ment and explain that this is exactly
what your attendees are looking for. Promote your evolved sponsorship program
by showing them how your organization
can deliver their content through a variety of channels. Further challenge them
to seek out more content from within
their organization, with the premise that
the more information you can deliver for
them, the more successful their sponsorship will be.
2. Guide Sponsors into a Content Format
Once you and your soon-to-be spon-
sor have established what content they
would like to deliver to your members
and attendees, discuss content format
options. For example, if the sponsor’s
content is a whitepaper, explain that the
information within the whitepaper may
be kept as is — in text — or repack-
aged into a variety of different content
formats. Key points from the whitepaper
can be recorded into a podcast, for
instance, or logged on your social media
site as short-form text. For a higher-end
program, pitch turning the whitepaper
into an e-book. The key is to determine
what format will create the most effec-
tive deliverable product.
3. Provide a Media Vehicle
Conclude the pitch by determining
an effective channel of communica-
tion for each content format. Effective
campaigns will use an equal amount
of push and pull marketing. Using the
podcast example, you can “push” the
audio file out to your members as a
teaser embedded within a promotional
event e-mail. Or, you can also “pull”
members to the content by featuring it
on your event’s website, where attend-
ees can discover and then share it.
PRICING YOUR NEW PROGRAM
When it comes to sponsorship, the final
piece of the equation always is pricing.
So that you can attract sponsors and
still make money, price your content
marketing elements based on their
assigned media vehicle, since each
vehicle has a different level of reach.
You might charge less for content
that goes on your Facebook page, for
instance — where only fans will see it
— than you do for content in your asso-
ciation’s magazine, which is distributed
to your entire membership.
Chris Wilson is a global sales manager at BNP
Media. He may be reached at (248) 244-8264 or
wilsonc@bnpmedia.com.
