How do you take a small gathering of neighborhood residents in a local park and turn it into the largest Independence Day celebration in the Midwest? The simple answer: vision and years and years of hard work. The more complicated answer: savvy and sponsorship.
When Red, White & BOOM! started out, it was humbly funded by neighbors’ donations. Today, as Columbus, Ohio’s largest single-day community event with 400,000 attendees, a parade, a street festival, multiple live music stages, and a legendary fireworks display, its annual expenses top $750,000.
The non-profit organization that now oversees BOOM! has to generate the revenue to cover those expenses. And through a partnership with McCullers Group and customized, strategic, values-driven sponsorships with brands like NBC, Pepsi, iHeart Radio, US Bank, Ford, State Farm, Meijer, and Smirnoff, they do. So how do they do it and how can you get your event sponsorship to explode, too? By following their playbook. Here are a few of the pages:
-
Develop A Strong Value Proposition
Your sponsorship pitch starts with one key question: Why should they care? Your value proposition has to answer that question, and the answer needs to be more than just exposure and signage. You need to think in terms of how your event can help sponsors solve problems, reach target audiences, and align with values. For BOOM!, it includes community connection, brand integration, new customer engagement, data capture, and revenue generation. Knowing and expressing your compelling value prop is a big first step to sponsorship success.
-
Create A Board or Steering Committee
Forming a board or committee of influential stakeholders can add credibility to your event and help open doors, create connections, solve problems, and provide influence. Committee members – whether they’re from the community, business leaders, sponsors, or partners – can provide insights, connections, and advocacy. Their networks can be invaluable in identifying and recruiting sponsors, and their involvement signals that your event is worth investing in. BOOM!’s board does all that and more.
-
Organize Your Assets
You likely have more to offer sponsors than you realize. That’s why it’s so important to conduct a full inventory of every asset. That includes things like signage, access, email lists, media channels, and hospitality, but also things like exclusive designations, intellectual property rights, community engagement, networking opportunities, and board positions. After that, it’s essential to organize your assets into categories with clear rights and pricing. Having a thorough, well-organized, tiered sponsorship structure gives you the flexibility to customize packages to meet your sponsors’ unique needs. And it shows them you’re more than a pitch; you’re a partner.
-
Know Your Demos
Data drives deals. Who attends your event? Where are they from? What do they do? Sponsors need to know your audience aligns with their goals. So collect and present as detailed a demographic and psychographic profile as you can from sources like attendee surveys, ticket sales, or third-party data. BOOM! is fortunate to have an outstanding group of media partners who make data gathering easy and efficient. By combing that data, they’re able to see where they’re strong, where they might be deficient, and how they might tweak programming to meet more sponsors’ needs.
-
Stretch Your Budget
Partnering with community and quasi-government organizations like tourism boards, economic development offices, chambers of commerce, and business councils who benefit from your event is a great way to get more hands (and dollars) on deck. Many of these groups will offer co-op funds, grants, or in-kind support like office space, resource donations, or staff time to support beneficial events. The more you can deliver value without relying solely on sponsor dollars, the more attractive – and sustainable – your event becomes.
-
Expand Your Database
The larger, more engaged your audience of participants and partners is, the more attractive your event become to sponsors. When you can capture emails through ticketing systems, contests, registrations, social engagement, or content downloads, you’re adding a valuable asset. And if you can segment and nurture that list, it becomes even more so. Sponsors love a large, active audience they can reach before, during, and after an event.
-
Engage Other Beneficiaries
Your event offers value well beyond the experience the attendees enjoy. Chances are it drives business to the local hospitality industry. It’s important to identify these secondary beneficiaries for a couple of reasons. First, they’re prime targets for sponsorship. Second, they know the tangible impact of your event and can be the best possible ambassadors. Their testimonials can be a big part of your sponsorship story. Red, White & BOOM! delivers $15 million in economic impact to the local economy each year. The nearby hotels, restaurants, and attractions are a huge part of that. Get their stories and their support.
-
Leverage Your Media Resources
Sponsors want visibility, and having willing, supportive media partners is one of the best ways to deliver it. With help from partners like NBC and iHeartRadio, BOOM! is able to provide consistent, cooperative exposure for its key partners while driving attendance and, consequently, awareness for every company in the event’s portfolio. And if you can position your event’s sponsors as part of the story and the lifeblood of the event in whatever coverage you generate, all the better.
-
Increase Your Digital Footprint
Digital assets are increasingly vital to sponsorship success. By building and promoting your event’s presence on social media, video platforms, and your website and tracking the resulting engagement, you’ll not only be providing year-round visibility for the event and your partners but you’ll be reinforcing your own value proposition as well. Plus, digital options like branded content, sponsored livestreams, social posts, and email blasts can all become revenue-generating assets if you choose to package them that way.
-
Create Unique Experiences
Experiences drive engagement and memorability. And truly unique experiences create brand fans. BOOM! has worked to develop sponsor-specific experiences like VIP seating, misting stations, family areas, and even pet-friendly spaces where sponsors’ products and services are incorporated directly into the attendee experience. Offering sponsors the chance to create those interactions and curate those moments is added value. And sometimes lots of it.
-
Lead Your Partners
No one knows your event and what it can produce better than you do. That’s why it’s so valuable to show those possibilities to your partners. Don’t assume they know how best to activate their investment within the confines of the event. Give them guidance, examples, and best practices. Share timelines, checklists, and activation ideas. And stay in touch regularly. Informed and educated sponsors get more out of their partnerships – and are more likely to return.
-
Make It Easy
One of the best ways by far to attract and keep your event’s partners is to make the sponsorship process turnkey. From onboarding to activation, make it easy. Provide clear instructions, timelines, templates, and support. Offer design help, on-site staffing, or fulfillment services where possible. In the case of Red, White & BOOM!, they offer a pre-event media packet with copy, logos, and signage info plus robust on-site assistance with space prep, parking, and set-up. Anything to make the process simpler and less labor-intensive. Because the easier you make it to participate, the more likely they will. Again and again.
Taking your event’s sponsorship to the next level isn’t about selling harder; it’s about creating and overdelivering on a value proposition that solves a unique client problem and delivers tangible value. You can do that using these tactics from the BOOM! playbook. And when you do, you just might see your sponsorship explode, too.
