When organising your event, one of the most important factors to consider is whether it will be profitable. Without a profit, it is harder to justify hosting the same event in future years. Therefore, it is key to the events continued success to make sure that you are taking advantage of the income generation opportunities available. One of the best ways to do this is by offering additional sponsorship opportunities to those who have booked as part of the exhibition. Not only does this benefit your sponsors as it allows for them to have an additional presence across the event, but it can help bring in additional income in previously untapped areas. In this edition of the Fitwise blog, we’re going to share with you some of our favourite additional sponsorship opportunities to offer to help maximise conference income.
Company Symposia
One of the highest value additional opportunities you can offer is a company symposia. By offering your exhibitors the opportunity to sponsor a session and invite an expert speaker of their choice to present in the programme, they are able to connect directly with the conference audience for an extended period of time. Sessions can focus on either the company products, or their educational offerings.
If you’re going to offer a symposia, be sure to liaise with the company beforehand. It’s important to ensure their session is appropriate, and relevant, to the scientific/educational programme.
Delegate Bag Inserts
If you plan on curating a delegate bag, one of the most common additional opportunities to offer is a delegate bag insert. If you’ve chosen to go down the more sustainable route and are utilising a virtual bag, you can offer exhibitors an insert in the form of a PDF. This is a great way for exhibitors to ensure their collateral is seen by all attendees, not just those who visit their stand. If you’re interested in implementing virtual delegate bag inserts and other sustainable practices, check out this blog, and this one.
Dinner and Function Sponsor
If you’re hosting a dinner or social evening during your event, why not offer it as a sponsorship opportunity? By offering your exhibitors the chance to display their banner at the dinner, or allocating them a ten-minute speaking slot during the evening, this allows them to connect directly with your guests in a relaxed setting, as well as cover some of your costs for the venue and catering – a win-win!
Stationary Sponsor
If you’re looking to provide notebooks and pens to your delegates, consider offering these as a free of charge sponsorship opportunity to your exhibitors. By having your events stationary provided by an exhibitor, you’re able to minimise the cost of purchasing custom one-off items and can re-purpose the funds into other areas of the budget.
App Sponsor
If you’re planning to provide an app for your event attendees, this is the perfect opportunity to offer your exhibitors an additional sponsorship. The capabilities of an event app vary depending on your provider, and therefore so does the sponsorship you can offer. However, some of the standard offerings are items such as notifications, app alerts and banner adverts. Check out this blog to find out more about the benefit of hosting an event app.
Holding Slides Sponsor
During breaks and in-between sessions, it is likely that you will have holding slides playing on a loop, which will be visible on the larger presentation screens, as well as any smaller sized screens throughout the venue.
Why not offer your exhibitors the chance to have their logo on one of the slides, or design their own slide to go in the deck? This is a low-involvement addition from your end, but has large benefits for the exhibitors as it allows for their logo to be circulated around communal areas, at some of the busiest times of your event.
Interactive Elements Sponsor
If you’re hosting a larger multi-day event, you may be looking to introduce interactive elements to your exhibition. This may include poster talks, study pods, charging stations, workshops, photobooths or demos. Why not investigate how these could be sponsored? There are income generation opportunities in all these elements, it is just a case of making sure you are best suiting them to both the needs of the event, and the exhibitors.
Are you looking to receive sales support for your upcoming event? Fitwise can help! Whether you’re planning a regional one-day conference or a large multi-day international event, our experienced sales team are on hand to help you secure exhibitors, and offer ways to help maximise conference income. Find out more about Fitwise Event Management Services.