How to Integrate Sponsorship & Deliver ROI 3rd November, 2010

Sponsorship and brand partnerships are on the rise and almost mentioned as much as the terms social media and integrated marketing. However, not everyone seems to understand how to go about finding sponsorship funding or how to deliver a return on investment. Perhaps not as sexy as integration or social media, sponsorship and brand partnerships are actually much more interesting as they work within these medium as well incorporated above and below the line channels. The flexibility of sponsorship in the marketing environment opens up a world of possibilities, but with so many options, it can be difficult to understand the benefits.

Three top tips when considering sponsorship opportunities for your brand:

Is sponsorship right for me? Even before you decide on your goals, you must first make sure that sponsorship is the best way to communicate with your audience. Sponsorship is a great addition to your marketing mix, but only if it achieves your objectives and is planned out in a strategic way. A starting point for deciding whether sponsorship is the right fit would be understanding the audience and making sure that the audience is your target market. If they are not, any sponsorship messages, no matter how amazing they might be, will be lost.

Know your goals – In the planning stages, it is important to know your objectives for sponsorship at the outset. Sponsorship chosen to help get your brand some ‘face time’ will have different measurables than sponsorship chosen to give back to the community. Typically it will be a mixture of a variety of key benefits: showcasing expertise, aligning with another brand, sharing costs of marketing, supporting a good cause, and corporate entertainment. As mentioned, regardless of the key benefits you are looking for as a sponsor, in order for sponsorship to be effective, you must certain that you are reaching your target audience. The rights owner should have a proven track record of engaging with your target audience.

Set objectives for your sponsorship campaign – Make sure that you are measuring both brand engagement as well as sales increases. These should be measureable and have targets set. Throughout the term of the sponsorship, these targets will assess which elements of your sponsorship are most successful and will allow you to focus more on the activation of that element. By continually measuring and assessing your sponsorship campaign against targets you will be more cost-effective as well as flexible to take up new opportunities to further leverage your original rights package.

Sponsorship is not just about attaching your logo on the next promotional bulletin or making sure your brand has ‘face time’ at the next event, it is strategic and should engage your audience to be effective. Thought needs to go into developing these sponsorship relationships so that they reach their full potential. When they do – they can be incredibly successful and your audience will be begging for more!

Sponsorship Measurement 26th August, 2010

Measuring sponsorship is one of the most important services a sponsorship agency or property partner can provide. With innumerable ways to measure marketing ROI, it is important that sponsorship provides the same value. It is also one of the crucial points that will decide whether or not sponsors renew.

A sponsorship agency should not only help you deliver value, but it should also measure it.

Three key tips to measuring sponsorship

1. Understand the audience

This should go beyond standard demographic information and include insight on how the audience you are targeting engages with the brand. In order to build a brand relationship through a sponsorship platform, you need to understand where the current relationship sits. This will act as a baseline for measurement as well as informing the brand and activation teams in order to help leverage the sponsorship.

2. Lay the groundwork

In any type of collaboration, it is very important that each party understands the roles they will undertake to achieve their objectives. It is also very important that all parties understand the other’s business – the better understanding of the partner and nature of the relationship, the easier it will be to understand where synergy can be achieved.

This should be discussed right from the beginning of the contract negotiation. Once signed, both parties should walk away knowing exactly what they will be bringing to the relationship. By encouraging this, measurement goals can be set against achievables.

3. Provide valuable data

Data capture during the entire sponsorship campaign – include post-event, is incredibly valuable for assessing the success of the sponsorship. Measuring a sponsor’s impact can be done through fulfilment surveys, surveying social media buzz, interviews, focus groups and third party research.

Surveys and feedback forms can be an easy way to not only measure the success of the sponsorship programme, but also can add value to the sponsor by providing them a few sponsor-related questions. In addition, feedback can provide both parties with insight needed to make the next event even better.

These tips are just some of the ways you can work together to ensure that the sponsorship relationship you build is tangible, which will be key in creating sustainable partnerships.