Feb 11, 2014 Building Relationships through Strategic Sponsorship
Longtime, regular readers will undoubtedly know of my admiration of Seth Godin. Another marketing guru who I think very highly of is Jeff Hurt. Interestingly, both recently published articles that focused on sponsorships. Each authors weighs in on different aspects for consideration and the result is a little bit right brain and a little bit left brain. This is an area that we often consult our special event marketing clients in and much of what Seth and Jeff have to say aligns with our approach to the same topic.
- Before creating a sponsorship activation plan, determine why you want to be a sponsor
- Next determine the best way to utilize the sponsorship for the most impact
- Keep top of mind what is making the participant’s experience the best that it can be; remember that event participants don’t care about your brand building tactics and goals
- Transparency and authenticity make for the most effective Sponsorship partnerships; challenge your client to make sure their actions are true to their brand
The bottom line? Determine the why of your Sponsorship and focus your investment on enhancing the participant experience. All too often, over-the-top branding exercises only interrupt the flow of the event and frustrate the participants. The event marketing activities should connect with the values of the event attendees in a meaningful manner. These are the touch-points that we come back to time and time again in our approach to special event planning.
For further reading, I highly recommend both of these links:
Understanding Sponsorship by Seth Godin
Sponsorships Change Dramatically In Radical Ground-Breaking Revolutionary Conferences by Jeff Hurt
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.