Building Sponsorship Packages Sponsors Actually Want

Gold, silver and bronze tells a sponsor how much to pay and nothing about what they get. It also forces every sponsor into the same shape, when the bank, the recruiter and the software vendor at your event want three different things.

Start with what they are trying to do

Most event sponsors want one of four things:

• Leads. Names of people with a specific problem. Cares about stand traffic, scans and attendee data.
• Credibility. To be seen as serious in this field. Cares about stage time and association.
• Recruitment. To meet people who might work for them. Cares about which roles are in the room.
• Relationships. Time with fifteen specific people. Cares about the dinner, not the banner.

Build a package per objective, then price it. A recruitment sponsor does not need a logo on the lanyard; they need twenty minutes with the right forty people.

Sell access and attention, not surfaces

Logo placement is what you include, not what you sell. What a sponsor pays for:

• A slot on the programme — a workshop or a case study, chosen by your committee so it is not a pitch.
• A physical position people must pass through.
• Hosting something: the lunch, the roundtable, the drinks.
• Data: scans, opt-ins, a post-event report. See proving sponsor ROI.
• Introductions — genuinely the most valuable thing you can offer, and almost nobody packages it.

Stop selling the things nobody values

Lanyard logos below the name, tote bag inserts that go straight in the bin, logos on a holding slide nobody photographs. They are cheap to give and they train sponsors to think sponsorship is decoration. If you must include them, include them — do not price them.

Keep the prospectus short and specific

Three pages: who attends (roles, seniority, organisations, numbers), what the packages are, and what last year's sponsors got. Numbers beat adjectives — "340 attendees, 62% managers or above, from 140 organisations" is the whole first page.

Leave room to say yes

Include one small entry-level option — a roundtable host or a coffee break — that a modest budget can clear without an approval chain. It is how you convert a first-time sponsor who becomes a headline sponsor in year three.

Write down what you promised

Per sponsor, in one place: deliverables, deadlines, the assets you need from them and when. Most sponsor complaints are not about value; they are about something promised in a meeting and forgotten by the person who ran the day. See how to price sponsorship next.

Gathervo holds sponsors, their tiers, their stands and their deliverables against the event, and gives each a page attendees can actually find. Try it free.