I said recently that sponsorships have a lot in common with Psychology 101 and Maslow’s Hierarchy. Because that is true, it is also true that not all sponsorships are equal.

Provide Equal Opportunities

While all sponsorships are not of the same value, you do want all of your possible sponsors to be able to find a sponsorship that appeals to them. Provide tiers or levels in your sponsorship options. Some businesses seek the top level in anything they are a part of while other are just glad to participate at a smaller level.

Provide Event Specific Options

Make sure to consider event specific items, as well. Nationally, we are seeing a trend that the third-tier sponsors are willing to spend the same amount of money as other sponsors. However, they want individual aspects of the event that they can label. Do you have a photo booth sponsor, a potty sponsor, a valet sponsor?

Present Your Ideas

When making your pitch to the sponsor, make sure your plan includes a catalog of all your sponsor levels, pricing and benefits. To increase the probability of sale, including pictures from the last year’s event, marketing materials and audience reach are always a plus.

Make purchasing the sponsorships easy for your sponsors. Customize options for them. If you provide them with a packet of everything you do, you will still be waiting on them to return your call when you go prepare next year’s packet.

Sponsorship Tracking

In preparing your marketing plan, a vital piece of the plan must be sponsorship tracking. And that piece needs to be in place even before you start selling. If you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what you have left to sell.

Additional things to consider:

• How are you going to implement what you promised to your sponsors?
• Are they getting their benefits?

Always keep in mind to under-commit and over-deliver on benefits. Don’t let all of your secrets out of the bag in the sponsorship catalog. Everyone likes a little surprise, and sponsors are no different.

These are important aspects to ensure your sponsorship renewals will return in subsequent years.

Success is for the courageous. Chambers that currently are not implementing any organized sponsorship plan need to find the one that will work the best for all of their stakeholders – their staff, their members and their organization as a whole.

For the chambers that are conducting a sponsorship plan, take an inventory of it. Is it working for you? Is it time for an overhaul?

If you find that you need assistance, we would love to help. Contact me at ebey@ygmtrc.com.