Sponsorship trends for 2019

Events are thriving. With learning and networking becoming increasingly important, now is the time to capitalize on marketing events.

But even so, more than half of industry professionals recently surveyed by Event Manager Blog say finding sponsors is one of their biggest challenges.

As a follow up to that report, Event Manager Blog analyzed 350 events over the last two years to find the most unique sponsors in the healthcare, luxury, finance and luxury industries.

After analysis of the publicly available data, 13 trends appeared. Here are some of the most important.

• The most popular sponsorship packages were those that combined awareness (branding and name recognition) with value. So, for example, prevalent exposure on marketing material combined with free tickets to events.
• Tiered sponsorship (gold, silver, bronze) are less common, and have been replaced with more “value-oriented” titles, such as social media awareness.
• Enticing sponsors with membership offers is becoming increasingly common. For example, some organizations may require companies to become members, but may offer deals on membership fees.
• Virtual sponsorships are becoming more popular. Some organizations have cut back on travel budgets, so offering opportunities to sponsor events virtually is advantageous.

Taking a look at the healthcare industry, some interesting sponsorship opportunities include childcare, a lactation lounge and a 5K.

“More and more event sponsors have specific metrics they are looking to hit. Very few sponsors are coming to us and asking for air cover and brand visibility - or should I say, very few cite brand visibility as their primary goal,” says Megan Ridgway, senior specialist of event operations for S&P Global Market. “Event sponsorship itself is growing and becoming a larger part of a brand’s overall marketing budget.

“My theory is that so many companies are doing more and more with digital marketing and collecting more leads. There comes a time when they have to get face-to-face with those leads and a one-to-many event is the best option. Tools that allow anyone to easily collect RSVPs and manage tools help this effort.”