I’ll start with a caveat: this is a flat out, unapologetic (but hopefully entertaining) pitch. That’s me in the photo below, the unapologetic pitcher.

As you know, Forum One is hosting the Online Community Unconference East in New York City on February 10th. The Unconference is an open space gathering of online community and social media professionals from the commercial and non profit sectors. We expect over 200 participants (our biggest east coast event yet).

A partial list of organizations coming includes AARP, Answers.com, Autodesk, Bloomberg, Cisco, Consumer Reports, Examiner.com, Google, HP, Huffington Post, IBM, iVillage / NBC, kgb, Microsoft, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Scotttrade and TripAdvisor (to name a few). Pretty great group, no?

The Pitch – 3 Reasons
We feel like our Unconference events represent one of the best sponsorship values for events around, for three main reasons:

1. Fantastic (but appropriate) Visibility
As a sponsor, you will receive the “normal” event perks – your logo on conference materials, acknowledgement at the event, a sponsor banner. The key to our sponsors’ success is that we don’t oversell our sponsorships, and we limit the number of service providers attending the event so that the ratio of practitioners to service providers is favorable (which also makes for a better attendee experience). You will also have an opportunity to address the full conference for 5 minutes shortly after lunch. In short: Limited competition for attention, you are free to participate as an attendee, and you get the events full attention shortly after lunch.

2. Good Value
Our packages start at $5k, with our premiere package at $10k. Many events with smaller, less qualified audiences charge twice that, and typically try to cram in as many sponsors in as possible.

3. Attendees are Senior Staff and Have Purchase Power / Influence
Forum One has been hosting online community and social media events for almost 10 years. Over the years, we have curated a very senior network of community practitioners and executives. Most of the attendees at our conferences have direct purchase influence, and many have purchase authority. Business *gets done* at our events between sponsors and attendees.

That’s it in a nutshell: great event, great visibility, solid value and an awesome attendee list.

I want to be clear about our intentions with sponsorship sales: sponsorship helps us continue to run these events at a modest profit, which ensures a sustainable business. By sponsoring, you help support the larger community of social media and online community professionals.

Thanks for listening to my pitch. I really do appreciate your time and attention.

If you are interested in discussing terms, please contact me and Chloe Caviness (our sales manager).

Now back to our regularly scheduled community programing