Making sponsorship work for your business
Event sponsorship comes in many shapes and sizes – from branding hand-outs and lanyards to signage, feature articles in show guides or delegate packs, speaker opportunities and more. And let’s be honest, some sponsorship offerings are worth a lot more than others. If you’re invited to sponsor some aspect of a trade show, conference or event this season, here are some points to consider, in order to get best value from your spend.
Appropriateness: Does the show or event align with your strategy?
Does it promote products, solutions and approaches which complement your own product or service offering? Is it targeting the same audience, or a sub-set of the same audience that you are targeting? Is it aimed at an appropriate level of delegate – strategists and decision-makers for example, or managers, supervisors, users, technicians etc.
Objectives: What do you want sponsorship to do for you?
Is it simply about being visible – having your logo sprayed across the room or the biggest stand in the best position? Or is it about communicating some aspect of your proposition to a targeted audience? Is it about meeting people to whom it’s difficult to gain access directly? Is it about providing a networking opportunity for clients and prospects and your own salespeople? What about the opportunity to host forums, sit on expert panels or deliver presentations? Most organisations provide for different levels of sponsorship, depending upon your objectives – so ensure that you customise your sponsorship package to your precise requirements.
Resourcing: Aside from the money, how much effort will you need to put into it?
Sponsorship is not just a matter of shelling out cash – to cover an event properly demands that you spend time preparing and provide often considerable human resource and collateral to ensure your messages are properly communicated. If the event isn’t directly relevant to you, or the sponsorship offering doesn’t meet your needs, it’s a lot of money, time and effort to squander. So make sure you fully understand what’s expected and know how you’re going to resource it. Remember to include any additional activities that may run in parallel with your sponsorship; for example, to gain incremental press coverage or provide client hospitality.
Value: How will you assess the return on your investment?
The role of marketing is to open the door and the sale may still be months away. However, there are ways to assess if you’re getting value from your investment. For example, using average order values and your lead-to-sale conversation ratio, you can work out how many leads you need to acquire in order to break-even on the event. Or identify in advance how many valuable hard-to-access contacts you expect to meet. Collect business cards or contact sheets to add to your database or pass to your salespeople. Assess how much press coverage you want to achieve and then track it. Solicit feedback from existing clients who visit the event.
Follow-up: How are you going to nurture your new contacts?
If you make new contacts as a result of your sponsorship, they will go to waste if you don’t have a follow-up plan. Make sure you have a lead development strategy in place which ensures your new contacts don’t fall through the cracks.
13th Mar 2011
