A Crash Course On Event App Sponsorship Strategy: Shared or Exclusive?
In the first post of EventMobi’s Ultimate Guide to Event App Sponsorship, we’ll help you build your strategy from the ground up. Read on to discover how to develop your best sponsorship opportunity yet!
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
– Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland
If Lewis Carroll hadn’t made a name for himself by delighting a generation of children and adults alike with his storytelling, he might have succeeded as an event planner. The dialogue, which occurs between Alice and the Cheshire cat in his novel, underscores the importance of having goals and a strategic direction.
As an event planner, you’re often stuck between putting out fires and meeting deadlines. Yours is a hectic and demanding job that often favors taking action over sitting around thinking. Even if you’ve been forward-thinking enough to identify event app sponsorship as an opportunity, you may not have considered the benefits of developing a well-developed sponsorship strategy.
Today, we’ll help you kick-start your planning with essential tips and ideas to consider. With the right event app sponsorship strategy, you’ll be well on your way to making your next event a success.
Why Do I Need an Event App?
With the torrid pace of smartphone adoption and app usage, becoming a player in the mobile space is increasingly becoming a matter of staying relevant. At the last Mobile World Congress it was announced that as of 2013, mobile has become the world’s #1 source of media, eclipsing TVs and PCs. Smartphone and tablet adoption has crossed 60%, and at most events, over 80% of smartphone owners use event apps.
Event apps present the 1-2 punch of exposure opportunities and unparalleled engagement, presented in a format that your attendees have grown familiar with and reliant upon. Implementing an event app is the natural next step in the process; the exposure and engagement opportunities it provides ensure that it will be a win-win for all parties involved.
How Many Sponsors?
Generally, you have two options. You can either go the exclusive route with a single sponsor, or you can choose to spread the love amongst several sponsors. Your choice will significantly impact the way that you sell-in your event app.
If you’re just getting started, it’s a good idea to keep your options open. Try a tiered sponsorship approach to gauge interest when you’re pitching to sponsors. This is a quick way to determine how much value potential sponsors perceive, and how much you can expect from them.
Sponsors want to be the star of the show, and they’re willing to pay top dollar for that opportunity. Exclusive sponsorship is a compelling proposal because it ensures that they will be front and center throughout your event. Without the noise that comes with competing sponsors, every impression is uncontested and clear. This can increase conversion rates for your sponsor and add to top-of-mind awareness. This method is currently the most profitable and popular way to make a profit on your event app.
Exclusive app sponsorship can generate up to 5x cost of your app. Another benefit of exclusive sponsorship is the simplicity and efficiency that comes with working with a single sponsor. This means that you and your team can spend less time chasing after multiple sponsors, and spend more time making the event a success.
On the other hand, the shared sponsorship option has its own benefits. Are your potential sponsors not quite sold on the price tag of exclusive sponsorship? Perhaps they’d be open to splitting the costs with other sponsors. The flexibility of going digital with an event app provides endless opportunities for customization. Is one of your sponsors a consumer goods company? Use your event app’s scheduled alerts feature to drive your captive audience of attendees to your sponsor booth for a live demo or sampling. Are they a B2B services firm looking to make great connections? Let them own your Speakers page with a rotating banner ad. With virtually any mix of sponsors, you can assign tailored sponsorship packages that make each of your sponsors feel like they are the star of the show.
Which Features To Include?
With the variety of features included in a quality event application, you might feel like a kid in a candy store. The sheer amount of choice can be daunting and exciting at the same time. But which features will be especially valuable to your sponsors? It can be helpful to consider how event app features play into your value proposition and value communication to potential sponsors.
New technologies such as event app gamification can literally be game-changers. By making certain aspects of your event app entertaining, you can make attendees more receptive to messaging. Opportunities abound for in-game branding and advertising. Sponsors can join in the fun by providing game prizes and other incentives.
Whichever features you choose to include, ensure that sponsor buy-in is one of your criteria for selection. A well-considered and robust array of features can be a strong selling point.
Which Way To Go From Here?
Deciding between exclusive and shared sponsorship is the first key step in your sponsorship strategy. Keep these tips in mind when deciding upon your strategy – it’s important to keep your audience in mind when planning your sponsorship package, especially when your audience is funding you! In our next post, we’ll cover the second essential part of your strategic planning: How to develop a compelling strategy for structuring sponsor packages.
In the meantime if you would like a full-featured walkthrough of all the different features you can use for exclusive and shared sponsorships, feel free to sign up for a free webinar below.
Happy trails!
