Lesson learned #1

Lesson one: virtual events give your sponsors more opportunities, and not less

When we made the decision to organise an online conference, we were unsure about the best way to involve sponsors — in-person events are one thing, but this would be 100% in a virtual format — or whether we should involve them at all. We discussed this with experts from the Conferences and events field who confirmed that sponsors love meeting people face-to-face and really becoming part of the event by participating actively. So, instead of scrapping the whole idea and running an event without sponsors, our team sat down and brainstormed ideas on how to provide better visibility and more engagement opportunities for sponsors throughout the virtual event.

We thought the best thing to do would be to let them choose. We gave them the option to build their own Sponsorship Package by cherrypicking and selecting different opportunities from a handful of sponsor Categories — from newsletter ads to dedicated speaker sessions — to pick what they saw value in!

To make it a compelling experience, we designed the following categories:?

• Virtual Booth: online booth profiles for each sponsor with the ability to upload videos, brochures, press releases, and more.?
• Branding: 8 different options including showing their logos, links, and company descriptions, inserting their banners in marketing emails, placing their logo on the homepage of the event, or showing a trailer during the event that presents their products or services, among others.?
• Speak to your audience: 5 different options to get themselves in front of the attendees and decision-makers.?
• Benefits for your customer and staff: free conference tickets and discounts on training courses.
• Know your attendees better: sponsors would receive a monthly report about attendees’ profiles and demographics. In this way, sponsors could determine the level of involvement in purchasing their products and/or services.

We saw the highest engagement among sponsors who specifically chose the option Speak to your audience because it was as close as they could get to enjoying our in-person events.?

In addition to all of these opportunities, to create continued engagement, we offered sponsors the option to become Community Partners. Those who became Community Partners now have a Long-Term Relationship with a Data Community, allowing them to avail of any further opportunities that may arise.?

Even with the pandemic, 2021's conference was an astounding success.... here’s hoping 2022's conference will be even better!