Speaker 1: Over $65 billion is spent every year on event sponsorship. In this video, I'll give you five science-backed actionable tips to help you nail event sponsorship in 2023 and make your money work for you. Hey everybody, I'm Giulio Solaris. You may ask yourself, who am I to talk about this? Well, I've spent over 15 years selling and buying event sponsorship online and offline. The most common mistake that I've seen is that oftentimes marketing teams pouring money into event sponsorship, they actually don't have a plan. I think it's time also to ditch those cute little stories about a friend of a colleague that 10 years ago made those cute little bags and had an amazing event sponsorship and actually rely on science to make our decisions. So I decided to dig deep into research, reviewed hundreds of papers to find out for you what works today in event sponsorship. Warning, this is not some academic presentation on the meaning of life. In the event industry, we like to be practical people. So I'll make it very easy for you to apply science with actionable tips. Are you ready? Let's go. Tip number five, if you can't afford the top tier, always choose it. In a hypothetical scenario with gold, silver and bronze sponsorship tiers, science tells us always choose the top one. You can twist this around and say, avoid the lower ones. In fact, top tier sponsors have been proven to actually show better ROI to the detriment of lower tiered ones. Okay Julius, but what if I don't have the budget for it? My recommendation is to always work with the event planner to find unique ways to provide value or function for the attendee by means of sponsorship. Some examples, sponsor an outside networking party or a relaxed area, recharging station. It's gonna be unique to you. Don't share it with everybody else. Research has shown a positive correlation between well-thought, executed and designed content marketing and the attendees brand perception. Marketing teams often believe that the action is only happening offline, but being extremely active on your own channels or on social media during an event could actually deliver incredible returns. If you attend events today, you know that we spend a lot of time checking the hashtag of the event or being in back channels. Make sure to optimize this incredible opportunity, but don't just be that person who's always promoting, promoting, promoting. Enhance your participation by talking about your special competition, whatever it's happening at your booth, your CEO coming over, special interviews, podcast opportunities, be clever with it. Don't just try to sell. So before we jump into tip number three, let me share with you a mega bonus tip. If you work in marketing and understand the power that events have to bring in new business, I want you to head out to insights.bullpush.com. This is where I collect my most advanced advice for CEOs and CMOs to understand the direction of the events industry with strategic analysis and exclusive events. All right, tip number three, avoid picking the usual suspects. Many marketing teams approach event sponsorship as it is Christmas. They make a list, they check it twice, and then they decide what can they afford. This could be a sensible strategy for B2B events, but research says that thinking outside the box could lead to more significant dividends. Research talks a lot about this concept of congruency in event sponsorship. This is a difficult word that just explains how close your brand and your product is to the type of the event that you're sponsoring. Choosing non-congruent events or events that have, in theory, nothing to do with your brand, will actually lead to better long-term results. This is why, for example, you may see Tiffany & Co. sponsoring the all-star NBA weekend with a pop-up basketball court. What the hell has Tiffany & Co. got to do with the NBA? This strategy really works when you know your customers very well, and you can think laterally about what they're gonna do next. So, for example, for Tiffany & Co., sponsoring the NBA would mean that there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be engaged very soon at the show, or they maybe want to extend beyond their traditionally ring-buying audience. Tip number two, this is one of my faves, one of the more sophisticated ones. Focus on the experience, not the selling. I know, I know, if you want to sponsor an event, so you're showing up there with all your sales team, the focus should be on selling. Well, guess what? Everybody's doing that. So it's no surprise how science has demonstrated that focusing on creating a brand experience over activating and stimulating the audience to take action and buy has actually shown a better effect on the attendees' perception of your brand. This is why you may see companies like Google showing up at CES with a gigantic slide that ends into a ball pit, obviously very Google-themed with Google Assistant. You will remember that activity, that experience of going through the slide, ending up in a ball pit, and you're at a tech event. That is 100 times better than somebody nice-looking trying to sell you something or handing out flyers. Julius, where is my actionable tip? Do I need to build a slide? You don't have to build slides, my friend. But what I'm trying to say here is to focus on the experience. Whatever it is, get a massage expert to relax your customers, get them to cuddle puppies, get them to make their own ice cream or to personalize an espresso, get them involved in an experience. Tip number one, my final tip, active participation leads to better brand engagement. Have you ever heard the concept of not liking to be sold that? Well, let me tell you, my friend, this concept is not a fading fad of sorts. It is a feeling we all share. And with this comeback to in-person events, everybody's so focused on selling, selling, selling. Don't try to sell me something. Get me to do stuff. I want to experience your brand. That recently happened to me. I was at an industry show, and I walked into this incredible activation where we had an iPad, we scan a QR code, and then we went into another room with a 360-degree screen, and then the screen would pop up, and we end up in a champagne bar. I am not saying you have to do this crazy stuff with champagne, but like get customers to do things, get them with you on a demo, get them to touch things, to click on stuff, to activate your product and participate with you on creating that common brand experience. Well, that's it for me, my friends. But remember, if you are serious on how to use events to strategically grow your business, you gotta check insights.bullpush.com. That's where I share the most in-depth advice, the stuff you won't find in content marketing out there, strategic reports, exclusive events, all science-backed. And as always, if you like what you saw, hit that like button, subscribe to this video, and hasta la vista. Thank you.