Association sponsorship programs that sponsors renew
Sponsors renew an association sponsorship when someone at their company can say what the money bought. Build the tiers from what a supplier's sales team wants, starting with structured time in front of members and a record of it to show a manager. Then deliver each promised item on a calendar that runs all year.
Why it matters
Why sponsors stop renewing
A sponsorship is usually lost in the sponsor's own budget meeting, months before the association's invoice goes out. A manager going down the marketing line items stops at the sponsorship and asks what it produced. If the answer is a logo on a banner and a listing in a program book, the line gets cut. The association hears about it when the renewal invoice goes unanswered.
The trouble starts with how the program is pitched. A sponsorship pitched as support for the association gets treated as a donation, and donations are among the first items cut from a company budget. The suppliers who sponsor an association are member companies trying to sell to the other members in the room. Their payment comes out of a marketing budget. It competes each year with a trade show booth and a sales trip, and both of those come with an account of what happened.
A program renews when the sponsor's marketing person can walk into that budget meeting with an account of the year. The account might be that a regional manager spoke at the spring meeting and the company hosted the reception, with photographs of both. A sponsor with that account defends the line item without help from the association.
The tiers
Five things to build into the tiers
Start from what a supplier's sales team wants out of the year and build the tiers from there. Five things belong in the program.
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Access
Structured time with members is the core of the product. Give the sponsor a role, such as a speaking slot on the program or the host position at the reception. The sponsor's people should leave the event having had a part in it.
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Standing
Give year-round recognition that reads as leadership in the industry. That means a named presence in the newsletter and credit from the stage at the events members attend. A logo wall shows that a company paid. Recognition by name, in front of members, shows that the company matters to the association.
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Intelligence
Where the board allows it, give sponsors a first look at aggregated, anonymized member survey results or at program plans for the coming year. Suppliers spend money guessing what members will need next, and an association often has the answer. Share it in aggregate so no member's numbers can be identified. A trade show booth cannot offer this.
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Proof
Send photographs of the sponsor's people in those roles, with a one-page summary of what the sponsorship included and delivered. The sponsor's marketing person hands this to a manager. It takes the association an afternoon, and it protects the renewal directly.
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Fit
Offer a bottom tier that a small supplier can afford, with real access in it. The associate member kept at the small tier can grow into a top-tier sponsor. A supplier priced out at the door builds those relationships somewhere else.
Delivery
Deliver the sponsorship through the whole year
The program runs on a calendar, much like the one a membership operation uses for retention. It has four parts.
The week the payment arrives, confirm in writing what the tier includes. Hold a short conversation about who from the sponsor's side will speak or host, and what the sales team wants from the year.
Through the year, deliver each item as promised. Run the newsletter mention on the date you gave. Schedule the speaking slot early and brief the speaker. At the reception, introduce the sponsor's people from the front of the room.
Within a week of each event, send the photographs and the recap.
Open the renewal request by naming what happened, such as the talk and the plant tour. A renewal letter that lists what the sponsor received reads as a receipt for a good year.
One person keeps the list of promises
Each tier benefit for each sponsor is a line on that list, and the owner checks the lines off as the year goes. The work is clerical, and it decides whether the program renews or loses a sponsor or two each year.
A sponsor accepts a modest program delivered in full. A sponsor who received half of an ambitious one has little to tell the manager who asks what the money bought.
Questions and answers
Questions boards ask
What should an association sponsorship package include?
A sponsorship package should include structured time with members and recognition that runs all year. It should also include proof, meaning photographs and a short recap the sponsor can hand to a manager. Structured time means a speaking slot or a hosted part of an event. Logo placement belongs in the package as a record of those things.
How should sponsorships be priced?
Price each tier on the access and standing it delivers, and include a tier a small supplier can afford. A tier with the podium and the reception should cost a good deal more than one with recognition alone, because it is worth more to the sponsor. The small supplier kept in the program this year may grow into the top tier later.
Why do sponsors stop renewing?
Sponsors stop renewing when nobody inside the sponsor company can say what the money bought. The decision is made in their budget meeting, so the first sign the association sees is a renewal invoice that goes unanswered. A sponsor whose marketing manager can point to a talk and a folder of photographs keeps the line item.
Who should sell sponsorships?
Sponsorships should be sold by someone who treats sponsors as members with goals. That person needs to know what each sponsor sells and who in the membership buys it. It also helps to know what the sponsor told its own management the money would do. In an association with a single director this role is often the first to slip, because the director is also running the events and the dues billing.
Old Plank Group manages trade and professional associations.
Take this guide to the next sponsorship committee meeting and rebuild the tiers there. If the board wants a team to run the sponsor program, send a note. We answer within one business day.