EVENTive Entrepreneurs · 2025-03-21 · 6 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
12 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This episode provides a practical framework for sponsorship conversations that move beyond generic pitches. Sarah Brush, drawing from her current work securing 100+ sponsors for a June event, walks through five question categories designed to uncover sponsor motivations, measure alignment, and build customized packages that work. The first set focuses on understanding their annual marketing goals, ideal customer profile, and past sponsorship experiences. The strategy alignment section explores which activations and branding opportunities matter most to them and what audience engagement challenges they face. The ROI section digs into their success metrics, desired outcomes, measurement approaches, and integration of marketing assets. Finally, the budget and decision-making section identifies key stakeholders, budget determination process, what would trigger a "hell yes," and whether they'd consider multi-event partnerships. Rather than asking all questions, the point is understanding their thinking so you can customize packages and ensure mutual value. This approach transforms sponsorships from transactional to strategic partnerships where both parties see clear returns.
Ask about their key marketing and brand awareness goals, ideal customer profile, which industries or audience segments they focus on, past sponsorship experiences, and how they measure sponsorship success. These questions reveal whether the event aligns with their strategy.
First ask what types of activations and branding opportunities are most valuable to them, what benefits would excite them, and what challenges they face reaching their target audience. Then tailor or trade out package items based on their answers rather than offering one-size-fits-all options.
Ask what key metrics matter most to them, what specific outcome they want from sponsorship, how they'll measure success, what marketing assets they want integrated, and crucially - ask what you can do to help them achieve their desired outcome.
Ask who the key stakeholders are in their sponsorship decisions to ensure you're engaging the right decision-makers, not just gatekeepers or middle managers without budget authority.
Yes, but primarily with established brand partners you've vetted for long-term alignment. For new sponsors, test the relationship with a single event first before proposing multi-event packages that spread investment over time.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is a six-minute recitation of generic discovery questions any moderately experienced sales or events professional would already know. There are no novel claims, no frameworks, and almost no analysis - just a list read aloud with minimal elaboration.
What are your key marketing and brand awareness goals for this year? Who is your ideal customer and how do you currently reach them?
what challenges do you currently face in reaching and engaging your target audience
Every question listed is a standard B2B sales discovery question repurposed for sponsorship - nothing counterintuitive, contrarian, or first-principles. The content could be found verbatim in any basic sponsorship sales guide.
what key metrics are most important for you when evaluating event sponsorship?
what is the outcome you want to achieve from the sponsorship?
This is a solo host episode with no guest. The host claims two decades of experience and mentions actively working a large sponsorship pipeline, but the content delivered does not demonstrate deep or unusual practitioner knowledge.
I am deep into sponsorship right now with my full-time job that I work at. We are having a big event come up in June.
I am your host and event mentor, Sarah Brush, event professional for over two decades.
The only concrete detail in the entire episode is a vague reference to '100 plus sponsors' - no company names, no dollar figures, no outcome data, no case studies, and no examples of what actually worked or failed in real sponsorships.
we are working on having 100 plus sponsors sign up right now
a lot of these are similar questions. You're not going to ask them all of these, but it gives you an idea of just different ways that you can word things
This is an uninterrupted solo monologue with no guest, no follow-up questions, no tension, and no pushback - the format precludes any conversational craft whatsoever, and the host's own framing adds almost no analytical depth beyond introducing each list item.
Here are some questions and I have them in some different categories.
Again, there are so many other questions you can ask, but I hope this gives you some ideas
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode, I share questions to ask potential sponsors to help understand their goals and decision making. Let's connect! Sarah Brush
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Thanks for joining the Eventive Entrepreneurs podcast. I'm your host and event mentor, Sarah Brush, event professional for over two decades. My goal for this podcast is to share how events and sponsorships can help you build community, make an impact and grow your business and have lots of fun while doing it. By the way, don't forget to check the episode notes for valuable event resources exclusively for you.
I appreciate you spending this time with me. Let's get this party started. Hello, everyone. Thanks for being here for the podcast today.
I want to share about some specific questions that you can ask potential sponsors to really understand their goals, their strategy, how they are analyzing the value of your event and the return on investment. I am deep into sponsorship right now with my full-time job that I work at. We are having a big event come up in June. And so we are working on having 100 plus sponsors sign up right now And so I having tons of conversation with sponsors And it very top of mind So I wanted to bring that to you Let get right into it Here are some questions and I have them in some different categories.
The first one is understanding their goals and audience. Here's five questions you can consider asking. What are your key marketing and brand awareness goals for this year? Who is your ideal customer and how do you currently reach them?
That was one and two. Number three, what industries or audience segments are you most focused on engaging? Number four is, have you sponsored similar events before? If so, what worked well or what didn't?
And number five, how do you measure the success of a sponsorship opportunity? Again, it's so important to understand their goals and audience to make sure that this event is a good fit for them. And the more you understand, the more you can help them make the sponsorship a success for both of you. The next section is aligning sponsorship with their strategy.
So here's three different questions you could ask. What types of activations or branding opportunities are the most valuable to your company? What benefits would make you excited in a customized sponsorship package tailored to your specific needs? The next one is what challenges do you currently face in reaching and engaging your target audience So you could do many versions of these questions but really understanding the strategy that their business has right now and what type of benefits are going to help them follow that strategy, achieve their goals for the event, and understand what is the most beneficial things that you can put in a custom package for them, or can you trade things out that you have in a current package because it doesn't make as much sense for something else that you could offer them.
The next category is exploring value and return on investment. Here is a couple questions there. Number one, what key metrics are most important for you when evaluating event sponsorship? Number two, what is the outcome you want to achieve from the sponsorship?
Number three, how are you going to measure the success of the sponsorship? Number four, are there specific marketing assets or messaging you'd like to integrate into the sponsorship? And number five, how can we help you create the outcome you want? Now, a lot of these are similar questions.
You're not going to ask them all of these, but it gives you an idea of just different ways that you can word things and just in general, just understanding how are they going to measure the success of the sponsorship? And finally, budget and decision-making process. Here are a couple of questions. Number one, who are the key stakeholders involved in your sponsorship decisions?
This will help you understand if you're talking to the right people. Number two how do you determine your budget investment Number three what would stand out to you that would make it a hell yes to sponsor And I feel weird saying hell yes because I never swear but you want to know if they are 100% on board and what you can do to make that happen. And then finally, would you be open to a multi-event or long-term sponsorship opportunity? Now, this might not be the right question for everybody.
If this is a new company that you're talking to and you're not super clear and if the brands are going to align in the long term, then you might want to test it out for a one event sponsorship. But if this is somebody that you've been wanting to partner with for a really long time and you finally got connected with them, if that's something that you could do longer term with them, that could be really exciting. And maybe you could spread out their investment over multiple events.
So just an idea there. And again, there are so many other questions you can ask, but I hope this gives you some ideas of just how to understand your sponsor's decision-making better, understand their goals. All of these things are going to help you to partner with the right sponsors and for them to feel like it's the right decision for them as well. Thanks for listening.
I'll catch you on the next episode. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I know your time is valuable and I appreciate it that you spent it with me.
If you are enjoying this podcast, I would love, love if you can rate it five stars and write a review. This helps us get the podcast out to more people. And if you want to connect, I am on Instagram at event of brush, and I would love to hear from you. Thanks and have a great day.
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