Creative Sponsorship Ideas That Actually Get Attention

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If you listened to my episode about trade shows and how to do trade shows that don’t suck, then you know that I was a convention and conference planner before this career as a professional speaker. That was long ago, but I have taught sponsorships to convention and meeting planners ever since on the side. I still love to talk about it.

I used to own a company that did nothing but craft sponsorship programs and sell them to potential sponsors. So all that to say, I know sponsorships. And since I have become a professional speaker, I have seen lots of sponsors not get their money’s worth at conferences where I am a professional speaker.

My most recent engagement was at a medical conference, and a major, sort of major, company came in late. They remarked that they were sad that their logo did not get put on the banners outside the entrance to the keynote session. I said to the rep who was there, “Make sure that whoever’s going up to introduce me knows that you didn’t get added to the banner, and hopefully they’ll say your name. They’ll be like, ‘Hey, we’re really sorry ABC didn’t get listed on the banners outside, but they are a sponsor, and we just want to thank them.’”

“Oh, that’s huge. You just got your money’s worth,” especially the smaller the sponsorship. You don’t usually get mentioned from the stage unless it’s a list of all the other sponsors. And I call that, by the way, logo soup. You’ve probably heard that term, logo soup, where you are one of 10, 20, 50, 100 logos that are thrown up on the screens, or on banners, or on the welcome march into the show.

So, yes, I mean, having your logo on there is okay. It doesn’t hurt you, certainly, but it doesn’t do anything to help you be remembered, stand out, build trust, any of those things that you really want. That’s why you’re sponsoring.

Regardless of what level you are sponsoring, there are lots of things that you can do with this sponsorship to stand out. Many of these I shared for my podcast about trade shows that don’t suck. A lot of those can be adapted to sponsorships, so go to the episode page on my website, thebuyerinsider.com. You can view the transcript, listen to that episode, or put my transcript through whatever AI and have it summarize for you what my action steps and suggestions were.

Definitely check those out, because I’m not going to do a lot of overlap here, in case you did listen to that one. One thing I will overlap is to talk to your conference organizer, talk to the planner, and see if you can do something custom.

Depending on how the economy is going, how that industry is doing, or how that association is doing at that very moment, you have a lot more leverage to create something custom. Planners love, most of the time, to think outside the box. They don’t like being fit into a tiny little box of repetition.

You’ll probably be well received if you say, “Hey, can we create something custom? Can we hop on a quick call and talk about what your ideas might be? I’d love to hear them, or I have some of my own.” Great. Talk to them about things they’re already paying for that won’t cost them any extra money, or won’t cost you extra money, that you can just put your name on and be associated with.

That will help them. If it’s not costing them any more money but you’re paying for it, fabulous. They don’t have to incur costs for anything to do with that sponsorship that they’re not already spending. So that’s a good one. One of the sponsorships that I heard of that I’ve remembered ever since, I wasn’t attending this conference; I was a speaker. I’m sure everybody remembered it. This company sponsored the weather.

There was a golf tournament associated with this, or a 5K, I don’t even remember that, but there was some outdoor event, and they sponsored the weather. It was fantastic. It was not a weather-related company by any means. It was, you know, in this conference’s industry, whatever that was, and they sponsored the weather.

And if you say, “I don’t want to be associated with bad weather. What if the weather sucks?” Fabulous. You will be teased relentlessly throughout the conference and remembered for the sucky weather that you sponsored. This is beautiful. Trust me on this.

If there’s a golf tournament and they got rained on for 15 minutes, fabulous. If the weather was beautiful, fabulous. If they’re not even doing anything outside, fabulous. They’re still going to see the weather. They’re still going to step outside from time to time, or they still had to travel there. So sponsoring the weather: beautiful.

The planner will love it because I’ve never seen it done since, and that’s been at least 10 years. The planner will most likely promote the heck out of it. Anybody who was at an event where weather was a factor will probably say it from the stage if they’re on stage. So, fabulous. We sponsor a useful moment. Another thing you can do is sponsor a useful—

Another thing you can do is sponsor a useful moment for the attendees at that conference. By this I mean sponsor a relaxation lounge, or, if there already is a lounge at that event, sometimes there are lounges at convention centers or whatever. It doesn’t have to be a conference. It can be a 5K that you’re sponsoring, or a sports team, a high school little league team, or a high school tournament or whatever. It doesn’t have to be a conference.

I just default to that because I used to plan them, but a lot of convention centers and hotels already have lounges, or the planner might have one depending on the size of the conference. Ask if you can sponsor it. All that means is putting up a sign that you’re the sponsor. To rev that up a bit, order some custom pillows with your logo, nice fluffy pillows, and distribute those on the furniture in the lounge.

I’ve seen that done. That is not one of my ideas, but it was fantastic, and it is rare. If the planner has a quiet room, or a place for one-on-one conversations that is somewhere more remote, or anything that is off the beaten path—

You can sponsor that too. I love a quiet room that’s part of the conference itself or the event itself, because a lot of people go in there when they just need a break. Introverts go in there, people who are neurodivergent go in there. You’re not going to get everybody, but if the sign is outside of that, say something other than “Sponsored by” and then your logo.

Do this whenever you can. Ask the planner if they can put something up, if they’re going to provide a sign for you, that doesn’t just say “Sponsored by.” Come up with a sentence, like, “For when you need me time in the midst of chaos, brought to you by ABC Company.” Any type of sentence that evokes emotion—

—makes them associate it with something fun or meaningful to them. Hugely impactful wherever they see it. I spoke at a Chamber of Commerce event that was sponsored by their local Big Brothers Big Sisters, and that organization was rolling out something called Paint the Town Green.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but I was told that they were sponsoring and could I acknowledge them from the stage. What I didn’t realize at the time was that’s why everybody in the audience was wearing green. They were told about this in advance, and they all wore green. I don’t own anything green.

But I was able to scrounge up a green pen. So on the stage, I thanked the sponsor. They were sponsoring my session in particular.

It was a pretty big overall sponsorship for this Chamber conference. I found a green pen and said afterward, “Come to my book signing,” and signed all the books in green pen in honor of Big Brothers Big Sisters. The crowd applauded and went off. So that is a great thing.

If you can ask the audience to wear a certain color, or wear their favorite sports team, or wear the local high school football team logo, anything like that where you get audience participation, that’s huge. If it’s related to a charity, even better.

And if the audience doesn’t know about that charity in advance, that’s unfortunate, but you can still sponsor the charity or foundation and say, “I want to sponsor this.” Mention from the stage that everybody who stops by our booth will generate an extra donation. We’re already donating; we’ll donate more.

That’s cool. Say you’re sponsoring a community event, like I mentioned, a 5K or local sports competition or a team. There are better ways to sponsor those than just putting a logo on a sign and having a table at those events.

I see this all the time at local farmers markets, or we have this thing called Rhythm on the Rails where I live. It’s every Wednesday for a period in the summer. There are all kinds of companies, banks, local banks, local whatever, insurance agents, and they all have tables and give away stuff with their logo on it. Some do a better job by having a spinny wheel, but that wasn’t even helping them stand out because there are five tables that had spinny wheels, and I am a sucker for a spinny wheel.

But who do you think they attracted? A community of children. Of course, with children come their parents, but it’s not as effective as it could be. Have an activation that is related to the cause, the effort, or the thing itself. Most 5Ks are supporting something, so align yourself with what that something is. If you can find a spokesperson representing that and do promotions with that person, do that. And again, say anybody who stops by, you know, we’re going to donate to them. Or say it’s a walk for dogs. I always go back to dogs. I talked in my trade show episode of this podcast about—

—if you have dogs that can appear at your table at the event, or if the event is for pets of any kind, you can have pets at your booth that are available for adoption or just there to be petted, or whatnot, or service dogs. Animals are almost always a draw for people.

And what about a sports team? Say you sponsor a bowling team or a little league team or a competition, a state tournament, anything like that. Rather than just hang a banner somewhere, where they say, “Oh, yeah, you get a banner in center field, or you get a banner behind the field goal,” people don’t really notice those. They certainly don’t remember them.

Activate your sponsorship by doing something related to it in person at the event. In my book, Small Is Your Superpower, right there, if you’re watching this, I talk about giving popsicles away at a baseball game in the heat of the summer, or you can hand something out in the dead of winter at a hockey game. Whatever, anything that you can activate cheaply is fantastic. It’s not about walking around and giving away swag with your logo on it.

As an aside, because I’m a dog lover, you can work with a local shelter, which oftentimes will coordinate an adoption event at your business. I don’t care if it’s not a retail business. Even better if you’re an insurance agent like we just talked about: have an open house and have it be an adopt-a-dog or cat event, because they will promote it to all the people who follow their shelter. You promote it as well and promote it in the community. Huge.

You can sponsor something on your own at your business. Think about doing a pop-up sponsorship at a local business, if you are local, if you have a storefront, brick and mortar, whatever. Go to a local business and say, “For the next hour, we’re going to buy coffee for everybody who walks in the door.” Or, “We’re going to pay for the carnival rides of everybody who stands in line for this roller coaster for the next half hour,” or anything like that: pictures with Santa, anything that’s already happening in your neighborhood.

The point of this is word of mouth, because you will get talked about, but also fodder for your social media, your website, your newsletter, whatever. Get pictures of your team doing the thing, buying the coffee. Get pictures with grateful customers who are so happy to have that thing that you just paid for. You might even get people who are okay with you taking a picture of them with their family, with their children. I mean, you have to get permission. You have to let them know how it’s going to be used. If it’s a video, get them on video saying that, unless you have actual legal photo release documents that you can have people sign. But it doesn’t have to be that layered if you get permission on video.

By all means, the more people who are there representing your company and activating the thing, making the thing more than just the thing itself, that’s what I mean by activation: making it more meaningful, more impactful, beyond the table, beyond the booth, beyond the business. Think about what you can do, but give it a human face, certainly yours and your team’s, but also your customers’. That’s unparalleled fodder for your social media.

When we think about afterward, whatever you’re sponsoring, again, like I said in Trade Shows That Don’t Suck, don’t just say, “Hey, thanks for stopping by.” Make it more impactful. Talk about the conversation. Talk about something that happened at the event that was memorable. Talk about the charity. Tell a story about how stopping by your booth led to the additional donation, and that donation is going to go toward backpacks for kids or whatever it’s going toward. Think about the follow-up afterward.

Include pictures if you can. Those sometimes have a hard time getting through filters, email filters, and company cybersecurity. Listen to the trade show episode for ideas of how to get around that.

And lastly, back to conferences, a couple other ideas. If you’re able to put any of these ideas to use, I would love to hear about it. For the full transcript of this episode and additional resources related to this episode, go to thebuyerinsider.com and under my resources you will find my podcast.

There’s a podcast-dedicated page for every episode with those things: resources, the transcript, additional thoughts for you. I build those for every single one of these. So thank you again for tuning in to another episode of Underestimated, and we’ll see you next time.