Thinking about Sponsorship?

Sponsorship is about getting a message across. It's not a complicated starting point, you're projecting your brand. Through sponsorship, you are creating an impression that will leave the audience with a picture or a story that will position your brand in their mind and leave a clear message, potentially with a call to action.

But there is quite a bit to think about....

There are very few brands that are well enough established that all they need to do is put a logo up and the rest just happens. Red Bull, Apple, Google are a few where brand awareness is that strong, but they had to get there and you can be certain that they understand in detail how their brand is understood, what it stands for and how it is leveraged to add value to their business.

For most businesses, investing in the sponsorship itself is just the starting point. It then needs to be leveraged to get the outcomes that are needed. Not thinking about leveraging your sponsorship is rather like having an exhibition stand and then not worrying about staffing it, but just hoping that the passers by work out for themselves the value of the products and services your offering and how to buy them.

So how do we approach Sponsorship? As with anything in our business world it's about understanding the end objectives that we're looking for, the outcomes and the value that those will add to our business. A few outcomes that you might want to consider building into your plan would include:

• Improving your brand image
• Extending brand awareness
• Recruiting & retaining talent
• Attracting new clients
• Fostering goodwill
• Creating a social buzz

Once we understand that, then we can work back upstream to understand the deliverables needed to achieve the outcomes, the scope of who we need to be engaging and the communication that will be needed to achieve it all.

The sponsorship opportunity is created because another organisation has an audience of their own which is of interest to you so your investment buys an access point to that audience. If you just present a two dimensional brand identity and message that is advertising (with associated reach). When you leverage that in a sponsorship agreement, that is when you create engagement, focus and relationships that then create the pathway to closing business.

Exhibiting creates a fixed point where potential clients will find you, that can be a random process and takes a good deal of resource. Sponsorship is where you proactively engage with a target audience where they are. It's more resource efficient and well planned, very effective at creating high quality business generation, whether that is ensuring repeat business, finding new business or more likely a blend of the two.

The other important thing to remember as you think it through is that leveraging sponsorship will almost always come at a cost in resources and collateral the same way that exhibiting does, just in a different way. Some of those costs you may be able to build into the sponsorship deal but unlikely all of them and a sponsorship deal with more included will cost more - so one way or another the leverage will be a cost that should be allowed for

So how do you leverage sponsorship?

There's an almost infinite range options and opportunities and any one of them may be the right or wrong way to achieve your outcomes. Here are a few ideas and examples that you might want to think about.

1. Can you build some bespoke advertising in the right places into the deal so that your sponsorship carries a wider dimension of where people see it? Push the organiser for as much advertising and brand exposure as you can. Unlike exhibition space, allowing extra advertising or brand exposure doesn't cost per unit in the same way that hiring the venue and exhibition resources does, so they are in a position to be more generous. Show guides, Lanyards, pop up banners, vinyl banners and guest appearances are all potential and from the organiser's point of view, there is a degree to which the more brand identity you have about, then the more it makes the organiser's event feel valued and of importance to the sponsors.
2. Can you sponsor, or include in the sponsor package, a live event that already exists which aligns with your message and vales, where you can "host the event" (so have an opportunity to greet guests, introduce the speaker, have a strong brand presence, close the event and get your key message over)? It also gives you an event to invite prospects or your target audience to which you have a strong input to and can make sure the guests hear your message. It doesn't come over as a hard sales pitch though, but an alignment of your brand with another recognised issue or speaker.
3. Can you and the event organiser send invitations to an event that you have sponsored that have a GDPR compliant, binary question embedded which will allow you joint ownership of the invitation responses? So a question "are you happy to hear from our sponsors Yes / No", then as well as attending the event and hearing your message during the course of it, those who return "Yes" are also allowing you to follow up with them and be added to your regular marketing communications on an ongoing basis. Equally, if they return a "No" then you know that they are unlikely to be a quick business closure. If they are a strong target prospect, then you can apply further thinking about how to win them or if they aren't then you can avoid wasting time and resource following up. If you have access to the full attendee list as a part of your sponsorship deal, then whether the response is yes or no, there is nothing to stop you using applications like LinkedIn to reach out to attendees and invite them to connect using a message such as "Thank you for joining us at XXXX we would like to invite you to connect with our LinkedIn community" If they accept, then you now have another follow up route to use to communicate, further projecting your brand and values with a "Than you for connecting" message and possible attachment.
4. Can you build into the sponsorship package an event or function that is completely yours? that will give you complete control over what is contained, who is invited, the messages that you get over and how the event is managed. You may be thinking about hosting a business meeting, networking event or sales event at your office. If you do it in an environment where you can get a wider audience , then you are potentially extending your reach to a whole new audience. Talk to the organisation you are sponsoring and agree how they will push the event to get you the best attendance and return they can. It's in their interest to add value to your sponsorship and get you the best take up possible.
5. People love free food and drink. As a leverage tool to your sponsorship, ask if you can host a reception. Coffee and a biscuit can be very cost efficient. A glass of wine, canapes or a buffet spread might be more in line with what your business want to set up as a brand identity which is more expensive, but if the return and brand identity is better, then it may be worth it.
6. If you do get involved with an event, or present your own, then make sure that the quality is high. Remember, it's representing your business and it's costing you money so make certain that it works the way you want it to. That will take an investment in time and focus, but if you don't then it can quickly become counterproductive.
7. Put the preparation in. Whether in setting up the content, planning the timeline, researching the invitations, getting communications right as you send invitations out, get the branding right at the event and make sure your speakers are relevant, succinct, well briefed and well prepared. If that means outsourcing to an event manager, a marketing agency and /or presentation coach, then do it. The professionalism will be well worth while if you are making this sort of investment.
8. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up (once once again for good measure.... Follow up). Just because the sponsored moment has happened, whether simple branding, by sponsoring an event someone else is developing, or sponsoring with your own content, it doesn't mean the work is done. All it means is that the critical moment of creating impact has happened. If you don't follow up, then 90% of the potential will be lost, that is not an exaggeration. Agree the follow up actions and the route to your pipeline with your team, agree what the outcomes and results should be and the metrics to monitor whether they are achieved and over what timescale. If you don't then apart from the immediate loss of potential business, you will have no idea how successful the sponsorship was and so whether it's something you should be repeating (or not!).
9. Look what social media you can build into your sponsorship package. Your message, well put together and supplied to the organiser ready to use and in line with the organiser's style will present them with ready made content. the more exciting and engaging and the better put together the keener the organiser will be to use it (and save themselves time and energy in creating original content). If you do that well, then you will reach a far wider platform by looking supportive to the event your sponsoring.
10. Does the event your sponsoring run promotional and lead in events to promote the main event? If so,then build into your deal appearances and presentations at those. you can get another range of exposure at event(s) that someone else (the organiser) is doing all the work for. See if you can get brand exposure at the promotional events and ask whether the registration data can be share on a GDPR compliant basis (see point 3 above). If they don't - then suggest you help them develop something - you'll get an increased and more exclusive exposure to their audience (but make sure the organiser is fully engaged and promoting it themselves or it may backfire on you). If you have a suitable premises, or you can get access to one, then you could offer to host it yourselves and get the organisers audience visiting your premises.
11. Does the organiser run multiple events with appropriate audience to your business? If they do, then it will be vastly cost efficient for you to sponsor two or more events in the same package.
12. If your energy is going in to Sponsorship, then ask yourself whether its worth including some exhibition space, however small, in the package? Sponsorship creates brand awareness, but the ability to field enquiries is limited to when staff are about. When they are, they will also be in higher volume environments. If there is a consistent message about "You can visit the team at stand number... " then however small that space is, it can be staffed by junior team member and all they need to do is make sure they collect and relay accurate contact details that senior players can follow up after the event. Sometimes the most important clients don't want to jostle for the attention of the speaker, they want to remain slightly aloof and observe and they may be reluctant to show a hand and have a conversation in a busy public space. Creating the chance to quietly relay an interest in something that they have seen or heard by calling by the exhibition stand not only gives a discreet moment for them, but a robust and timely process of collecting the enquiry. Getting it to the right person and seeing a response come back will underline the professionalism of your business and the team behind it.
13. And Finally...... think about the "Pain Points" of the audience you will be inviting / attracting. You need to let them buy in to your way of thinking and they will do that best if you identify the problems they are facing, then offer solutions. If the value proposition between you and your prospect is correct and you have identified it as a solution to a problem they have, then the transactions should follow as a simple and logical process.

There's a great deal to think about, but well planned and executed, sponsorship can be very effective indeed. The reverse is also true; poorly thought through sponsorship that doesn't drive home the right brand identity, communications, messages and follow up actions can easily become a very poor investment.

Always talk to the organiser about just what is available and how it can be tailored to work for your business objectives and outcomes. It's in their interest for you to have great results because if you do, you'll be back for more. If not, then you won't.

We hope this ha been useful. We're interested to know if we've missed anything or raised questions that need answering. You can message us anytime and I hope we will respond in as timely a fashion that we urge others to!

If you would like to discuss sponsorship options with any of the County Business Shows Festival of business & Innovation projects, then please visit: https://bit.ly/38jG18i