This is a question I get at least a couple of times a week. Generally, it refers to approaching multiple sponsors in the same category – ice cream, insurance, sporting goods, etc – at the same time. Sometimes, the question is about a naming rights sponsorship, and whether they can… Read More
You want more sponsorship revenue. Everyone does. The problem is that you only have so many benefits to offer, so if you want more money, you have to figure out a way to divvy up your benefits pie into smaller pieces, while simultaneously charging more for them. Common sense dictates… Read More
You’re the Chief Marketing Officer of a large multinational, or a Group Marketing Manager, overseeing multiple major brands. Whatever your title, you’re a senior executive looking at millions of dollars being invested in corporate sponsorship across your company, and you know there are problems. Some of the decisions appear to… Read More
If you read this blog with any frequency, it won’t come as any surprise that I have a few sponsorship-related pet peeves. One of my biggest issues on the sponsor side is using scorecards to assess sponsorship opportunities. The scorecard process generally looks something like this. You’ve got a scorecard… Read More
My normal approach is to write blogs and other materials that are centred on the various skills, strategies, and pitfalls around sponsorship – things that are shared across categories of rightsholders or sponsors. It’s not very often that I take aim at one category of business, but I’m making the… Read More
Selling sponsorship is hard. Even if you do it perfectly, you’ll still hear “no” more than “yes”, and if your skills are less than best practice, you’re probably not hearing “yes” very often. If you’re struggling, you probably want some way to demonstrate what great value for money you’re going… Read More
These days, sponsorship measurement is sophisticated, multi-faceted, and creates a holistic picture of the results achieved. Sponsors forego measuring mechanisms that are untethered to real results, instead measuring progress on overall marketing objectives, against their own benchmarks. Except when they don’t. And when sponsors aren’t measuring their own results –… Read More
I loved Man vs Wild. I mean, who would have thought being a survivalist could be sexy? Thankfully, Bear Grylls is still at it, because I think we can all agree that we’ve learned a lot from Bear, over the years: Colourful caterpillars are poisonous; pull the stingers off scorpions… Read More
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… Read More
If you asked one hundred sponsorship professionals what the most precious resource in our industry is, ninety-nine of them would say “money” – money for fees, for leverage, for cash flow, whatever – and ninety-nine of them would be wrong. Money is important, no question about it, but it pales… Read More
It’s early in the year, the time when we look at twelve months stretching out in front of us, and the sponsorship possibilities seem endless. You make ambitious plans and lists and put dates on your goals – we all do! But how many times do you get to the… Read More
Here we are, at the beginning of the year – 365 days where you can stick with the status quo, for more of the same uninspired approach to sponsorship, the same frustrations, and the same mediocre (or diminishing) returns. Alternatively, you can make some changes early, and alter the entire… Read More