Whether it’s a logo placement or a speaking opportunity, each of your sponsorship assets has a price tag. But how can you ensure you’re not undercharging sponsors — or asking for too much?
Start by understanding each asset’s market rate.
By understanding the true value of your sponsorship offering, you can woo more sponsors while boosting your revenue.
Working off of a spreadsheet or table, follow these five steps to compile your competitive research and determine a faithful estimate for each asset’s market rate value.
Want to save time? Download this workbook to document and compare the value of your competitors’ sponsorship assets.
1. List your sponsorship assets
An asset is anything at your event available for sponsorship. A logo placement, for example, is an asset. So are speaking opportunities or complimentary passes.
The first step in determining the market rate of your assets is to list all of your assets in the far-left column of your spreadsheet or table.
Optional: group your sponsorship assets by activation type — branding, samples, experiential marketing opportunities. This will help sponsors quickly understand the potential value of each asset.
2. Gather your competitors’ prices
Once you’ve listed your sponsorship assets in the first column, you’ll document how much your competition is charging for each asset in the next column over. This information is usually included in your competitor’s sponsorship prospectus or public promotional materials.
Do your competitors bundle their assets into tiered sponsorship packages? These packages can make it more difficult to determine the price for an individual asset — but it’s not impossible. You should take your best guess, cross-referencing individual asset prices from other sources. You may be tempted to bundle your assets in a similar way, but proceed with caution; These bundles can reduce someone’s hesitation to sponsor your event, but in the long run usually result in you leaving money on the table.
Locating the price of your competitors’ sponsorship assets can be time-consuming, but an accurate assessment of your sponsorship’s market value will ultimately help you unlock more revenue from sponsors.
3. Estimate your competitors’ attendance
In the third column, you’ll want to record the number of people the asset will reach. Typically, this is the attendance number for the entire event. But for some assets — like a VIP cocktail party or a welcome breakfast for a target audience — this number might be a fraction of your total attendees. Use your most accurate assessment for each line item.
Events often disclose their attendance numbers in their sponsorship prospectus or promotional materials. If you can’t find a reliable source online, consider reaching out to one of their sponsors to find out — or just ask someone associated with the event.
This step will help you calculate the cost-per-attendee, which will allow you to compare asset pricing no matter your event attendance.
4. Calculate the cost-per-attendee
Next you’ll calculate the cost-per-attendee of each asset. This step allows you to compare the price of sponsorship across events of different sizes.
If you’re using a spreadsheet to determine this, simply create a formula to divide the value of the “Price” column by “Attendance” column. After dividing the price by the number of attendees, you’ll end up with the cost-per-attendee (as shown below).
5. Write down the value proposition of each asset
Your competitors’ pricing is just the beginning of determining your assets’ value — you’ll also need to look at their positioning. Take note of how each competitor positions each asset and any other important details in the final column.
For example, did your competitor promote a logo placement as a can’t-miss opportunity to get a brand in front of a captive audience? Perhaps they tout the ROI past sponsors enjoyed in their sponsorship prospectus?
Any detail you can use to assess the true value of each asset later will help you determine why one competitor charges more than another for a similar item.
6. Determine the value of your assets
After compiling enough research on your competitors, you can determine the estimated market rate value for your assets based on the average or median cost per attendee. The market rate of your sponsorship assets provides a baseline price that informs how much you’ll charge each sponsor.
Download the Sponsorship Market Rate Valuation Workbook to document the details for each of your sponsorship assets — and the template will do the math for you.
