SMALL EVENT, BIG SPONSORSHIPS

WITH TERESA STAS

WHY AUDIENCE DATA IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF YOUR SPONSORSHIPS

When looking for sponsors, a lot of small and mid-sized events make the mistake of mass calling or emailing any and all businesses in their area. They typically have no real rhyme or reason when doing so. They are playing it like it’s a numbers game. As in, “The more people I ask, the better results I’ll get.” This theoretically can be true, but it is by no means the most effective and efficient way to go about sponsorships.

The most efficient and effective way is to start with prospects who are actually a fit for your event. Now, you may be asking, “How do I know what’s a good fit?” You know by looking at your audience data. This data derives from these questions:

• Who is your audience?

• Where are they coming from?

• What are their interests?

• What are they looking to purchase in the next year?

Letting your audience data lead you to your prospects ensures you find sponsorships that are a good match for your audience. When you match potential sponsors with your audience, you will not only experience greater success in signing sponsors, but your sponsorships will be more successful. Trying to squeeze a sponsorship into an event for the sake of the money almost never leads to successful results for the sponsor, and in turn, doesn’t lead to the sponsor re-signing for the next year.

Knowing your patron data is the lifeblood of selling sponsorships. It’s a very important component many events ignore. In this day and age, when data is so readily available to sponsors, those who don’t take this aspect seriously will be left behind.

How to Obtain Audience Data for Your Event

I’m hoping you have already collected your audience data for your event. If you have then this metaphorical “High Five” is for you! If you haven’t, then don’t stress. I’m going to walk you through some ways to start the process!

• You can use past ticket sales for zip code information to determine where your patrons are coming from.

• Pull demographics from social media. This is not foolproof but will give you a good sense of who is at least interested in your event and who is following your branding message. It may not tell you who is showing up at your event, but it will give you a good idea of your audience and their interests. If you do not have any data, this is a great place to start. You can go to your Facebook or Instagram insights and pull analytics of your fans instantly. There are many tutorials on how to do this online.

• Ticketing platforms have become increasingly better at being able to collect audience data upon purchasing. Ask your ticketing platform what kinds of data you can collect. Many of them can integrate with patrons’ social media and pull even more data like age, gender, job, and other important information. Some can even allow you to ask a couple of questions upon purchase of tickets.

• Conducting a survey is one of the easier ways to get the information that is most important to you or your sponsors. This can be done either online or on-site. To get the best results, I suggest providing an incentive. Maybe it’s a free gift like a hat or t-shirt, or you could also give a chance to win experience upgrades, ticket packages, or a discount code prior to the event. You may be wondering what to put in this survey. Don’t worry. We will cover that next!

• Finally, you can invest in a third party to poll demographics for you. For example, you can hire a company to actually come out to your event and collect this information for you. If you do not know what to do or need more in-depth information, then I would suggest having professionals come out and implement it for you. This is helpful to get a really good understanding of what your patron demographics are, even if you only do it every few years.

If you choose to survey on your own, try to keep your survey to ten questions or fewer. I suggest doing multiple choice answers when possible. This increases the chance your patrons will fill it out completely and helps to make sure all your answers compare to each other.

Use platforms like Survey Monkey or Google form to manage those responses in easy-to-read reports. Once you have collected your data, then it’s essential you take the time to assess it and understand what it is telling you. As an event producer or sponsorship person, you may instinctively associate your event patron with yourself. You may think to yourself, “I have two kids, so having a kids’ zone at the event would be awesome,” or, “I’m 55 years old, I don’t want to stand at concerts anymore, so we should have seating.”

Self-identifying with the patron is VERY common, and most of the time it can be helpful, but it can also hinder you when you assume who your audience is and you don’t actually look at the data. What happens when you see the data and you discover less than 20% of your audience has kids in their household or your average audience age is 25? What you want and who your audience actually is can be very different.

I often come across events that pitch sponsorships to companies they think are a good fit, not to those who match their audience. When this happens, it either results in a prospect not buying a sponsorship or if they do, the event and the sponsor don’t get the results they were looking for. Make sure to match with prospects who want your audience. When this is done correctly, it usually results in success.

Teresa Stas is a national speaker, author, and CEO of Green Cactus Live Event Sponsorship agency. Her book “Sell Your Event!” was named one of the best new sponsorship books to read in 2022 by BookAuthroity. If you would like to get sponsorship tips to your inbox, you can sign up for the GC monthly newsletter at GreenCactusCa.com.

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