Sponsoring is an often-overlooked strategy when it comes to maximizing offline marketing, likely because most business owners don’t know where to start.

I teach the students in my Impact Academy a two-step process that makes it simple.

First, determine the who and the where. Who are you trying to reach? Where do they hang out?

For example, people sponsor my annual three-day live event and all of them spend a significant amount of money to do so.

Why?

It’s a room full of their ideal clients, so that makes it incredibly worth it to them–even if it means taking three full days out of their busy work and family schedule.

I myself was recently a speaker-sponsor at an event in New York, where I spoke but also had a table. I used my talk and my table to promote my live event and I came away with eleven registrations for it.

Worth it, don’t you think? Absolutely.

So, where can you find opportunities for sponsorship?

Look for special or annual community events, networking events, newsletters or blogs, fundraisers, non-profits, and even websites to start with.

Second, get clear on your objectives. It’s a good rule of thumb to only invest in sponsorships that achieve at least a handful of the following goals:

• It builds your database with qualified prospects
• It provides stellar networking/relationship building opportunities
• It gets you in front of your target market
• It helps to increase loyalty in your brand
• It increases direct sales
• It provides an opportunity for on-site sales
• It gives you a platform for a new product or program launch
• It allows you to showcase, demonstrate or test your products or expertise
• It allows you to gather valuable research
• It helps to create strategic partnerships

The businesses that sponsor my live event benefit from many of above, because they get to promote their services with a tabletop booth. Additionally, we allow only one sponsor per industry so they aren’t competing, they get to talk about their business from the stage, they have the opportunity to provide a special offer, they receive an endorsement from me as well as complimentary registrations for guests, their logo is placed on our website and in the e-zine, and they get an ad placed in the event binder.

If you can see how sweet perks like this could grow your business and client base, start seeking out sponsorship opportunities today using these easy tips.