Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear “our association’s event sponsors and exhibitors want attendee email addresses, however, our policy is to not share email addresses.”

The other scenario is that the association provides email addresses only for attendees who opt-in. Event sponsors and exhibitors wonder why they are not receiving email addresses for many of the attendees.

What to do?

One strategy is to offer email addresses to top-tier sponsors only. There are 2 advantages:

(1) LOWER QUANTITY: Members/attendees will not receive too many email messages.

(2) HIGHER QUALITY: Talk one-on-one with these sponsors about the value of providing educational information to members, not sales pitches and product information. These sponsor companies will be positioned as thought leaders (that can lead to new customers/clients). And, because there is greater value for the companies, sponsor fees can be higher.

This is a win-win-win:

• Sponsors appreciate support from the association in meeting their goals.
• Members receive useful information from sponsors.
• The association has satisfied sponsors and members.