Sponsorship

20 February 2023

Budget, Social

Putting money into an organization's hands in exchange for visible branding to those who attend that organization's events or website.

Also Known As: Conferences; User Groups; Technology Advocacy Groups (Java User Groups, IASA, INETA, etc)

Problem: Your company needs some brand recognition among the potential customer base (as identified by a target persona).

Context: The company wants to be seen as being active, and supportive, in the targeted developer community, without taking on too much in the way of time commitment or ownership.

Solution: Provide some money to an organization that is holding some kind of in-person event that will draw attendees from a community that meets the target persona.

Consequences: Sponsorship requires budget, and will likely require somebody from the DevRel team to act as liaison between the event and your Legal and Accounting teams. Accounting will want an invoice to pay against (and information about who they are paying, addresses, etc), and Legal will likely want to review any agreements to be signed. This can take longer than you expect, particularly if the event or group is new to your company and they want to see some due diligence beforehand.

Make sure your Social Media points out the sponsorship--this brings some additional attention to the organization/event and creates a more symbiotic relationship between the organization and the company.

Note that conference sponsorship does not prevent or assume having a Booth; where sponsorship flexes on Reach, the Booth focuses on interactivity.

Variants:

Ambassador Sponsorship. At times your team will find it difficult to be present at an event or user group, either because you lack the bandwidth or the event is simply not a high enough priority in your planning to justify the time. In these situations, it can be helpful to present the opportunity to one of your Ambassadors: by covering their travel and expenses ("T&E") to go speak at the event, you help build their brand while at the same time bringing an expert to that group without sending one of your own people. NOTE: When building a User Group Network, consider this a minimal level of support necessary to get the group(s) bootstrapped and running.

Tags: devrel patterns