Sponsorship Activation: A Key Element for a Successful Event
What makes an event successful? Happy attendees, profits or fundraising for the organizer and brand development for that event or organization, right? It takes a coordinated effort throughout the life cycle of the event from planning to wrap up to ensure an events success.
One key element that most event organizers fail to focus on is sponsors and in particular, sponsorship activation.
Sponsors are brands or companies participating in the event through contributions, either monetary or in-kind. Sponsors are often times the life blood of an event because they provide cash flow, marketing dollars and other support to make an event successful.
So what is sponsorship activation?
Sponsorship activation creates interaction between the event, sponsoring brand, potential attendees and attendees.
Any event, regardless of the size, brings together an audience with similar interests and demographics. Something many companies, large and small, are looking to capitalize on to grow their brand.
Events should provide the proper channels for activating sponsorship, in other words, aiding brand sponsors to make the most out of their contributions. These channels also serve to increase the success of an event through increased ticket sales and, an engaged audience.
When executed properly, sponsorship activation provides significant benefits to both the event promoter and the sponsor.
Before & During The Event: Sponsorship Activation
At MyArea Network we implement one or more of the following marketing tools to ensure a strong ROI.
Photo Promotions
One of the unique ways to activate a sponsor is through Photo Promotions at Live Events.
It activates the event marketing experience and provides a fun and engaging way to communicate with event attendees. Photo promotions extend brand reach each time an attendee shares branded photos on a social media platform.
Co-Branded Ticket Drops
Everyone loves to Win or get Free stuff! Even more so when it is free tickets to an upcoming event!
Ticket Drops, or small satellite events leading up to the main event, are a way to activate sponsors. Typically the sponsors attend the ticket drop to do ticket giveaways. The satellite event is marketed by both the sponsor and the event engaging a targeted audience in a specific geographical area.
Content & Social Media
One way to drive engagement leading up to an event is through social media, and the best way to create engagement is through quality content.
Create a series of articles, photos/images and videos to share utilizing various social channels. When sponsors and potential attendees leverage the social activity, it creates brand awareness prior to an event and personalizes the sponsor as more than signage and logos.
Gamification
People love to Win! And they enjoy beating their friends!
All day festivals are the perfect opportunity to entertain and engage an audience through games like Cornhole, Ladder Toss, Tug of War or even Pin the Tail on the "Your Brand Here." It's engaging, fun and memorable for participants and viewers alike. Couple games with Photo Promotions to enable social sharing. As participants, and viewers 'share the fun,' your brand realizes reach significantly beyond event attendees.
Contests
Yes, a Chili Cookoff or Best Wings competition is a way to engage and activate the food vendors of an event but there are several ways to run Contests. The time prior to events is perfect for Sponsors to engage with Event Audiences to market their involvement with an event. Run an "Enter to Win" contest or a "Vote for your Favorite" photo contest leading up to an event.
Sponsors should engage before, during and after events; you can begin collecting data before an event begins. Sponsors are spending resources to be in front of their target audience, make the best out of every impression, capture leads and win over potential customers.
After the Event: Data Collection and Re-Marketing
Now that the brand activated a sponsorship before and during the event, how do they continue to engage with the audience after the event?
It's all about that data!
Focus on activating a sponsorship with ways to collect data. Whether it's attendees entering their phone numbers or email addresses into an iPad to receive a promo or enter a contest to win something, to people filling out a survey or engaging with the brand in a photo promo or contest you can use the data collected from event attendees at an event then re-market and re-engage with that audience.
Re-engage following the event with a Traffic Driving Offer through an Email or Text Marketing (highest open rates) campaign. Even something like a simple Thank You for attending message, will go a long way towards driving in business and increase the success of the event in terms of return on investment on your marketing spend.
MyArea Network specializes in planning and executing multi-channel marketing campaigns centered around activating sponsorships.
Contact us for a complimentary consultation and let us help you grow your business through event marketing, data collection and sponsorship activation!
