This is my claim, and I haven’t been proven wrong yet (roll up the organisation that will prove me wrong!). It may take a lot of time and resource but it is my firm belief that every membership organisation has this capability, but, without the correct strategy, approach and follow-up this often does not happen. All professional associations have the ability to increase event sponsorship revenue to least £100,000 each year.
In a recent report, a significant number of membership organisations said that a greater emphasis is being placed on non-subscription revenue1. This blog is a response to that.
There are ten core elements that make up my approach to sponsorship (and exhibitor) sales that the team use to consistently transform the sponsorship revenue stream for membership organisations. This blog will cover the first three of them.
A researched and provoking sales strategy
Brightelm began by helping associations improve their sponsorship income. The first element is to decide the overall strategy.
Be clear about your aim. While revenue generation is the obvious target, it’s also paramount to keep the member experience as top priority. The aim should always be to have a wide variety of sponsors who deliver clear benefits that help your community feel good about connecting, as opposed to being ‘sold to’.
Be clear about your events’ ‘estate’. Take time to enquire about what opportunities the association is willing to allow access to a sponsor to pitch their wares. Conferences, awards ceremonies, and networking events are the main containers that attract sponsors when associations start out. As a medium-term strategy, this can broaden to include other containers that your organisation uses to regularly communicate with members. Promising a sponsor even further reach in the future is a savvy tactic that helps keep them motivated to stay with you in the long term. This is paramount for success.
Focus on long-term relationships
It takes a great deal of energy and resource to establish a pipeline but this will pay dividends when those commercial relationships are long term. Long term relationships are a fundamental part of a strategy that will increase event sponsorship revenue.
In the excitement of developing a new sponsorship strategy, associations should keep research and focus on the supply chain of their members. When associations are new to securing sponsorship, many are tempted to take aim at having consumer brand at their events; think car manufacturers and fizzy drinks. Experience shows that to secure a consumer brand, takes much more time and resource, and is unlikely to deliver a return on that investment. If a consumer brand decides to become a sponsor, it is likely to be a short-term relationship. This is because association events traditionally do not attract the footfall of thousands that these brands require to justify their marketing spend.
The aim with every sponsor is always a long-term commercial partnership. To do this focus only on your confirmed supply chain.
Be marketing led
After considering strategy, the next key element to shape is becoming marketing led.
Successful sales aren’t just about picking up the phone and converting your conversation with a sponsor to get a sale. They are about building your organisation’s long-term reputation and being able to actually deliver the benefits and a return on investment for your sponsor.
Let that sink in for a moment. Reputation relies on regular connection with your audience so that trust in your brand is built and a relationship can evolve.
For sales to be successful, marketing must deliver an effective path. Regular informative emails can support a great conversation between your organisation and your target customers.
Social media can also help with this too. When Brightelm deliver sponsorship sales for an association we often leverage their LinkedIn page. Potential sponsors in your members’ supply chain will already be following your posts to reach your community. So create posts specifically about sponsorship and exhibition opportunities that are coming up in the year ahead.
Next, use emails to them to talk about the value you’re creating for members. Think about the information that the sponsor will need to justify investing with you; use examples and case studies of successful work with other sponsors and remind them about your membership growth stats. This will help create their desire to have a sponsorship conversation with you.
A competetive pricing strategy
Once the strategy is in place, and you become marketing led, we examine the thorny issue of pricing. (Catch up with our previous blogs on sponsorship here).
In my experience pricing is often determined based on inherited decisions or flawed beliefs about what a business might pay. Typically, this results in underestimating the commercial value of a sponsorship relationship. Often this is because the frame of reference used by association teams is often rooted in pricing decisions made regarding membership fees. Not-for-profit does not mean “no profit”. With a desire to use profit to deliver more value to members, decision makers must use a different basis when determining how to price a commercial service like sponsorship. Selling your sponsorship opportunities for anything under their market value makes it so much harder to increase event sponsorship revenue.
Prices should be based on the value the opportunities deliver, supported by research about other places where the supply chain invest. Make sure you know where else the supply chain are involved in sponsorship opportunities. Then, create an investment matrix based on that.
Increase sponsorship event revenue
We’ve shared three of the ten key elements in the Brightelm process that transforms the fortunes of an associations sponsorship revenue stream. Each element is important and cannot be skipped.
If you need help increasing your sponsorship revenue Brightelm can help.
Author: Rob Eveleigh, Managing Director, Brightelm. Published December 2023.
1 https://memberwise.org.uk/memberwise-charts-the-course-of-digital-and-membership-in-2023-24/