Welcome to the 10th, and a slightly different version of Revenews.

🤝 This week we look at how to sell sponsorships at events, with ex-Morning Brew, current Payload, sales-legend Brian D’Erario.

Intro’s that put Bruce Buffer to shame aside, lets dive in! 🚀

1. How do you use events to build pipeline

2. Recommended listening

3. What has The Block been up to?

4. Inbox Banter

^{How to start sales conversations at events}

**I had an awesome chat with Brian this week, I’ve summarised what he said here, trying to boil it down to the most useful nuggets, with his approval of course.

👋 Brian, introduce yourself and your experience with newsletters…

My career started at the Wall Street Journal, selling digital and print advertising to financial service companies. Back then, the WSJ just saw newsletters as a tool to drive clicks on site (oh how times have changed). They’ve now partially pivoted to become more newsletter centric. The newsletter-penny dropped for me when a colleague left the WSJ, a prestigious outfit, to join the Morning Brew, some weird newsletter start-up.

I soon followed suit, at Morning Brew I mainly focused on B2B clients, helped launch IT Brew and bagged the first ever summit sponsor. To satisfy entrepreneurial tendencies, I moved closer to the business-founding-epicentre, and joined Payload, as employee 6.

Payload is THE space industry newsletter, and it’s a rocketship in its own right. We 4x’ed YoY revenue in 2023 and have some good traction for next year. 

👂 I hear you get a lot of your sponsors from events, do tell…

Event sponsors, or any brand with paid presence, will be paying ten of thousands of dollars, sometimes over $100k to be there. I spend my time meeting new people, getting new subscribers, asking existing readers how they found us, and just generally boosting brand equity.

Getting lunch, or even a 5-minute conversation, is so much more valuable than 10 emails back-and-forth. We’re now planning our own events and cocktail receptions (conference after-parties), we don’t have $100k to drop on a booth, so we add value to the industry how we can.

I found an insightful read on the cost of booths here.

🎙️ What’s your ideal conversation to have..?

Make sure you’re talking to the right person, ideally the marketing manager, the person who booked the booth is usually perfect. If they’re not marketing, perhaps a sales rep, then ask for an introduction, or at least the name of the person you should contact.

A great way to naturally start a conversation on sponsorships is simply asking:

• “How’s the event going?” or…

• “What do you want to get out of this event?” 

Often I get a response like “We do it every year, not too sure if it works”. You can then ask:

• “What value do you see in the back of it?” or… 

• “How do you tie in digital alongside the event?”. 

Then you’re cooking with gas.

🤝 How do you transition from a nice conversation, to a tangible deal in the pipeline..?

It’s best to identify & understand a pain point. For example, the booths are ridiculously expensive, plus, brands don’t know how well they work. I can then position Payload as the solution. Booths can reach 5/10k industry people for $100k+, why not get in front of more, for longer, for less? With tracking too, it’s a no-brainer.

Make sure you connect with them in LinkedIn the same day, ASAP ideally. If the event is on a Wednesday, I like to wait until next Tuesday/Wednesday to follow up with more information. This lets them catch up on emails, decompress, and sift through the other post-event-follow-ups first. 

It often takes 6 or 7 months to close a deal, so patience remains a virtue, especially with bigger companies or cyclical marketing budgets. Of course, you can be in the right place at the right time, and close in a week, but don’t assume that’ll be the case.

Generally, bigger companies have bigger budgets, but don’t neglect the smaller outfits, especially in a growing or capital-flush industry.

It’s worthwhile asking people what they’re doing afterward, you can ask to go for dinner/drinks. At the very least you should build goodwill and leave trail of positivity with everyone you meet.

🔑 Do you have any more conversation prompts..?

When you see a booth/brand, stop, look them up in LinkedIn, check out recent news, acquisitions or contracts, and congratulate them. This proves you’re plugged into the industry and their company. 

Identify key companies and brush up on them, it’ll pay dividends.

📄 Do you do any additional prep..?

Yes (insert cheesy but true ‘failing to plan’ catchphrase), here’s what I do:

• Take 5 minutes to look for all the companies sponsoring or attending, research said companies/individuals.

• Big events will have lots of materials for you to find where contacts will be, such as drink receptions, booth locations, speeches, workshops, and so on.

• Be diligent on LinkedIn, look out for people attending, post about your attandance, slide into DMs to schedule a meet if possible. Bear in mind that marketers will generally be more available at events than salespeople, which is good for you!

🫴 What’s the best way to acquire contact details..?

Business cards are still a thing, at least in the Space industry, most people will walk away with a fat stack. Digital business cards are starting to catch on too.

Never assume that someone will contact you just because you’ve given them your details, always get theirs, so the ball is in your court. If they don’t have any form of card, add them on LinkedIn IMMEDIATELY. We all know names & memories are a fickle partnership, especially on busy days.

⚖️ Events cost a lot of money and time, is it all worth it..?

Yes, for me at least, but it depends. It costs $1.5k-$5k to attend an event, if I get a single $20k deal, that’s good ROI. The space industry is still very ‘handshakey’, so a lot of contracts are still won and lost at physical events.

The biggest factors to consider:

• Your average/minimum deal size

• Whether you’re B2B or B2C 

• Your industry norms/trends

You can try to predict how many leads/deals are possible to create, then do some rudimentary CPL maths.

If you’re bootstrapped, limit yourself to just the big events and make a conscious effort to extract as much value (revenue) from them as possible.

If you’re a serious B2B media company, you need to be at industry events, at worst for brand equity at best to generate revenue and build relationships.

🧐 Recommended Reading Listening

Newsletters aren’t the only medium for learning about newsletters.

Matt McGarry’s Newsletter Operator podcast has taught me a thing or 2 over it’s short history. It focuses on successful newsletter founders and how they grew to where they are.

Here’s the link to it on Spotify too.

📰 Newsletter News

🤝 The Block has been valued at $70m, how & why?

📈 Insider is called Business Insider (again), read why.

💵 How much brands are willing to pay influencers, insightful read.

📊 Great watch on improving sponsorships strategy.

👏 Black Friday Deals for newsletter creators

🤣 Inbox Banter

I received an email today from the owner of a German sausage processing plant, he said I could have it for only €1000.

I agreed and wired him the money. What’s the wurst that could happen?