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Welcome to Power Sponsorship!

I’m Kim Skildum-Reid and I’m a corporate sponsorship strategist, trainer, speaker, and author. I truly love best practice sponsorship, and helping my clients and the industry get the most from this amazing marketing medium is my mission.

This website is overflowing with resources for industry professionals, so have a good look around. You’ll also find plenty of information on what my team and I can do for your brand or organisation – consulting, training, strategy sessions, coaching, and more – and the results you can expect to achieve. I look forward to hearing from you!

 

Dear Fans, Companies Think You’re Stupid

There is a “Coke ad” doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. It’s a collaboration between a few people, including mystery artist, Banksy, and it is a must read for every sponsor. Note: The language is rude, but if you can handle the f-word, you should stop and take a look at that “ad” now. If this sentiment is true of advertising – and I think if we allow ourselves some objectivity, we know it isn’t far off the mark – it’s 100 times truer for sponsorship. What sponsors are buying when they invest in a sponsorship is the privilege to connect with people through something they have already decided they care about. Those fans […] Read More

Power Sponsorship is (Google Plus) Hanging Out

I have to admit, Google Plus has yet to grab me. Power Sponsorship is on there, but I don’t do a lot with it. That said, this whole Hangout shebang intrigues me. From the looks of it, I can host a video Hangout and converse with up to 15 people, with an unlimited number viewing the session. I’m still getting my head around it, but very keen to give it a whirl. This is what I have in mind: Step 1 – Test Run Sometime in the next two weeks, I want to give it a test run. I won’t publicise it and will need a handful of people who would like to discuss a […] Read More

Sponsor Speeches: How to Alienate Your Target Market in One Easy Step

I talk all the time about the kinds of benefits sponsors should want from an investment: Benefits that can be shared across the target market; benefits that bring you closer to your target markets, benefits that you can use to add value to your relationship with your target markets. There is one benefit, though, that can alienate you from a target market faster than almost any other: Sponsor speeches. We’ve all been at a conference or awards or movie premiere or whatnot and been all ready for whatever was coming, only to have the momentum come to a screaming halt when one (or several) of the sponsors are introduced to make speeches. “Thank you very […] Read More

Looking for Sponsorship or Clients? How Not to use Email

I don’t think it comes as any surprise that I’m not a fan of spam. I refer to the hundreds of unsolicited email pitches I get, and how counterproductive they are, all of the time. If we get some kind of obvious spam – Eastern European brides, fake watches, etc – either my offsider or I will report it to an anti-spam clearinghouse. If we get an unsolicited email from someone in this industry, however, we don’t. I don’t want to cause them issues with their internet providers, so we just ask them to remove my details and not send any more uncustomised emails in future. I think that’s probably what most of us in […] Read More

What Time of Year Should I Seek Sponsorship?

I get this question a lot. The expectation is that there will be some magic window where the yesses will be plentiful. The good news is that there is no window – you can solicit sponsorship all year ‘round. The bad news is that there is no such thing as an easy “yes”. There are some who would tell you that you should submit any sponsorship proposals in the few months prior to the start of the financial year. While that would, on the surface of it, seem like a reasonable approach, in my experience, it’s unnecessary and limiting. Some sponsorship managers request sponsorship approaches during a specific timeframe, but this is usually just a […] Read More

How to Right-Size Your Sponsorship Leverage Activities

Any regular reader of this blog knows that I talk a lot about sponsorship being win-win-win. That third win is for the target markets, with the goal being small, meaningful benefits for all or most of the market, not a chance to go into a draw for one person to win one big prize. The question is, then, what do you do with benefits or leverage activities that are, by their very nature, limited in size? How do you make that a win for everyone… and should you even try? As usual, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve! Know how the third win works Providing that third win is about adding real value to a […] Read More

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