Provide your contact with a clear and persuasive
proposal. It’s most likely that a sponsorship or brand
manager isn’t the decision maker. She’ll have to sell
your event to other departments with members who
have their own agendas and may not share your passion
for your event.
“Your contract needs to make perfect business sense
from a truly objective point of view, or it will probably
struggle to gain the required support internally,” says
Skildum-Reid. This is a significant reason to start this
process early. While it’s never too soon to start seeking
sponsorship opportunities, it most definitely can be too
late. Besides running opportunities up the flagpole,
potential sponsors have annual budgets to consider
and need time to develop a leveraging plan. You never
want to put your company or event in the position of
offering sponsorships up for bargain prices as that will
come back to hurt you next time around.
Be a Good Partner
Once you nab a sponsor (or sponsors), your job isn’t
done. And neither is theirs. You must work together
to create the best possible partnership that will benefit you, your sponsor and your shared audience (that
“win-win-win” relationship mentioned earlier). Event
planners oftentimes follow similar ideas when it comes
to sponsor benefits. Sponsorship opportunities may be
lumped into groups based on price (Gold, Silver and
Bronze categories are popular, or companies may sponsor specific activities or areas of the event, such as the
registration table or a golf hole). Then depending on
the level they purchase, sponsors receive benefits such
as free advertising, branding on all event materials or
VIP passes. However, if you really want to up the stakes
and help your sponsor gain valuable exposure, this is
where leverage becomes important.
Again, once they sign on the dotted line, it’s the
sponsor’s primary responsibility to leverage their position. In fact, according to IEG sponsorship consulting
group, successful sponsors spend an additional dollar
for every dollar of their sponsorship fee. That’s a lot
of money. But remember: If they feel all this money is
well spent on your event, they’ll come back next year. It
never hurts to work closely with them before and during your event to create those valuable opportunities.
This year’s Ivey Awards (Mayer’s event held every
September) were promoted with a unique marketing
campaign called “Greatness is in Our Midst.” A professional national photographer placed local actors
and actresses in black-and-white photos as if they were
famous celebrities being hunted down by paparazzi,
giving the impression that we have celebrities just as
great as those in Los Angeles and New York. Skyy Vodka
sponsors the Ivey Awards, so using product placement,
the actors and actresses in the photos were having a
fun time drinking a Skyy Vodka brand of liquor. “That
∂
While oftentimes it’s the meeting planner
seeking sponsors for her event, companies
are discovering the value in sponsorships
and event marketing and searching for
opportunities, too. William Chipps, senior
editor of IEG Sponsorship Report, a publication that tracks and analyzes corporate sponsorships, spoke with Meetings:
Minnesota’s Hospitality Journal about
the benefits of sponsoring events and
determining your return on investment (or
objective).
So You Want to be a Sponsor?
∂ Companies tap into the emotional connection that attendees have to that particular
event “The thinking is that if I see a company that is supporting activities that I enjoy
and that I’m involved in, knock on wood,
that’ll have a positive rub off on me.”
spend that ratio, but sponsors do need to
be prepared and budget for these extra
dollars to activate a sponsorship. A rights
fee or sponsorship fee alone is basically
the price of admission.”
WHY DO IT?
∂ Gain one-on-one marketing opportunities
“By setting up a booth at an event or trade-
show, this is a good way to build rapport
with the target consumer.”
∂ Easily convey attributes of a new product
“Sponsorship lets attendees go to an event
and touch and feel a company’s product.”
YOU MUST ACTIVATE
“To gain the biggest bang for their buck,
a sponsor needs to go beyond. They need
to leverage the sponsorship by running
consumer promotions, buying extra VIP
passes to entertain key accounts and so
on. We do surveys every year and ask,
‘How much do you typically allocate to
activate sponsorships?’ Most of the smart-est sponsors are activating one dollar
for every dollar they spend on the rights
fee. That’s a cost a company should be
aware of before getting involved. Granted
a company doesn’t have to necessarily
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
“Years ago, companies were just throwing
money at sponsorships, but now with the
downturn of the economy, companies are
really wanting to focus in on their ROI or
ROO (return on objectives). I would highly
recommend companies get involved in
their marketing objective and establish
some sort of metrics up front that they
can use to measure success. It could be
as basic as if, for example, they were rolling out a new cereal. How many samples
did we distribute? Or, if a company wants
to drive traffic back to retail, they can
hand out coupons and then measure
the redemption. If a company wants to
raise their visibility in the community,
maybe it’s just the warm fuzzy metrics of
media exposure.”
