If your event includes an event app and you need to sell event app sponsorship, you are in luck. Event apps offers some great opportunities to deliver value to one or multiple sponsors.
What do sponsors want?
Effective sponsorship starts with a very good understanding of what your sponsor’s marketing and strategic business objectives are. They typically fall into three categories:
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Branding
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Thought Leadership
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Sales Leads
First Stop: Branding
When it comes to branding you need to understand exactly why the sponsor wants the exposure. Is it to drive awareness of a new product or perhaps to reinforce their standing in the industry in light of new competition? Or, maybe they are new entrant to the industry. Understanding the motivation means you can create a proposal that will meet their sponsorship objectives.
No doubt there are many ways a potential sponsor can showcase their brand thoughout your event. When it comes to brand exposure however, there are a few reasons why the event app is a great vehicle to showcase a brand, either as a stand alone sponsorship opportunity or as part of a wider package.
High Usage
If you don’t print a handbook every attendee will be using the app. That means that the sponsor’s brand will be in the hands of every attendee and it will be shown to them over and over throughout the event. Thanks to event analytics we can see that this can be over a hundred times per attendee per day. However, to achieve this, the sponsor’s banner, logo or message needs to really stand out from the look and feel of the event app.
If your event does include a printed handbook brand, exposure on the event app will still be valuable to a sponsor. At these events we usually see a minimum of 50% of attendees actively using the app. No surprise given the number of smart phone addicts out there.
Beyond the Small Screen
The event app also offers branding opportunities beyond the small screen. Most events will use the event app’s live polling feature. The results display, which is usually displayed on the big screen, can feature your sponsor’s logo for everyone in the room to see. Your potential sponsor can also showcase their brand on the event app’s digital signage, aka the Live Display.
Data
Digital media equals data and lots of it. You will be able to provide your sponsor with details on how attendees used the app, along with specifics around banner ad, sponsor profile clicks and document downloads. As with any advertising the more compelling or unexpected the content of the ad the better the results will be. The activity can be impressive. For example, at a recent association conference 900 attendees viewed over 60,000 pages within the app!
Rich Media
Showcasing the brand on an event app gives the sponsor the opportunity to show off their brand in a much more dynamic way than paper or posters allow. A banner ad, or sponsored alert for example can lead attendees to more rich content inside and outside of the app. From sponsor profiles to useful documents and reports, videos, sponsored surveys, polls and discussion threads.
Novelty Value
If the event app is a first for a long running event, it will no doubt be a talking point amongst attendees and your sponsor will gain some extra kudos for being associated with it.
You can of course offer all the branding exposure within it to a single or multiple sponsors. Read more about the pro’s and con’s of each approach.
