[Yapc-na-organizers] Link to YAPC 2007 sponsorship document

[Pete Krawczyk]

Subject: Re: [Yapc-na-organizers] Link to YAPC 2007 sponsorship document
From: Richard Dice <rdice at pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:29:18 -0400

}Re: staff a table at the job fair -- for a $100 Bronze sponsorship?  I think
}this is a waaay too low a price for a job fair table.

I will agree with this - we set a minimum of $250 in Chicago, and even 
that was a bit low, I think.  Companies will spend that much on a single 
ad in the Sunday paper - for a table at a conference with their 
prospective audience, they'll gladly pay at least that, especially if they 
get good leads out of it.

I would set the individual level at $100 and the bronze level at $250.

}Re: May 18th deadline - it's good to include something like this on the
}sheet, but in a practical sense you could find yourself receiving (or even
}soliciting) sponsorships right up to the day before the event.

We had a sponsor pay the day of the job fair for a table!  If you're going 
to have a deadline, make sure you put it as late as possible, and only 
phrase the deadline to indicate they can still sponsor after this date:

  "In order to be mentioned in our program and on the t-shirt, you must 
   become a sponsor by June 1st, 2007.  However, you will still be 
   entitled to several of the other benefits listed above."

Our t-shirts went to press with two weeks to go and our program and 
sponsor list was sent to print six days before the conference started.  
Both were picked up the Friday before the conference started.  I can't 
speak highly enough about the company I had print the programs, but 
unfortunately, the owner retired and the company closed.

}Re: contact email address -- you've got the yapchouston.org domain... maybe
}you could set yourself up an @yapchouston.org email address to go along with
}this?

People respond much better to this, as well as to conference "organizers".  
Make sure your .sig and introductory paragraph reflect this.  They want to 
think they're dealing with the most important people at the conference.

}Sometimes, people want to sponsor an _aspect_ of the conference.

This is how ValueClick sponsorship came about - they sponsored Damian!  
LiveText sponsored bags, Google sponsored the T-shirts, etc.  Companies 
really like it when they know exactly what their money will be spent on.

-Pete K
-- 
Pete Krawczyk
  petek at bsod dot net