Nailing a sponsorship deal

Sponsorship can be an effective way to connect with like-minded brands, support a worthy cause, a local business or sporting club whilst raising the profile of your brand, but you need to really nail it to get bang for your buck!

Becoming a sponsor is not the right strategy for every brand and let’s face it, some businesses just don’t have room in the budget to entertain it, but when due diligence is done, and the return-on-investment ratio is right, a partnership can bring great value to your business.

Firstly, let’s talk about the budget and return on investment as these two things are interlinked. A good marketing professional will assess the options for spend and ascertain the value, based on the fiscal return as well as brand asset development like database growth, customer loyalty and social media engagement. As a rule of thumb, the return on investment ratio should be about 2:1- check out the ROI calculator?here.

Negotiating the promotional opportunities and brand exposure parameters of the sponsorship deal can be difficult, especially if you are not well versed in it. Each sponsor will have their own unique requests which reflect their business objectives at the time. Ensuring these demands are met can bring another set of time-consuming challenges. Building a good relationship with the business you are sponsoring will provide the best opportunity for positive collaboration and optimal outcomes.

Being open, creative, and innovative with your sponsorship activation will lead to greater engagement with your customer who is all too often forgotten when sponsorship deals are done. Businesses can become very internally focused and forget to look up and out at the people you are trying to connect with. How do we entice and excite our audience with this activation? How do we gain their respect and loyalty? After all brand love is the aim of the game.

If the shoe is on the other foot and you are trying to attract brand sponsors, the process is equally as challenging. Understanding how to value your event, or price out the assets you are offering can be overwhelming and novices can either under-price or oversell, leading to a poor partnership and a lack of repeat sponsorship.

You know where this is heading right…if you are not a sponsorship expert, we recommend outsourcing the process- ideally to us! The time spent on this job internally detracts from your day-to-day responsibilities and for maximum impact and return on investment, it’s best to leave sponsorship management in the hands of experienced professionals.

If you want to attract sponsors or become one, get in touch with Bev Strickland- 0417 761 966??[email protected]