Apr 20, 2013

Sponsorship Plan

 

Welcome!

Thank you for considering sponsoring SQL Saturday – Orange County on April 20th in Huntington Beach, CA.  In 2013, we will be hosting our 4th Annual SQL Saturday in Orange County and we continue to grow the event and our community every year.  In 2012 we had 275+ attendees and we are shooting for over 300 attendees this year. 

Event Overview

SQLSaturday #201 (#sqlsatOC) is a one day free learning event focused on SQL Server that is being organized by the SQL Server User Groups of Southern California and hosted by Golden West College. We plan to host more than approximately 300 database professionals, plus approximately 45 speakers and volunteers at the event. Details of the event can be found at www.sqlsaturday.com/201/eventhome.aspx.  

This is our 4th annual SQL Saturday in Orange County.  We have consistently grown the attendance of the event every year with our largest event of over 275 attendees last year.  With our consistent growth of the event and the SQL Server network in the Orange County area we are projecting that we will have close to 300 attendees this year.  Our attendees include SQL Server professional from all types of companies and job descriptions including DBAs, Database Developers, Application Developers and Business Intelligence Developers.

How Much Does It Cost To Be a Sponsor?

Sponsorship ranges from $500 to $1250 depending on the package you select, and we’re always willing to discuss custom solutions to meet your needs.

• Bronze Sponsorship. $500 prepaid. See Grid Below
• Silver Sponsorship. $750 prepaid. See Grid Below
• Gold Sponsorship. $1250 prepaid. See Grid Below

Sponsorship Levels
Benefits	Gold	Silver	Bronze		Raffle
One guaranteed vendor speaking session in the schedule (* Session will be identified as a Sponsor session)	X
One email message to all opt-in event attendees sent before or after event.	X
Email List of attendees who opted-in to receive messages from sponsors.	X
Sponsor's table in exhibition area, including two chairs & power.	X	X
Include sponsor-provided DVD and/or brochure in attendee packet.	X	X	X
Event raffle box for capture of raffle tickets (* includes name and email address)	X	X	X
Name and Logo included in “Thank You” email to ALL attendees	X	X	X		X
Logo & URL shown in printed event guide.	X	X	X		X
Cost
Raffle Prize to be awarded at the end of the day with a value of at least $100	X	X	X		X
Prepaid Sponsorship	$ 1,250	$ 750	$ 500		$100

All fees must be paid in advance. To register as a sponsor just visit www.sqlsaturday.com and fill out our sponsorship registration form. We’ll email you an invoice that can be paid via credit card or check.

The Raffle – Your Key to Success!

The biggest challenge with community events is capturing contact information for follow ups. Few attendees will have business cards, and having them hand write their info often leads to a 30% or higher loss due to inability to read what they wrote! We provide attendees with a set of pre-printed raffle tickets (see below) that will contain their name and email address; they are then able to put these tickets into the raffle box at each sponsor table to try to win a prize. This gives you 100% readability and 0% loss! It is also more effective than any other technique we’ve seen for trying to capture contact information and that includes scanning their name badge.

 

Because we want you to be successful all of our sponsorship levels include the requirement that you provide a prize of at least $100 in value, and that you provide a full color 8-1/2 x 11 flyers that highlights the prize(s) you are providing for the raffle.

We provide the raffle box. We will have one table for all absentee vendors placed in the same areas with our onsite vendors. Raffle ticket collection will proceed through the end of the day. If someone from your team is present we’ll ask them to draw the winning ticket, otherwise we’ll draw the ticket. Attendees must be present to win. If there is a physical prize we’ll give it to them, otherwise we’ll forward you their contact information for you to follow up with (for license keys, etc).

After the event we will mail you all the raffle tickets from your box. There may be duplicates; depending on how exciting your prize is attendees may contribute more than one ticket to your box – but that’s a good thing, they are willing to provide you their contact information in return for the chance to win.

Our Goals

• Provide a first class training experience for our attendees. Even though it will be free, we are confident this will be as good as or better than a similar commercial event.
• Host over 300 database professionals, and continue to build a community for SQL Server users in the Southern California area.
• Provide a great networking experience for SQL Server professionals, vendors, and employers.
• Build our speaker pool. We’ve worked hard to get high quality speakers for the event and are trying to recruit new ones all the time.
• Build relationships with sponsors. The Southern California User Groups and SQLSaturday is funded entirely through donations and we hope that you’ll see this event as a good venue for highlighting your products, services, or just as a good place to look for SQL talent.

Where does the money go?

 The event is FREE for all attendees (We are going to offer a donation option for attendees), but there are still very real costs involved. Printing, advertising, breakfast, lunch, signs, and more! We are open to discussion on custom packages to meet your needs but we are unable to totally substitute software or other trade items for the base cash value listed.

All fees must be paid in advance. To sponsor our event visit the sponsor page at http://www.sqlsaturday.com/201/sponsors.aspx and fill out the short form about your company. We’ll follow up by phone or email to review everything, and then we’ll provide a secure link so that you can pay using credit card. Payment can also be arranged via check.

Event Logistics

We’ll open the doors to sponsors at 7:30 am. Silver and Gold Sponsors will be provided with a table and two chairs, and limited access to 110v power (please let us know what you need in advance). Tables will be located in the same area as registration and breakfast to make it easy for attendees to stop by your table. We encourage sponsors to remain on site through at least lunch and if possible to have a representative present at the end of the day to present your prize at the end of day raffle. 

Lunch will be provided to sponsors that have registered. Please have everyone from your team that will be attending register at www.sqlsaturday.com so that we can have enough food available.

Advertising and Marketing

Our biggest effort and the one we expect to be most productive will be advertising to the combined mailing list of the Southern California SQL Server Users Group members and those that registered for any of the SQLSaturday events, a combined total of more than 1,500 people. We’ll be emailing them biweekly to update them on the progress of the event, sessions submitted, and other details, as well as remind them to register and to forward information about the event to their friends and peers.

We do have other avenues for advertising that we plan to use:

• Meetings and mailings to the members of all the SQL Server Users Groups within driving distance. These include the Los Angeles, CA (www.sql.la), Orange County, CA (www.sqloc.com) , and the San Diego, CA (www.sdsqlug.org) User Group

• We will also reach out to the Southwest Developer Community as well to help promote the event.

• Updates posted on the Southern California SQL User Group Sites

• An active social media campaign leveraging Twitter, FaceBook and bloggers.

• Announcements via the SQLServerCentral and PASS newsletters.

• We also expect to reach more new people via our sponsors – don’t miss out on the opportunity to alert your contact list to let them know about your participation!

Contact Us

We hope you’ll support this event! Please contact us at sqlsaturday201@sqlsaturday.com if you have any questions.