October 2016
SPONSORSHIP
13
Get creative
Jackie Fast, Slingshot MD, offers insights on
how to get sponsors working hard for your event
The sponsorship industry is changing.The opportunities are
endless and ways of engaging are ever increasing. And yet, the
sponsorship industry still remains fairly static.
Since inception, the typical transaction includes rights
holders trading ‘space’to sponsors for money. Everyone seems
pretty happy. But is everyone getting the most out of the
relationship?
With ROI crucial to good business, I’d question whether
everyone is getting as much return for the investment that is
being put into the sponsorships created.
But money talks, and quite rightly, events rights holders
utilise sponsorship to drive revenue. However, sponsorship
can do so much more. When done cleverly, sponsorship
can open business avenues and new profit centres rights
holders wouldn’t have been able to create by themselves. But
it needs an events rights holder who is willing to look at the
bigger picture with an ambition to think outside of the box
commercially.
Rather than just chasing money for logo placement, event
rights holders need to identify what their ideal ambition is for
incorporating sponsorship revenue within their commercial
objectives.
For many B2B events, it’s about attracting leading
consumer brand names to their event. For music festivals,
it’s about differentiation and adding value to the festival
experience. For sport, it’s getting fans to engage with the team
beyond the pitch. Sponsorship does all these things, but it
doesn’t happen overnight.
Many events rights holders fail to realise that they have to
consider their sponsorship ambitions in a series of steps. Just
like growing any revenue stream, in order to reach the end goal
there are milestones of achievement – each one built upon
success of the other.
A good sponsorship strategy should be developed in the
same way – with the long view in mind including phases that
drive to deliver objectives beyond the financial.
And even if money really is the only objective (although if
you dig deep enough, this is rarely the case), you need to create
phases which will allow you to continue building value in
order to increase revenue year on year.
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So how do you go about building a
sponsorship strategy for your event
that does all this and more?
1. Figure out if you have ambitions beyond money. And
if you do, find out if event sponsorship can help you
reach them.
2. If you cannot offer a strong proposition to the
sponsors you really want, carve out areas of rights
that you can provide on a reduced rights fee or for
free while still maintaining your core sponsors. This
allows you to negotiate with the right sponsors that
can deliver on some of your long-term ambitions
while still ensuring your financial targets can be met
by the usual suspects.
3. Talk with your current sponsors about your ambitions
and find out how they can play a role in achieving them.
4. Partner with sponsors whose long-term goals and
objectives are aligned with your own.
5. Stop thinking transactional. Get creative.
22/09/2016 14:40