Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Selling Sponsorships For Webinars & Newletters

Posted by wendy on 4/24/2009 at 12:05 PM ET 500 Points
I host a monthly webinar learning session for small biz. I charge $55 per webinar. I started the series in Jan and is going well. I have had many repeat attendees and received great feedback. I emarket to 5,000 people in a very targeted audience. I'm thinking about developing sponsorship packages to sell. Opportunity for sponsorship: Webinar promotion, newsletters and my website. Thoughts on if this is a good idea, price points & smart ways to develop the sponsorship packages.
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  • Posted on 4/24/2009 at 12:29 PM Accepted
    Wendy,

    Sponsors generally evaluate things like this on a cost-per-thousand basis, so if you can deliver, say, 1,000 high-quality target audience impressions for them, they might pay $100. (That's an example with a CPM of $100.)

    Your problem could be that your audience is too small right now for the sponsors to be interested. If they're only going to reach 35 people, for example, it may not be worth the time it will take them to deal with the whole issue.

    The other consideration is whether your market niche is particularly attractive to a few potential sponsors that you could really charge a lot for access to that community. Is this a hard-to-reach audience for someone who wants to deliver a message to them? If so, and if you can deliver that niche audience to the sponsor, then you can charge a really high CPM and monetize your access to the audience.

    BTW, congratulations on your success with the webinar series. It's not easy to build a following and create a webinar business from scratch.
  • Posted by wendy on 4/24/2009 at 12:47 PM Author
    I do target a niche segment. It is local and industry specific. I think selling sponsorships is viable if I can structure "packages" in the right way. I am wondering if my return would be better if I offer my webinar seats for free and generate revenue through sponsorships. Right now, my goal would be to generate about 5k per month. Is that unrealistic?
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 4/24/2009 at 1:03 PM Accepted
    Wendy,
    I suggest sponsors who might broaden your reach, offer your seminar to their own customer list, or be able to sell their own products to your customers via sponsoring a seminar.

  • Posted by Linda Whitehead on 4/24/2009 at 1:17 PM Accepted
    Congratulations on your success in building an audience for webinars that people are willing to pay for! Most are free and there is a lot of competition for people's time out there.

    You might want to consider co-branding your seminars. If you can find the right sponsorship partners who are interested in marketing to your audience, I think this is very viable. Many of the webinars I am watching lately have at least 3 companies participating. All get the opportunity to promote their product, but you have to make sure that what they are selling works in synergy with your messaging and that their participation makes sense to the audience.
    You would still be the headliner for the webinar, and the other participating companies would clearly be sponsor partners. This opens up opportunities for them to promote the webinars to their clients and on their sites and that should be part of your sponsorship agreement. You may end up not having to charge for the webinars and potentially increasing your audience.

    Linda Whitehead
    Zuz Marketing
  • Posted by wendy on 4/24/2009 at 1:19 PM Author
    The way I have my webinars structured now is I partner with an expert. Example: E-Marketing expert. I market the webinar starting 3-4 weeks prior to the scheduled date. I use my emarketing service to send out the invitation/registration correspondence. The invitation features title, photo, description of the webinar and how to register. I send out 5-6 emails leading up to the event. In addition to the emarketing campaign, I have 3 pages on my website: 1) Expert Bio 2) Webinar Details 3) Registration all pages that are also accessible through the emails and on my homepage. Then, we have the webinar, which is 100% educational. After the webinar, the expert will send me an offer, promotion or some sort of call to action that I then send out to my audience to help drive business to them. So, I am already doing that part. I have not had success in my experts sharing their email lists with me. I might not be asking in the right way..
  • Posted by wendy on 4/24/2009 at 1:25 PM Author
    Linda, I have been trying to look at other webinars that are doing exactly what you are talking about. Can you give me an example? I agree with what you are saying. I'd like to offer up my webinars for free because that will beef up my attendance and offer more exposure for my potential sponsors. I'm still stuck on price points..
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/24/2009 at 1:46 PM Member
    Can you somehow "franchise" this to the same niche industry/different location?

    Instead of giving your seats for free, approach local potential sponsors and gift them a certain number of seats for them to give out as gifts. Let them benefit before you try to get them to give you money.
  • Posted by Linda Whitehead on 4/24/2009 at 6:48 PM Accepted
    Wendy I just saw 1 yesterday called "Effective Methodologies to Leverage Social Media & Web 2.0 Platforms in your Marketing and Sales". It was put on by the American Marketing Association, but it was sponsored by Aquent. The speaker Nathan Egan was also promoting his business. Nathan naturally integrated Aquent into the presentation a number of times, and used them as a case study example. They are supposed to send me a link to the presentation, if you email me directly I can send it to you if and when I receive it.
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