If you follow this blog you know that Speaker Sponsor specializes in small business sponsorship for niche events. While all the other sponsorship agencies target big corporate sponsors, we have found our niche in the over 125 million small to medium sized businesses in the world, instead of the under 50,000 large corporations. That’s only a rough estimate based on D&B data and other resources. But you get the point. There is much more opportunity in small business sponsorship, especially for speakers and artists.

With the explosion of niche markets of all kinds, small business sponsorship is a goldmine for speakers. I’ve noticed that a lot of speakers tend to gravitate towards general topics, like leadership and customer service. That’s great if you’re only looking to be hired by corporations and organizations who give you a paycheck for speaking on that topic.

But if you want to try something new as a speaker and create your own speaking career without having to wait around for a meeting planner to call you, consider creating your own niche events and finding small business sponsors to fund it. Here are two examples of performers who forged their own path and created their own successful niche events.

If you watch Shark Tank perhaps you’ve heard of Ten Thirty One Productions. This is their simple logline: “We are an entertainment company that creates, owns and produces live attractions in the horror genre”. Period. They don’t put on job fairs, weddings, birthday parties, or conferences. They don’t do comedy, westerns or action. Just horror. Not everyone is a horror fan. But you can bet that those people who are are die hard fans. No pun intended.

Mark Cuban believes that live events, especially niche events, are going to be the wave of the future. He believed in it so much that he sunk 2 million dollars of his own money into Ten Thirty One Productions, making it one of the largest Shark Tank deals ever. Founder and producer, Melissa Carbone, spent years producing live events, but settled on her niche in the horror genre and stuck with it.

Ten Thirty One started with the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, and has now expanded to include Ghost Ship and the Great Horror Campout, all in keeping with the live, interactive horror theme that have become known for.

And on the total opposite end of the spectrum is a company called Kinderwise, a live, interactive kids musical company which was founded by Nancy and Joe Francis. They both drew on their experience in the entertainment industry to create entertainment that kids (toddlers to age 8) would want to see and be a part of, that would also teach them life lessons without being preachy. The lessons are seemlessly woven into the extravagant musical productions, so kids learn without even knowing they are learning.

Both Ten Thirty One Productions and Kinderwise focus on a narrow niche audience, and they are both booked solid. So obviously niche events work.

Speaker Sponsor is a big advocate of using targeted niche audiences to get your message out, and become a trusted resource for small business sponsors, who want to reach those audiences. If you’re a speaker who wants to learn how to create your own niche events that will draw sponsors, check out our unique online sponsorship course.

 

 


One Response to “Small Business Sponsorship for Niche Events”

  1. Janet Barclay says:

    This is an intriguing idea. If companies are willing to sponsor bloggers, why not speakers?


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