Pro Tips: Who is Your Sponsor Prospect?

The Sponsorship Guy’s Pro Tips for Effective Outreach

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…

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Sponsorship in the Digital Age (Full Presentation)

Sponsorship in the Digital Age

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…

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Why I’m an Evangelist for Digital Sponsorship

Evangelist

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…

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Julio Jones’ Waffle House Cleats Worth $1M+ for Restaurant

Waffle House

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…

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17 Creative Event Sponsorship Ideas

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…

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6 Apps to Increase Productivity

Man looking at his phone

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…

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Innovative New Technology for Events

Innovative 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.

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How Technology is Changing Sponsorship

How 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.

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Using Data to Grow and Sell Sponsorship

Using 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. 

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Searching for Sponsors? Have you tried these job titles?

Man Looking Through Binoculars

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,…

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3 Principles Elite Events Use to Attract and Reward Wealthy Clients

Attract Wealthy Sponsors

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.…

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3 Benefits of Partnering With Food Driven Communities

Partner 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…

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Professor of Rock

Professor 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…

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Great Data Wins Sponsorships: Where to Find It and How to Use It

Great Data Wins Sponsorships

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…

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Your 18-Month Event Sponsorship Timeline

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…

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How to Close Your Sponsorship Deal With Data

How 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…

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Why 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…

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How to Win Sponsors for Your Event (and Bring Them Back Every Year)

eBook-How 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.…

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The Sponsorship Guy’s Secrets to Success – Eventbrite Interview

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…

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5 Tips to Fix Your Call Reluctance and Win More Deals

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - Business woman on the phone

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…

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I told them no 5x. Then I did my homework…

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - African Woman, African Muzik Magazine

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…

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4 Event Technologies Transforming Sponsorship

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - Crowd of Business People at Trade Show Booth

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…

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9 Tips to be “Event Sponsor Ready”

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - Blog - Are you read? Road

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…

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5 Tips for Cold Calling Event Sponsors and Winning More Deals

5 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…

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A Template for Groundbreaking Deals

A 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,…

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What is Sponsorship and How Does it Work?

Examples of brands sponsoring stadiums

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…

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Preparing to Get a Sponsor: Rule #1 Sponsors are Not Investors

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - Man tearing paper in half

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…

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Moving the Needle: Quality and Quantity Required

Moving 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…

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Why Would I Share These Secrets? Two Tools You Must Have

The Sponsorship Guy Blog Why 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…

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How to Overcome 6 Fundamental Obstacles to Selling Sponsorship

The Sponsorship Blog How to Overcome Six 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…

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Who Killed Authenticity?

The Sponsorship Guy Blog Who 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…

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Why No One Responds to Your Sponsorship Pitch!

Larry Weil, The Sponsorship Guy - The word Nope on a piece of paper pinned to a cork notice board

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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