Meeting a sponsor’s core needs through tech is easier than you think, and your event management team will thank you for it!
Every year your event rolls around, you have a team that puts together all the sponsorship offerings and reaches out to the organizations to participate. How involved is this process? Is it easy, efficient and tailored to the organization’s unique needs at your show? Or are you sending the same PDF to everyone?
According to a report by the Expo Group, 75% of exhibitors feel that exhibit manager and show organizers can be doing more to help them. One way to create a more meaningful relationship with your exhibitors is to use technology tools to drive efficiency and create additional value for them.
If you find yourself developing a new sponsor prospectus each year and sending it out to the same organizations, let me tell you, there’s a better way. Meet our Online Sponsorship Sales (OSS) tool.
What are Online Sponsorship Sales?
Online sponsorship sales (OSS) enable event professionals to manage their sponsorship process in a more seamless and thoughtful way.
In the A2Z Events online exhibitor portal that can be linked directly on your event website, sponsors can peruse the available sponsorships and purchase them. With OSS, you can provide details included for each sponsorship, change inventory amounts, feature images and digital content of what’s included.
You as the organizer will also have a catalog of all event sponsorship details. This catalog will show who you have as current and past sponsors along with the selections they make. This is great for pulling up someone’s past purchases to present as a starting point for this year. If a company enjoyed the selections they made last year and wish to purchase the same ones for this event, you can do so with ease – no more riffling through old papers or emails, everything is in one seamless platform!
By utilizing a digital platform, companies that want to purchase a sponsorship can see all options in one place and take advantage of filters to view what they care about . Think of your shopping experience as a consumer online, you can use filters to find exactly what you’re looking for; you can filter by item type, price, size, etc. OSS has the same type of filters to help companies narrow down the sponsorship they’re interested in, saving time from flipping through pages and pages of options.
How does OSS improve the experience for exhibitors and sponsors?
If you’ve used a printed sponsorship prospectus up until now, your sponsors need to fill out a form, send it to the event management team, wait for an invoice and then make a payment. This process not only takes time but also doesn’t let your sponsors see which options are no longer available until after they’ve taken the time to make a selection and send it off.
By using OSS, sponsors can see the available inventory of sponsorships and receive immediate payment confirmation once they’ve made their selection online. Not to mention they can do this from anywhere at any time!
OSS allows sponsors to have their own log in as well, a place where they can view and manage their current and past sponsorships for an event. This is great for an organization that wants to renew their sponsorship from the previous year. Sponsors also have the option of purchasing advertisements without being an exhibitor. This enables smaller organizations that don’t have the budget or bandwidth for a booth to have visibility at the event.
What Benefits Can I See as a Show Organizer?
Similar to the sponsor experience, OSS reduces the need for your team to route and manage a prospectus. No more engaging in back-and-forth with clients on which sponsorships are available. No more manually sending out invoices.
Once you’ve launched OSS and set up the exhibitor portal, organizations can self-serve to finalize their sponsorship at your event. This is particularly helpful for organization that offer similar sponsor packages each year; your team can easily make updates and share the newest version with clients.
With the OSS tool, you can develop and send a tailored package to a particular sponsor. If you have a premium sponsor looking to purchase multiple options, you can set this up on the website back end and send a personalized link to confirm their selections and pay for their sponsorship.
How the American Academy of Neurology Leverages OSS
The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) hosts their annual conference for 12,000 people and they utilize A2Z Events to manage their event. While AAN initially implemented A2Z to manage exhibitor contracts, they had a sponsorship sales process that was inefficient, lengthy and complex. The team decided to use the Online Sponsorships Sales tool to streamline the sponsorship process and generate additional revenue from their conference.
Using the A2Z Events platform, event organizers were able to open sponsorship sales at a specific day and time, which created a sense of urgency among organizations to lock their sponsorships in early. Sponsors could choose and purchase their sponsorship without having to wait on the AAN team to confirm which options were available. The entire process, which previously required multiple manual steps for show managers, was now automated and freed up time for them to focus on their programs.
Before adopting the OSS tool, AAN typically sold $2.8 million worth of sponsorships over the course of four weeks. After implementing OSS, they sold the same amount in the first 1.5 hours and reached a total sponsorship revenue of $4.3 million.
According to AAN’s industry sales specialist, “OSS transformed an antiquated system, which pushed paper back and forth between sponsors and our team…Having this system in place allows us to spend more time on creating new and innovative sponsorships and connecting with our sponsors.”
If you’re still using a PDF sponsor prospectus, there’s a better way. Having the OSS tool in your event technology stack can enable your team to focus on developing meaningful relationships with your sponsors and exhibitors and spend less time on routing and managing paperwork.
If you’re looking to streamline your sponsorship process and drive additional event revenue, reach out to your Account Manager or Request a Demo from our team.