A recent article from Associations Now caught my eye: Virtual Events: Make Your Sponsor the Star. Many of the suggestions that were provided were things that we’ve suggested on our blog…and our doing with current and clients.
At live events, sponsors have so many opportunities to increase brand awareness, drive booth traffic and establish connections. Hosting group dinners, networking events and product demos are go-tos. The question then becomes, can a virtual event create comparable opportunities?
- Expand the audience: Digital marketing can actually create a larger audience for your conference content, and thus a potential audience for your exhibitors and sponsors. Publish a digital daily newspaper that is distributed via an email newsletter, and monetize both through advertising placements. (Hint: exhibitors will jump at this opportunity, we will soon have a case study to prove it!)
- Chance to do different things: Have you had a sponsorship idea in the past, that you decided to not offer? This is the year to try something different.
- Monetize your event data: Perhaps you’ve had concerns about selling sponsored e-blasts, as you don’t want to irk your attendees and members with too many emails. But this year is different…they will want to hear from vendors about what’s new, read case studies, and be reminded about what they offer. If you do not want to send an e-blast to your full list, maybe segment them by geographic region, specialty, etc.
Check out these recent case studies about our digital publications for virtual events: