Fundraiser

How to Build Relationships with Sponsors


How to Build Relationships with Sponsors

A major part of planning and executing an event is gaining sponsors. These businesses and individuals will contribute money and sometimes in-kind donations to support your event and potentially a cause it’s benefiting. Yet, it can be a tough process to snag enough sponsors, especially when you have multiple and annual events. But when you know the key to successful event sponsorship, you can gain a built-in list of supporters you can turn to again and again.

What’s the key? It’s about building positive sponsor relationships. So how do you create sponsor relationships that keep them coming back to your brand?

Search for the Right Sponsors

If you want long-term sponsors, don’t reach out to just anyone. Instead, do research on potential sponsors to see if they’ll be a good fit for your organization and event. The best chance you’ll have of building a strong relationship and keeping a sponsor is to find one that is in line with your mission. Then, you’re both staying true to your brands and can cross-promote -- plus, you're giving more value to the same audience.

Discover Ways to Incorporate the Brand Into the Event

Instead of only putting your sponsor’s name on some event marketing materials and programs, try to come up with methods to integrate your sponsor into the experience – at least for a small number of top sponsors. You could work with interested sponsors to figure out how to make their products or a presentation part of the event. For example, serve a sponsor’s food or have a station where event goers can try products. When you find ways to include a sponsor, you encourage lasting trust and loyalty.

Offer Varying Sponsorship Levels

By creating different sponsorship price points and benefits, you can make everyone happy. You’ll be able to satisfy smaller brands with a limited budget while providing better perks to the big guns. Brands will be happier to work with you when they can choose from different types of sponsorship to best fit their needs and goals. You could even consider customized benefits to ensure that certain brands have the right sponsorship experience.

Focus on What They Get Out of It

On the hunt for sponsors, it’s smart to focus on the benefit to a brand rather than making a plea for help. Sponsorship tends to be a mutually beneficial concept, which you should embrace. Tell potential sponsors about how they’ll be supporting your event while gaining perks in the process. Make sure you create strong benefits to becoming a sponsor for your event, and then promote those benefits.

For example, the sponsor could gain brand visibility by having its name printed on materials and included in advertising and social media promotion. Try to offer different types of promotion to help your sponsor achieve prime exposure out of the deal. Maybe you could allow brands to make a presentation or give away products at the event. If possible, you might be able to offer a top brand the chance to be the only sponsor out of their competition. To have the most success at this, it’s important to try to understand what the sponsor would want to achieve and help the brand do that.

If you can make brands happy that they sponsored your event through benefits and positive results, they’ll want to return on their own for next year or the next event. Put effort into finding the right sponsors and providing the right perks, and you’ll gain repeat sponsors that are exciting about working with you year after year. 

How to Create an Event that Helps Support Disaster Relief

Disaster Relief Event

How to Create an Event that Helps Support Disaster Relief


When a community comes together following a disaster, its collective power is staggering. No matter how strong a community is, however, a solid foundation is needed. If you want to create a memorable, successful disaster relief event, check out our tips below.

 

Use Social Media to Spread Awareness

 

Promote your event on social media. Then, encourage your audience to share the relief event’s links. The more exposure, the better. Try to make a “viral” event, if possible. Disaster relief events experience incredible visibility when they’re prompted online.

 

Create a Fundraising Event

 

Even if you’re creating a branded disaster relief event, there’s no reason not to include an internal fundraising event. Give your event goers a way to help others directly. Create a direct link between the cause and the community.

 

Contact Local Artists

 

Next, you should contact your area’s artists. Create an expo within the event. Artists are fantastic social supporters, and their music, paintings, movies and mission statements are vital event components. By enlisting the help of artists, you’ll be able to create an environment of support while garnering like-minded support.

 

Partner Up

 

Before launching a disaster relief event, connect with local businesses. Organizations and businesses take pride in their community. They’ll invest in its recovery. If the disaster is abroad, contact larger businesses to embrace a holistic support approach.

 

Create a Live Update Feed

 

Whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat, you should utilize real-time news feeds. Disaster relief events thrive in real-time news environments. Plus, real-time feeds will give your event’s patrons the visibility they deserve. Consumers love getting involved, and they love being encouraged via highly visible media.

 

Hand Out T-Shirts

 

T-shirts are awesome disaster relief event hand-outs. Before investing in expensive knick-knacks, consider going cheap. Relief shirts let event goers spread social awareness. They give wearers a chance to directly promote a cause. T-shirts are affordable, and a variety of prints are available.

 

Decide on the Profit Direction

 

Before even drafting an event, you should know where your profits will go. Disasters can create millions of dollars in expenses—sometimes, billions. Create a disaster relief event with a high money-gain benchmark in mind. Then, make sure you can manufacture your event without cutting into the pocketbook too much. Let event goers know where their money is going. Give them solid information about their direct assistance.

 

Connect with Youth Groups and Sports Administrations

 

Because disaster relief events work well on the local level, they tend to work well when local youth groups and sports administrations are onboard. Contact any nearby entities. Let them know about your event. Then, create special attendance perks for the community’s sports teams, groups and impactors. You’ll garner more fundraising money. You’ll also spread awareness to families, schools and local influence groups.

 

Stay on Target

 

At every turn, you should make sure your business event is hitting the mark. Don’t get carried away, and don’t shift focus to your brand. The disaster, itself, needs to remain in focus. Talk to your community’s members, and make sure they’re well-connected after the event.

 

Soho Studios is available to serve your event’s needs. Whether you’re hosting a small, medium or large event, our premises is conducive to powerful messages. Trust in a compelling environment, and let your event goers enjoy themselves. Contact us for more information, and check out our many available options.

How to use Photo Printing Backpacks for your Next Experiential Event


How to use Photo Printing Backpacks for your Next Experiential Event

Marketing tech firm, M-ND, connected with the B Positive Foundation, expanding nonprofit support into the baseball stadium. Their photo-printing backpacks were a huge hit, heightening much-needed awareness of kids with cancer. The technology which regularly promotes social media pictures is wide-ranging and varied, but a hashtag, a little organization and trending technology goes a long way.

 

The #BePosNYC Movement

 

On August 8, Texas Rangers attendees were invited to engage the B Positive Foundation campaign via social media, promoting the #BePosNYC hashtag via backpack screens. The screens, designed to display real-time picture updates, were directly connected to the campaign’s photo print awareness plan. Attendees posting game photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram could use the #BePosNYC hashtag, both raising awareness for the event while connecting with other baseball fans.

 

The Andrew McDonough B Positive Foundation has conducted similar events in the past. Their slogan, “Kids Helping Kids Fight Cancer,” has historically been a useful tag for humanistic ventures. Recently being used at City Field, the slogan headlined their movement for young cancer patients as well as their supporters. Attendees who weren’t part of the event, meanwhile, were invited to print event photos at home.

 

M-ND and B Positive

 

M-ND has plans to work alongside B Positive in the future. A donation-by-text campaign is, reportedly, in the works. Focusing on raising funds for charity, M-ND will likely take advantage of new opportunities with B Positive. Creating a unique experience for event attendees is difficult. Often, promoting interactive designs capable of garnering attention is met with technological barriers and audience-reaching difficulties. The partnership worked, however. It worked splendidly.

 

The B Positive Foundation has assisted thousands of United States families treated in over 200 hospitals. Intending to alleviate the financial burdens of ongoing healthcare, the foundation continues to grow. Many B Positive initiatives have offered research grand cycle options, too. On every level, the Foundation promotes the study of cutting-edge childhood cancer research. In the past, the Foundation has supported St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Seattle Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical Center.

 

Where Experiential Marketing and Proactive Care Meet

 

Both groups are assisted by some national childhood cancer collaborations, too. While childhood cancer charities may not be directly connected with events conducive to funds, they’re well-connected to communities. This presents an interesting angle for groups breaking into the experiential marketing world. Nonprofits have had historically tough breaks, fund-wise, in the experiential marketing world. Numbers change, however, when mass audiences are met.

 

Advocacy via social media, here, is a great takeaway. The B Positive Foundation and M-ND proved individual-level digital promotion works. Photos taken at the game served as memorabilia for those who were part of the foundation, raising awareness for both the foundation and its few causes. Mets colors were used, making the event highly personal. Curated social media photos are influential when aligned with an event’s overall theme. If you’ve ever wondered what a successful nonprofit social media marketing campaign looks like, look no further than the B Positive Foundation’s addition to the baseball diamond.