6 Smart Reasons Why Your Business Should Sponsor an Event

 

There are many unique ways to attract audiences, but businesses are overlooking some of the opportunities right in front of them. According to an infographic, sponsoring an event is one of the channels most businesses have yet to even try. Little do they know, event sponsorship (like a festival or charity event) is an extremely effective marketing tool to reach local audiences.

What does it mean to sponsor an event? Sponsors offer funding or products and services to support events, trade shows, nonprofit, or organizations. In exchange, you receive brand exposure and a chance to connect with new customers.

With six years of experience sponsoring a local event, Lookout Wild Film Festival, Spectruss found many benefits of event sponsorship within your local community.

Brand Awareness

As a sponsor, your brand is placed in front of large audiences who haven’t heard of your business. The bigger the event, the more press and social media mentions you get before, during, and after the event day. With many sponsorships, you get featured ads, signs, or media sports that boost brand recognition. Also, you can build local search visibility because SEO gets your website seen across the entire internet and targets an audience closer to home.

Authority in Your Field

We all know that public perception can make or break a company. Well, event sponsorships build credibility and authority around your business. Customers who attend will see your brand as reliable and trustworthy, ultimately leading to lead generation. One survey found that 74% of customers are more likely to buy a product of a brand they were exposed to via event marketing.

Direct Access to Your Target Market = Lead Generation

Events are known to generate a good number of quality leads. If you carefully chose the right event, your sponsorship will bring your target audience directly to you with highly interested customers. Event holders typically provide data about attendees in advance so you can do your research well and plan a strategy for meeting as many people as possible. By simply attending the event, you can learn about customers by engaging one on one, showcase your products, spur word-of-mouth promotions, and build a mailing list.

Content & Social Media Marketing

Event sponsorships provide fresh material to expand your content strategy. By connecting with the event holder on social media, you can find relevant audiences to target. According to ESP, 98 percent of sponsors use social media to promote their involvement. Popular events get a lot of engagement, which you can use to create content themes.
Even better, event promotion doesn’t end with sponsors. The Event Marketing Institute reported that 98 percent of consumers create social content during events. When attendees share photos, quotes, videos, and blogs, you get exposure to much larger networks. User-generated content has a greater impact on customers, so make it easy for people to tag your business on social media.

Boost Sales

Beyond leads, consumer events allow you to rack up sales on the spot. Events attract people who are ready to buy, sorting our the “window-shoppers”. If sales are your top priority, choose an event with high foot traffic and few direct competitors. For bigger events, you can often pay more for category exclusivity. That way, you don’t have to worry about selling the same products as another vendor. From 2016-2017, companies who used event marketing saw, on average a 22% lead decrease and a 14% sales increase.

ROI

Whether you plan to sell or not, events are about starting quality relationships. The goal is to leave with a list of leads to follow up on afterward. You don’t necessarily need to make a huge profit on event day, as long as you have a long-term way to leverage your investment.