My first WordCamp, WordCamp Kuala Lumpur 2017, left a lasting impression on me. Held in an expensive hotel in downtown KL, WCKL featured memorable talks and the meeting of new and old friends. At WordCamp Kuala Lumpur, I discovered new brands. I met established brands like GoDaddy and BlueHost for the very first time.
I learned about Jerry and his blog, WebHostingSecretsRevealed, Divi Framework, and RunCloud.
RunCloud was just launched in 2017, and sponsoring WordCamp Kuala Lumpur that year became pivotal for them. It gave them exposure and feedback from the vibrant WordPress community. RunCloud has grown from strength to strength and is one of the top recommendations in various WordPress-focused Facebook Groups when developers look for a Cloud Control Panel for their agency needs.
Like RunCloud, your brand can benefit from sponsoring a WordCamp near you. Interested to find out how? Perhaps you have been frustrated with your ROI from sponsoring. Read on as we unfold how to sponsor WordCamps the right way.
The Best Way to Sponsor a WordCamp for the Maximum Returns
Can sponsoring a WordCamp work for you? Definitely. But how about sponsors who don’t see a return on investment? Well, it’s subjective. Even with the right crowd, sponsoring a WordCamp (or any other event) might not give you an ROI. So, what can you do to stand out?
At one of our WordCamp Malaysia 2023 Sponsor Booths
Engagement Matters
I’ve been to multiple WordCamps in various roles as an attendee, volunteer, and organizer, and I noticed that engagement matters. You should have enough staff to engage the attendees. You can always ask the organizing team if you can have more seats at your table. Or have some staff stand around the booth to engage with others.
While swag is essential, how you tie it into your marketing activities matters, too. The swag must be valuable enough for attendees (I took home four water bottles and six T-shirts from WordCamp Asia 2023). However, you don’t want to leave it on the table for everyone to take without engaging your team.
Consider Viral Marketing
Beyond T-shirts, keychains, and tumblers, could you give away free one-year or lifetime licenses (for plugins and software) or one year of free hosting (for hosting companies)? If lifetime is too hard, how about a free one-year license followed by a locked-in lifetime discount?
While that might seem excessive, what we want to do is to run a viral marketing campaign that creates the word-of-mouth effect long after the event. Giving out a free one-year license will allow attendees to try out your offering.
SiteGround grew by giving away free accounts early on at the various WordCamps it sponsored. Now, it is one of the most prominent hosting players globally.
No-Booth Tiers Might be a Good Idea
How about if you need more resources? Sponsoring a WordCamp is more than just the cost of the booth. You must secure your flight tickets and hotel and order and pack your swag before taking a long, arduous journey to a distant part of the world.
The time and effort cost might be substantial at times. For smaller outfits, this also means sacrificing resources to improve the product or marketing.
Rather than spending the time, energy, and finances to sponsor a distant WordCamp, you can consider sponsoring WordCamps that don’t require you to be present, like WordCamp Asia 2025 or WordCamp Malaysia 2024, which has no-booth sponsorship tiers.
While No-Booth tiers are affordable, they result in less engagement. However, you can translate your cost savings into engagement by being creative. Consider creating promotional cards with unique coupon codes that give the attendees a free one-year license if they redeem from a specific URL of your choice.
You can then engage the attendees when they visit your URL. You should include explainer videos, screenshots, and a feedback form. You can also do a viral giveaway program using online tools like Viral-Loops and Vyper.
It all depends on your creativity. Ultimately, we want to create a viral marketing effect for your brand.
Conclusion
WordCamps are unique places with a good mix of WordPress users and professionals. To succeed as a WordCamp sponsor, you need more than just a nice booth. Engage and leave a lasting impression with attendees; word-of-mouth marketing will kick in your favor over time.
Disclaimer: This post was originally written by me for WordCamp Malaysia 2024 (I led WordCamp Malaysia 2024) and I have rewritten portions of it to make it more relevant to the general audience
