Many of us get inevitable requests for sponsorship and would love to be able to support people or community groups who need funds. But how do we decide when do we say yes, and be sure it will help our marketing story?
There’s one clear definition to be clarified early your decision making. Is it a genuine sponsorship or is it a donation?
Both are worthy of consideration but the expectations around the two are very different. In a donation, you hand over cash and expect little in return, but a good sponsorship relationship can be mutually beneficial.
The values, philosophies and drivers that help us decide which causes get our support can, and should be, complex and well-considered.
In the ideal world, decisions should be guided by a sponsorship strategy, and I’d advise you to have at least a few criteria in place. It’s easier to turn down a request with all honesty when it doesn’t fit with a pre-agreed set of factors.
Aligning with values and philosophies also makes it easier to frame the sponsorship-related stories you tell, ensuring they match and reinforce your overall communication priorities.
Simple examples are that if you talk a lot about creativity being important to your business, the arts is a natural fit for sponsorship focus. Or, if you talk about community and corporate responsibility, causes that focus on people in need will help to reinforce that commitment.
Having a strategy in place can have internal benefits for your staff and culture too, to focus your team on getting behind the causes. This can help you get the most out of the sponsorship arrangement and for your staff to feel proud of the investment.
Despite the ideal, sponsorship choices for many businesses are driven by personal interests and pet passions. Particularly the case with sports sponsorship and the arts, decisions are often driven by the owners’ long-term love of the game, or penchant for the poetry. And that’s OK, so long as it’s understood as potentially being outside the remit of marketing objectives.
Even big businesses will have their sponsorship roots in decisions driven by the kind of things that leaders have loved to support for years – English football is undoubtedly built on the generosity of local business. But the greater the investment, the greater the need to think extremely carefully about how the sponsorship affects your brand reputation and, importantly, its potential impact on sales.
In some situations, brand visibility can be enough. More than a logo on a banner in the doorway of an expo, but genuine visibility is the key, particularly in long-term sponsorship arrangements.
In recent uncertain times, fears of earning no return have seen may businesses rein in their sponsorship spend, while others have been prompted by the consequences of the pandemic to think beyond themselves, to support their communities in need or to help boost activities that improve our quality of life.
If you do decide to make an investment, consider what you can do to promote your involvement with the thing you’re sponsoring. And not in terms of blowing your own trumpet with ‘look at us being good citizens and doing the right thing’. Avoid looking smug about it.
Opportunities to leverage your sponsorship spend are often what cements the value in the relationship, as well as helping achieve marketing and business goals. I’ve heard talk of a ‘one-to-one’ rule for the amount of money you should invest in associated marketing for any sponsorship. In other words, if you sponsor a conference for $5,000 that would suggest you spend another five on your own marketing. For many of us, that wouldn’t be feasible and, to be honest, probably not needed to that level.
I’m sure there are probably specialist equations and criteria for how you might leverage a sponsorship investment, but the fundamentals are common sense. Referencing it on other communications or spending money on your own advertising to promote an event or cause that you’re sponsoring is beneficial not just for your business but for your sponsee.
And when we talk about direct benefits, this might be tickets to an event, products, or services. So, you always have to assess whether the ‘payback’ is the right fit for you. It’s no point sponsoring a cricket team if no-one in your team cares a bean about cricket.
But if you’re only doing it for the benefits, you’re probably doing it for the wrong reasons.
