Sponsorship levels have been around for as long as tradeshows and I think it’s time for a change. I went to a conference a few months ago that had two Silver Sponsors. Apparently they didn’t sell the Gold or Platinum levels but two companies bought Silver levels and so that’s what they had. Except it looked a bit odd, and I overheard an attendee actually wonder aloud about whey there were two Silver sponsors and nothing else.

I see the reasoning. On paper and in theory the more a sponsor pays, the more exposure they get before, during and after the show. But it’s been a real struggle for us to differentiate all the different levels and show the differences in value to potential sponsors between all the levels. Often times we’d be in meetings with companies who, when faced with the myriad of choices, became indecisive because they had “paralysis by analysis” trying to decide which level to take. Then, once the decision was made, they wanted to pick and choose which items to take, which to leave out and which to substitute. (“We don’t need the banner outside meeting room 312 but we’d really like the dedicated email from this other sponsor level.”)

By the time we were done, the sponsorship didn’t look anything like the original level and was completely custom. That’s fine – most of the time the sponsorship levels are simply a starting point for the conversation and we want the sponsor to have the things that are most valuable to them in the package. But the process has been tedious and frustrating for both parties.

So I decided to totally revamp our sponsorships for 2008 for all of our events. There will be just two sponsorship levels – “Event Sponsor” and “Title Sponsor.” The event sponsors get branding and logos and exposure everywhere for one set price and the “Title Sponsor”, (at a much higher price) actually has their company name embedded into the show name and logo (“New Media Expo presented by ABC Company”). I’m hoping the simpler choice will allow the process to move faster. I’ll keep you updated.