My top 2 lessons for B2B Events Sponsorship

I have been working in and around the B2B Events world for 10 years and in that time I have worked with Hundreds of Companies to deliver Commercial outcomes on their Marketing Spend.

Across these Hundreds of Companies, I have noticed a few common tendencies that hold them back from maximising their ROI.

I first noticed about 8 or so years ago when working on a Mining Event that there were often events running where we would get polar opposites in feedback. Some Sponsors would say something like "That event was great, we met a lot of great people and had great conversations". While others would say "We didn't get to speak to anyone, no one was interested in what we had to offer". There didn't seem to be anyone saying "that was ok" and I was fascinated by this.

I went searching for answers and what I found was not very helpful. There wasn't any consistency on what their Sponsorship included nor was there any consistency on how many people they sent or company size or type. In fact, I couldn't seem to find any obvious similarities and so I forgot about it for a while.

Then it happened again on one of the biggest events we ran at the time, in a completely different industry. I had about half the Sponsors and Exhibitors saying they were coming back the following year and loved the event, while the other half got nothing out of it.

In my post-event follow up I actually did notice something this time. I was talking to one of the Marketing Directors that I booked the event with from one of the happy Sponsors and what they said made it all click.

"I'm glad we didn't exhibit at this event in the end"

When we had first spoken they told me that they typically Exhibit at events and occasionally speak or do some additional branding but always exhibit. Through the process of digging a little deeper, I found out that they had a new product that was relatively cutting edge and were struggling to get cut through with the Decision Makers AND that when they don't get a good result at events it was because no one came to their stand.

So, what we finally decided was that we would have them present a case study to educate the audience on the value of solving the problem their technology solved and that we wouldn't have a stand to force their team to walk around and network rather than sit behind the stand.

What the difference was here, was that we really understood each other. I would say at this point of my career, this Sponsor knew more about events than me, they certainly knew more about selling their product than I did but by working together on a solution that we could deliver through my event, we found a better solution. Templates are essential when you have to scale a strategy, but midstream we adjusted because we dug a little deeper and built a Sponsorship package to solve a challenge they were facing.

What I noticed from then on was that most of the time, when my Sponsors and my Teams Sponsors would rebook it was usually because the Sponsorship was built around solving challenges.

Events are expensive marketing activities and can be very valuable. They will never stand up to digital activities on a Cost per Lead basis. most of the time they won't stack up on a Cost per qualified lead basis. When they are done correctly, however, they usually outperform digital channels for qualified pipeline.

So for events marketers, it is critical to look at what makes it difficult to contact and engage with prospects in your standard routes to market and tailor your involvement to solve those challenges. This is obviously much easier if you also work with Events teams that understand and can suggest the right things.

Like most things that require working with other people to deliver a result, finding an events partner that can understand your business as well as has the expertise within their field to add value, propose the right solutions and ensure delivery, makes the process easier and more likely to succeed. if you find someone that does a great job of this for you, grab a hold and don't let go.

So my top 2 tips are;

1. Find an events partner that understands Sales and Marketing Strategy so that they can add value and help you find the best elements within their events to achieve your objectives
2. Focus on using events for high value problem solving e.g. identifying companies ready to shift an incumbent provider or educating the market on the value of solving the problem you solve vs selling your product

Would love to hear what you think.