Looking at past print sponsorship pricing can be a guide for planners to determine how to cover costs and make a premium when moving sponsorship to the mobile realm, said Matt Keowen, Guidebook’s vice president of marketing, in the webinar, Landing the Perfect Event App Sponsorship. But with more available sponsorship opportunities the pool of potential sponsors is wider, and the value of digital packages can be greater.
What Sponsorship Packages Can Be Used for Mobile?
There are three main types of sponsorship for mobile:
1. Sole sponsorship for the complete app. Keowen said for the right event and app, he has seen sponsorships up to the $25,000 to $30,000 range, more than enough to cover the investment in developing the app. He advised planners to look at historical pricing for sole sponsorship of traditional programs to use as a guide, then look at the cost of the app and charge an appropriate premium on that.
2. A la carte sponsorships for individual features
3. Tiered sponsorship packages. For example, platinum, gold, and silver packages with varying visibility and targeting. Keowen notes that a splash screen can be sold to one sponsor, or multiple companies each with its own icon on the splash screen.
A tiered scenario could look like this:
Tier 1
Splash screen sponsorship, exclusive home-page icon, sponsored event session, push notifications, banner ads, sponsored cards in social feed.
Tier 2
Spot on “sponsors” list, sponsored event session, push notifications, banner ads, sponsored cards in social feed. Price could run about 50 percent less than Tier 1.
Tier 3
Spot on “sponsors” list, banner ads, sponsored cards in social feed. Price: May cost around 25 percent less than Tier 2.
How to Determine Pricing
Keowen said that a good way to determine pricing is to look at the kinds of sponsor packages you have sold in the past and the types of businesses you have sold to. Historical data on leads generated or the number of downloads for the prior year’s app can increase the value of a package, and data on how many attendees will be reached can also determine pricing. For large events, you may want to use a price per number of attendees the message reaches, for example, $50, $100, and sometimes up to $1,000 per thousand attendees for one type of app advertising, or more for targeted push notifications that bring attendees to a particular event.
Because ads can rotate, the pool of available advertising is larger than in a traditional paper program, and prices-per-appearances can make banner ads affordable to a wider pool of available sponsors.
Keowen suggests that event planners talk to CVBs and Chambers of Commerce to find local businesses interested in reaching their attendees, and says they may also be able to provide information on typical sponsorship pricing for that area of the country.
