Chris Baylis is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Sponsorship Collective.
After spending several years in the field as a sponsorship professional and consultant, Chris now spends his time working with clients to help them understand their audiences, build activations that sponsors want, apply market values to their assets and build strategies that drive sales.
Chris studied at Trent University and Mohawk College before he began his sales career in high tech and insurance. After several years in the sales industry, Chris decided to make the move to sponsorship.
The reason for Chris was simple:
“Sponsorship means you have to be an expert in sales, marketing, experiential, lead generation, account management and strategy. This challenging blend of skills is what makes sponsorship so fascinating but also incredibly complicated.”
Chris has been active in the sponsorship industry since 2007 selling sponsorship for a variety of organisations and every type of sponsorship opportunity as an employee, department leader, board member, consultant and volunteer.
After five years as a consultant with international consulting firm IFC out of London, England Chris decided to launch what is now The Sponsorship Collective. And the rest is history.
And it all began with a blog.
The problem, according to Chris, is that there was simply no information about best practice sponsorship when he began in the industry. Everyone was guarding their secrets and there was nothing by way of blogs, publications, or networking groups. And this is exactly what Chris decided to change.
When it was first launched, the goal of the blog was simple: to share sponsorship best practice with the world. Today, The Sponsorship Collective has been featured in countless publications, podcasts, websites, blogs, magazines, webinars and books. The Sponsorship Collective has also produced hundreds of YouTube videos, webinars and hundreds of thousands of words on the blog (at last count, enough to fill five business books on the topic).
In addition to speaking at conferences and stages across North America, a sample of publications featuring Chris Baylis include in Hopin, Blackbaud, several articles and references in Eventbrite, Inside Sponsorship, Cause Talk Radio, CSAE, The Partnership Conference and The Selling Show to name only a few.
Sponsorship is, at its heart, a marketing practice and marketing is nothing without audience experience as the main focus.
This is exactly how Chris thinks of sponsorship.
“Everything has to start with audience data and experiences focused on creating value for audiences. Most people think of sponsorship as simple logo placement, which could not be further from the truth” says Chris.
Because of Chris’ focus, The Sponsorship Collective takes an “audience first” approach to sponsorship. Starting with audience data, then moving to creating engaging activations before moving to valuation, sales material and then a “discovery based” approach to sales.
Here is a sample of the most recent articles written by Chris:
Before you dive in, if you are interested in festival sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for festivals” series: How to Plan a Festival the Complete Guide to Starting Growing and Perfecting Your Festival Festival Activations to Make Your Next Event...
Every year, as the current year is about to end and a new one is underway, you sit down with other decision-makers in your company or organization and plan for the next 365 days (give or take). If part of that planning involves sponsorship, then you may wonder when...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD91StP6dfc It doesn’t matter so much whether you’ve earned $1,000 in sponsorship dollars or $10 million, you’ve heard an objection before. I know I have, and if you’re reading this, then maybe those objections are becoming too...
Festival activities do more than fill space; they drive event engagement, shape the attendee experience, and create tangible value for sponsors. The most effective festival activities are intentionally designed to spark participation, encourage sharing, and deliver...
Before you dive in, if you are interested in festival sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for festivals” series: How to Plan a Festival the Complete Guide to Starting Growing and Perfecting Your Festival What Activities to Have at Your Festival How...
If there’s one lesson that I hope to impart to you when reading this blog, it’s that good audience data is the foundation of a successful sponsorship program. The problem though is that a lot of sponsorship seekers, especially those doing this for the first time, have...
Before you dive in, if you are interested in festival sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for festivals” series: Festival Activations to Make Your Next Event Amazing What Activities to Have at Your Festival How to Promote a Festival: Event...
The time will come in your sponsorship program where you have to pick up the phone or shoot an email to a representative at the company you’d like to sponsor you. So many times, sponsorship seekers tell me about getting held up at this critical point in the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH9k456PGig When you think of your sponsors, what do you call them? If the answer is, “well, Chris, I call my sponsors…sponsors, duh,” then this article is for you. I know what you think I’m going to say. You should refer to your...
I’m sure everyone has a horror story or two about buying a car, right? Pushy salespeople, mountains of paperwork, leases that sound good until you actually have to start paying them. If you’re like me and it’s been a while since you’ve bought a car, then you can write...