about trends. Sometimes, sponsors can simply emerge because a trend is hot. (Think AI.) Shapiro warns not to be so focused that you miss out on something emerging. “Sometimes there could be a cool trend that there’s a sponsorship opportunity potentially, and then maybe it’s not there in future years,” he says. “I think it just it’s give and take, and it’s finding the right thing, and it can change.”

3. Look for a sponsor in it for the long haul. The counterpoint to a random act of revenue is a sponsor that sees room for opportunity with you in the long haul. “I would say you’re looking for a sponsor that is willing to align with the value you currently have and invest in the value potential ahead,” Soth says. He adds that, in this context, associations in particular “can actually be a much deeper multiplier” than other options.

Building the Right Package

4. A year-round approach adds up. You may want to pitch around your big event, but if you have a portfolio of events, that might be a more effective strategy for helping sponsors reach their audience, nonprofit consultant Bruce Rosenthal noted in an interview last year. “One-plus-one-plus-one-plus-one equals four,” Rosenthal says, “but package it as a theme, and four activities add up to six or seven in value, not just four.”

5. Make room for virtual events. In-person events might make for a bigger pop on the expo floor, but virtual events offer major opportunities to not just reach different types of audiences, but to tailor those events to sponsor needs. They can also be effective ways to acquire data on potential leads, in the form of live-polling capabilities.

6. Careful with those tiers. Often, events will lean on a handful of sponsor tiers such as gold, silver, and bronze. It’s an approach that has been overdone, and may not even meet your sponsor’s needs. “I don’t think you’d go into a restaurant and see a menu full of things nobody’s ever ordered, but that’s what most sponsorship prospectuses look like,” Rosenthal says. He recommends making room for a more customized approach.

7. Don’t rock the boat for the sake of it. Tiers may be easy to criticize as tired tools, but if tired tools actually connect with your audience, they’re still important to lean on, says Soth. “If your environment is expecting these guardrails of a sponsorship tier, and you change that or take it away, you have to have a plan to educate them on why, and what the value is in that change,” he says.

Looking Beyond the Obvious

8. Dig into your own history. If you have an event that’s been around for a long time, you might find that your own archives are packed with ideas that you can periodically revive with a modern twist, attracting sponsor interest along the way. “Sometimes when, on the show floor, you do something for two, three years, you don’t wanna get stale,” CMEE’s Shapiro says. “But you can go back eventually and say, hey. Maybe it’s hot again.” Everything old is new again.

9. Devote a portion of your event to innovation. As you’re getting rid of those stale formats, put some of your energy into refreshing new ideas. Beth Surmont, 360 Live Media‘s Head of Strategy and Design, recently recommended that 10 to 20% of a given event should be focused on innovation. “This could be new formats, activations, meetups, or other types of engagement. This way you are always showing something new, while still giving the audience the things that are attracting them in the first place,” she says. If you have sponsors looking to show a willingness to innovate, it might be just the place for them.

10. Create opportunities that serve the sponsor’s message. But it’s not just innovation-minded events that open up opportunities. Shapiro notes that every sponsor is likely to be pushing a specific kind of message. CMEE has sponsorships that account for this, including for its recycling program. “You will see someone who will take that sponsorship that has a green destination,” he says.

Deepening the Relationship

11. Play matchmaker. You likely have a better handle on your attendees than a sponsor might; use that to your advantage. As a 2022 Associations Now piece notes, smart packaging can help ensure that the right people are talking to the right sponsors. For example, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) had developed customized membership groups to segment out its membership for sponsor gatherings. Dr. Tina DeNeen, who serves as AACRAO’s associate executive director of meetings and partnerships, described the strategy as “a matching project.”

12. Good or bad, communication matters. With a long-term strategic partnership, problems are bound to happen. The challenge is not to prevent them before they happen, but to build a line of dialogue with your strategic partners. Citing an example from PAR’s own partner work, Soth noted communication could even help smooth over major challenges. “We were challenged in operationalizing some of our work together. They saw a gap, and they brought it to our attention, and we were able to have a great conversation,” he says, adding that sort of trust is “an amazing signal to have with your partnerships.”

13. Ensure a consistent, regular point of contact. When it comes to managing a sponsor relationship, it’s better to talk to one person for most of your needs, rather than six. (Save the group meetings for the occasional check-ins.) The counterpoint: If someone important leaves an organization, it can be bad news for your relationship, so it’s important to have familiarity with the rest of the org chart, even if you’re not necessarily working with them.

Showing the ROI

14. Give it time. Unless your event is focused on onsite merchandising, odds are that your sponsors and exhibitors are aiming for leads. With that in mind, a focus on immediate return on investment (ROI) in many fields is going to lead to disappointment. “There will never be a circumstance where someone meets and signs the deal onsite the first time they gain exposure to another exhibitor,” Soth says. “That’ll be the start or the acceleration of their relationship.” How long should sponsors expect? CMEE estimates that 96% of planners who attend its events will set up a deal within 12 to 18 months of a show. That means periodic reach-outs, notes Shapiro: “It could even just be, like, connecting with them on the holidays. Keep your connections warm.”

15. Understand the market, fill the gaps. Soth notes that some organizations might get their guard up when the ROI question comes up, but a willingness to dig into the data can pay dividends in a big way. “A sign of a very successful association business development team is being able to do the best you can with the information you have and where there are gaps, begin to address them,” he says. (Looking for a place to start? He recommends building a data pipeline, to help understand where opportunities are and to equip your teams with the right tools to succeed. For most organizations, that’s likely a step or two above a spreadsheet.)

16. Something not working? Adapt. Strategies come and go, and the best sign of an organization that’s being responsive to a sponsor is that it’s willing to shift gears. “It’s a complex conversation because each organization is going to have a different approach to whether something’s working,” Soth says. Having the right data will make this decision easier, no matter if your sponsor’s ultimate goals are visibility, leads, or direct transactions. And when something’s off? Be straight about it, and understand your next steps for communicating with the sponsor. “Great sales teams have kind of a conflict plan,” he says.

Frequently Asked Questions

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