5 Tips to Sponsoring an Email Marketing Event 28th September, 2011

Sponsorship is a fantastic way for email marketers to stand out from their competitors. If done strategically, sponsorship can not only generate significant leads, but can also provide a platform to showcase expertise and present client testimonials. In such a small market, sponsorship can be one of the most cost-effective ways to differentiate an email service provider.

Sponsorship Options for Email Service Providers

There are a number of sponsorship opportunities for ESPs in a range of budgets. From large exhibitions such as Ad:Tech and Marketing Week’s Online Marketing Show to smaller intimate breakfast sessions with the DMA Email Marketing Council and online webinars, how can you be sure you are not only choosing the best sponsorship opportunity, but also making the most of it?

In order to help you leverage your potential opportunities, there are a few things to consider:

1. Do you even need to sponsor this event?

Sponsorship is a great way to access an audience and help build affiliation. However, there are other ways to do this through marketing and just simply by attending the event in question with a couple of good sales people who can work the room.

But if your competitors are also attending the same events, then sponsorship is a great way to stand out from the crowd.
Based on the audience you are targeting, options can include:

If the audience you are trying to reach is not familiar with your brand, I’d recommend exclusive sponsorship of the event ensuring that you also receive an opportunity to speak and present what you do best.
If you want to create loyalty with an audience who is familiar with you, then consider sponsoring an element of the event that you are trying to target and align new product launches.
To reposition your brand, look at alternative opportunities, such as sponsoring the photo booth or after party. This can help reposition an otherwise ‘dull’ brand as an engaging and approachable one.

2. How much?

Ensure you take into account everything that is required to make the most of any event that you sponsor. Your budget should not just include the cost of purchasing the sponsorship rights, but also any additional activation costs to make sure that your sponsorship is effective.

Activations can include:

Prizes or promotions on the day
Communications you want to send out to your current clients about your sponsorship
Secondary leverage options such as posters to promote your sponsorship
Follow up activity on those people you met through your sponsorship

3. Is your audience going to be there?

The best way to identify whether the audience you want to reach will be attending the event you wish to sponsor is to gather as much information about previous delegates. Although the lists won’t be identical, they should provide you with enough information on the level of delegate. Specifically ensure that the audience isn’t filled with organising staff and/or partners.

The second way to ensure that the audience you want to reach will be at the event is to invite them yourself. As a sponsor, you should ensure you receive a number of complimentary tickets to your sponsored event and co-ordinate those invitations with your sales team to set up an engagement programme. These invitations can also be used to further promote your sponsorship of the event helping to reinforce your affiliation with your current clients.

In some instances you can also request that the organiser invite specific brands you’d like to target – it never hurts to ask.

4. SHOUT about it

Sponsorship helps build fan loyalty with your brand and fans are people we all want on our side. If you aren’t telling people about your sponsorship then you aren’t getting the most out of the inherent rights that you’ve purchased – and best of all it doesn’t need to cost you a thing!

Depending on the sponsorship, it can and should be reflected in your client and prospect communications. These can include:

Email signatures
Social networks
Blogs
Email campaigns
Promotions
Your reception area
Giveaways
Website

5. Get them working for you!

Typically the event will have its own PR team who will be trying to promote the event you are sponsoring. Set up a meeting or at the very least send them your press kit so they can include your messaging whenever possible. Find out about their communication and marketing schedule and find ways of linking in with it. Typically providing a prize tends to lend itself well to being included with communications as the organisers also want to add value to their delegates.

Making sure that you really ‘work’ your sponsorship rights can add significant value over and above the rights that you have purchased with your sponsored event. Most of these tips can be done with little or no cost, but just make sure you have the resources to make your sponsorship truly work for you!

This blog was originally posted on the DMA Email Marketing Blog. For more email marketing articles, make sure to register here.

Email Newsletter Sponsorship: Who is getting it right? 3rd May, 2011

If you have an engaging email newsletter, it may provide a perfect platform to build a new revenue stream for your business. However, it is important to understand all the options in order to fully optimise these opportunities for your potential sponsors.

In my last post ‘Email Newsletter Sponsorship: How to do it and why’ I identified three key questions to determining whether an email newsletter could provide a sponsorship platform:

Does the email newsletter have a niche audience?

Are there analytics to measure results of sponsor campaigns?
Is there sufficient resource to manage?

With all criteria satisfied, we can begin to look at how to build your sponsorship assets. As emails are flexible rights, email newsletters offer a unique opportunity to highly tailor your sponsorship offering providing unlimited ways of branding and association. Two of the most common types of sponsorship inclusions within email newsletters are banner advertising and integrated placement.

Figaro Digital – the basics of banner advertising

Figaro Digital is a magazine targeting digital marketers. Their weekly email newsletter is mailed to a database of over 16,000 marketing professionals – a prime target audience for suppliers.

Their most recent email newsletter sponsor, ContentVox, was featured last week (full email here).

ContentVox’s sponsorship provided placement at a prime position (top left) as well as a banner advertisement on the bottom promoting a reader offer. By providing space both above and below the fold, Figaro Digital has ensured their sponsors will be seen regardless of click thru rates. However, the format and visual representation of the sponsorship and reader offer is not in line with Figaro Digital’s overall email newsletter branding, making it a very obvious advertisement. Furthermore, the capitalisation of FREE within the content position devalues the other messages within the rest of the communication.
On the positive side, the reader offer is in line with the context of the newsletter, providing readers free content in order to improve paid and natural search – their next event.

Internet World: Facebook enhancement

Facebook has recently sponsored marketing conference Internet World’s email newsletter (full email here) that was sent to over 85,000 registered users.

As the sponsor, Facebook took the prime location of the newsletter (top right), promotion within the main copy linking through to their speaking synopsis at the event, and are branded throughout.

This type of sponsorship illustrates a more integrated approach to email newsletter sponsorship and provides benefit to both parties. The promotion of Facebook’s involvement at the conference is a drive for new registrants, while Facebook gains further exposure, enhancing their purchased exhibitor rights.

The only downfall with this sponsorship is that it does not highlight the Facebook page that Internet World has created to promote their event, ironically promoting their Twitter account instead.

If you are looking to fully integrate sponsorship offerings within your email communications, you should include all available potential opportunities. In this case, the advocacy that Internet World could build through their own promotion of their Facebook page would build a stronger association between the two organisations, which is what they set out to do at the outset.