Posts by Larry Weil
Guest Blog: The Five Stages of Sponsorship Sales
This is the first time I have ever posted a colleague’s content on TSG. Chris Baylis of sponsorshipcollective.com has created a remarkable post. It gets right to the core building blocks. This is a must watch.
Read MoreTalking Super Bowl Advertising with SB Nation’s The Big E
A couple of days before the big game we got together to talk about insights and the history of Super Bowl advertising. Check out my interview with Elissa Walker Campbell on The Big E Sports Show.
Read MorePro Tips: Who is Your Sponsor Prospect?
During a conversation with a colleague recently, she brought up a point that I hadn’t heard considered before. That sponsors mostly don’t think of themselves as a “sponsor”. Their goal isn’t to sponsor something. Their goal is to find new customers, promote or sell their products, educate prospects and existing customers, create a buzz and…
Read More2-Min Video: The Top Tip for Sponsor Seekers
In this excerpt from Larry’s interview at Eventbrite headquarters in San Francisco, he shares what he believes is the most important tactic of all.
Read MoreTop 9 Reasons Digital Event Bags are More Sustainable and Efficient
Physical event bags are a hassle. We have all been there at one point or another – you and your colleagues assembled to stuffing those event bags with items that took you weeks to collect and that attendees may or may not want. So much time wasted and if attendees don’t want the items in…
Read More2-Min Video: Dealing with the Increasing Dissatisfaction of Sponsors
In this clip from the Eventbrite interview Larry discusses why 58% of sponsors want to get out or not renew their deals.
Read More2-Min Video: Predicting the Near Term Future in Events
Why is VR so popular, and is it right for your event or brand? Larry’s thoughts on why VR and AR are so hot right now.
Read MoreSponsorship in the Digital Age (Full Presentation)
I have been evangelizing about the importance of expanding your event’s digital assets. It is without a doubt, among the most cost effective and strategic steps you can take to provide value to your sponsors. Just this week, I finalized an entirely new presentation for the ICCA World event. These slides were presented as part…
Read More2-Min Video: Is Email Still Relevant?
Does email still work? Larry says yes, but only if you use very specific tactics. Hear his tips in this clip from his interview at Eventbrite.
Read MoreThe Easy Way to Increase Event Revenue
Deliver a more valuable experience for attendees and measurable results for sponsors. Check it out HERE!
Read MoreWhy I’m an Evangelist for Digital Sponsorship
Event sponsorship is an ultra-competitive business. Everyone says they want more sponsors. The truth is they want more money. Nothing wrong with that, it’s why we are all in the business. I hear from dozens of event producers every week who are looking for help. My first step in evaluating them as a potential client…
Read MoreJulio Jones’ Waffle House Cleats Worth $1M+ for Restaurant
Julio Jones may have football on his mind but his feet have him heading to Waffle House. The Alabama native and Atlanta Falcons wide receiver was spotted Thursday after practice wearing detailed cleats with the name of one of the South’s favorite food joints on the side. “The value of this kind of media could…
Read More2-Min Video: Building Long Term Relationships with Sponsors
In this 2 minute video clip Larry discusses the right to build long term relationships with clients and how to avoid the behaviors that drive them away.
Read MoreThe New Mindset for Sponsorship Sales
In this two minute clip Larry discusses the most effective approaches to making the kind of connection to prospects that will greatly improve your chances of making a sale.
Read More17 Creative Event Sponsorship Ideas
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Event sponsors are critical to helping you fund and improve the attendee experience. But to stand out in a sea of sponsorship ideas, you need to think beyond brand awareness and create worthwhile opportunities that help sponsors achieve their goals. Before…
Read MoreActivation Trends in Sponsorship
In part 4 of Larry’s interview at Eventbrite he discusses how integrating digital content can add sponsor value for your event.
Read More6 Apps to Increase Productivity
6 Apps & Extensions You Have Probably Never Heard Of, But Will Be Glad You Did. There are many challenges to running a successful agency. The biggest for most of us is finding ways to save time and improve performance. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorites. I’m sure these would work…
Read MoreInnovative New Technology for Events
What are some of the best ways to use Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for events? In this clip from my interview with Dan Kimball the Senior Vice President of Marketing at eventbrite.com headquarters in San Francisco we discuss some specific examples of successful integration of VR and AR.
Read MoreHow Technology is Changing Sponsorship
Technology is changing how events are produced and how sponsors activate. In this clip from my interview with Dan Kimball the Senior Vice President of Marketing at eventbrite.com headquarters in San Francisco we discuss the impact of this technology on events and sponsorship.
Read MoreHow the US Women’s National Team could Approach Sponsorships after World Cup Win
Larry Weil, a branding and sponsorship expert who goes by the title “The Sponsorship Guy,” said that “part of the challenge here is frequency.” “There’s going to be a crest in sponsorship…. Read Full Article Here
Read MoreUsing Data to Grow and Sell Sponsorship
Using data to grow sponsorship is often overlooked or improperly implemented. In this clip from my interview with Dan Kimball the Senior Vice President of Marketing at eventbrite.com headquarters in San Francisco we discuss tactics and trends for the successful use of data to influence and close sponsorship deals.
Read MoreSearching for Sponsors? Have you tried these job titles?
The Sponsorship Guy’s Pro Tips for Finding Leads You are on LinkedIn. You are trying to find new prospects. When I enter “Sponsorship” into the search field, I get 13,805,662 results. Not helpful. By further filtering to just the United States and to the Marketing and Advertising Industry we are down to 429, 938. Still,…
Read More3 Principles Elite Events Use to Attract and Reward Wealthy Clients
From the Cannes Film Festival to Wimbledon, all elite events share a wealthy target audience. One of my favorite culinary events Once Upon A Kitchen is a great example. It features multiple award winning celebrity chefs in an experience that will attract wealthy diners from all over the world to Miami Beach this coming December.…
Read More3 Benefits of Partnering With Food Driven Communities
There are many advantages to sponsoring a food centered or food driven event because food has a way of connecting people in ways that even music and sports cannot. These partnerships present unique opportunities that lead to major results. Benefit #1 | Food event attendees actually want to be educated. Sponsors often spend a lot…
Read MoreProfessor of Rock
The Audio/Visual stories behind 2000+ songs directly from the artists 500+ hours of 4K/HD content 300+ artist interviews Access to 500 Million artist fans Professor of Rock provides the most intimate insight into the music that has influenced every generation, presented in a mini-documentary style, in both long and short form content, video, audio, and…
Read MoreGreat Data Wins Sponsorships: Where to Find It and How to Use It
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Have you ever completed a form that asks you for your Age, Sex, Race, and Income? Kind of feels like it is none of their business, doesn’t it? Being a 25 to 35-year-old white male is a pretty diverse group. It is hard for a prospective sponsor to draw many insights from that…
Read MoreYour 18-Month Event Sponsorship Timeline
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Are you connecting with sponsors at the right time of year? Because when it comes to creating sustainable relationships, timing is key. With over two decades of experience and over 4,000 brand and industry contacts, President of The Sponsorship Guy™ Larry…
Read MoreHow to Close Your Sponsorship Deal With Data
Not all data is created equal, says sponsorship expert Larry Weil. Instead, he’s sharing how to close a sponsorship deal with data points that are actually meaningful to prospects, and what insights to leave OUT of your pitch deck. You have done your homework and have used insights to identify a prospect that is likely…
Read MoreWhy Is It So Hard to Sell Sponsorship?
Recipe for Successful Sponsorship Acquisition Insights from Nonprofit Industry Survey Understand what Sponsorship is and isn’t How to Work with Busy Prospects Sponsors are Flooded with Proposals, yours must be on Target Skilled Selling makes a Huge Difference A Campaign is the Best way to Sell Sponsorship North American Sponsorship Continues to Grow Why is…
Read MoreHow to Win Sponsors for Your Event (and Bring Them Back Every Year)
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Sponsorship can mean the difference between turning a profit — or a financial disaster. Imagine you didn’t win over the sponsors you needed for your festival or event, so you’re left footing the bill for items your sponsors would have covered.…
Read MoreThe Sponsorship Guy’s Secrets to Success – Eventbrite Interview
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Sponsorship is a multi-billion dollar industry, with an annual growth rate that has surpassed advertising and other forms of marketing. Yet this steady growth rate doesn’t mean it’s easy to find sponsors for your event. If anything, it’s harder than ever…
Read More5 Tips to Fix Your Call Reluctance and Win More Deals
Would you rather call or email a prospect? Sure, you can send off a bunch of emails, (and I’m not saying you shouldn’t) but we all know the data on email conversions. Has anyone ever responded to an email by thanking you and saying that they are ready to buy? My experience is that you…
Read MoreI told them no 5x. Then I did my homework…
With 20 years in the sponsorship business I like to think I can separate the winners and losers quickly. Efficiency has become a necessity because I get approached by hundreds of properties each month. So when I was contacted by The Second Annual African Muzik Magazine awards my first reaction was: I don’t know anything…
Read More4 Event Technologies Transforming Sponsorship
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Event sponsorship used to be simple. Event creators identified generic forms of exposure — like ticket giveaways, trade show booths, and logo placements — and sold them to brands. But if you still rely on this technique, you won’t win brands…
Read More9 Tips to be “Event Sponsor Ready”
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. Rules for event sponsorship success Sponsorship is a $62.7 billion industry. Its annual growth has surpassed other forms of marketing and advertising. With so much spending, your chances of winning event sponsors could be increasing — right? Sponsorship expert Larry Weil…
Read MoreSet Client Expectations or Pay the Price
We are a couple of months into the project and I am running into an unforeseen roadblock – client expectations.
Read More5 Tips for Cold Calling Event Sponsors and Winning More Deals
This post was originally published on the Eventbrite blog. Read the original post here. What’s your go-to method for contacting event sponsors? In a recent survey of event professionals, nearly half (42%) said their primary method for contacting sponsors was email. So if you said email, you’re in good company. But while email is an effective tool for…
Read MoreA Template for Groundbreaking Deals
When a sponsorship deal is big enough to make the mainstream news it is truly groundbreaking. We haven’t seen this much buzz in quite a while, but while the news media, sports talk radio, and the advertising world are focused on the impact of beer on campus the sponsorship world sees a new gold rush. First,…
Read MoreWhat is Sponsorship and How Does it Work?
I am often asked, what is sponsorship? It used to be a pretty simple answer. Most people think of sports sponsorships like McDonald’s and the U.S. Olympic team, or Bud Light and the NFL. There are many easy examples to see in sports, so it is a good place to start. Sponsorship has grown to…
Read MorePreparing to Get a Sponsor: Rule #1 Sponsors are Not Investors
Sponsors are risk averse. That’s right. They must know that a property or partnership can deliver what they say. I get inquiries every week from well-meaning individuals with underdeveloped concepts. It could be a concert series, a festival, a race team. They all have one thing in common: as soon as they get sponsorship money…
Read MoreMoving the Needle: Quality and Quantity Required
Lots of properties contact me to tell me about what a great match they are for one of my clients. They have spent a lot of time rationalizing. Very often they are trying to make something fit because it meets their needs not the sponsor’s. So they twist and mush until they think they have…
Read MoreWhy Would I Share These Secrets? Two Tools You Must Have
Many of us have heard the expression that a carpenter is only as good as his (or her) tools. The application to any kind of sales, but especially sponsorship sales is pretty obvious. But you can’t talk about tools without talking about mastery. I recently had a conversation with someone who I consider to be…
Read MoreHow to Overcome 6 Fundamental Obstacles to Selling Sponsorship
It wasn’t that long ago that Sponsorship was pretty straightforward. Lots of companies were enamored with the opportunity to link their brand to a team, property or venue. Call it the “halo effect”, affinity or just the popularity of sports, celebrity, music, or cause. Plenty of free spending brands wanted to latch on for the…
Read MoreWho Killed Authenticity?
Creative types spend large amounts of time trying to dig into brands searching for the “authentic” essence and finding the exact image, quote, music, color palette or story that evokes a feeling that something is real. We see and hear the word authentic attached to “experience”, “taste” and even “replica”. Our perception that something is…
Read More7 Ways Submitting Sponsorship Proposals is Just Like Tinder (But Without the Good Parts)
You busted your hump to put together a great proposal. You checked out your prospect on their website, set up a Google alert, researched key people on LinkedIn. You sent it. Nothing, Nada, Crickets… For those of you who don’t know how Tinder works or even what it is, here is the short version. For…
Read MoreWhy No One Responds to Your Sponsorship Pitch!
Let’s not kid ourselves. You don’t want to answer the phone and get a sales pitch and neither does your prospect. So how do you sell without a sales pitch? Stop selling. Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. If someone sends you an email, reaches out on LinkedIn, leaves a voice mail or actually reaches…
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