Adapting Sponsor Marketing Strategies for a Recession

1
Adapting Sponsor Marketing Strategies for a
Recession

• Brief review
• You know
• what sponsors want
• who to reach
• how to reach them
• what to say
• how to present your material
• Now what?!

2
Understanding their business

• Youve read their press releases
• Youve done a media audit
• When available, youve read the annual report
• You understand their marketing strategy
• Its time to tie it together but first

3
Know the trends

• Need to know these in order to tie your
  sponsorship offering into the needs of the
  sponsor
• More unique assets
• Customization/personalization
• Localization/grassroots marketing
• Unique exclusivity
• Interactive/experiential opportunities

4
Trends (continued)

• Opportunity to leverage with other sponsors
  (sponsor summit)
• Opportunity to leverage with other suppliers
• Flexibility
• Virtual experience (Wii)
• Social networking (YouTube, Craigs List,
  Facebook, MySpace, Blogs ,
  Podcasts, Twittering)
• Lower cost-per-touch

5
Trends (continued)

• Emphasis on lifetime value of a customer
• Measurement (ROI, ROE, ROO, ROMI)
• Marketing to seniors
• Healthy and natural foods
• Anything African (spices, Shea butter, etc.)
• Anything green organic, environmentally
  sensitive, etc.

6
Trends (continued)

• Sleep and stress-reducing aids
• Specialized events (vertical)
• Think globally, act locally (side note
  International travelers)
• Greater creativity
• Consumercentric
• Psychographics

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Whats not a trend

• Packages
• All things to all people/large, generic events
• Demographics
• Branding as the key sales approach
• Clutter
• Centralization
• One size fits all

8
More sales ammunition

• Youve got the trends now some statistics (from
  PROMO January 2008)
• 30 plan to spend more on events and 42 expect
  to hold steady (IEG says 40 will spend more)
• 30 spent 100K to 499K in 2007
• 27 allocated 1-5 million
• 30 devote 25 or MORE of total marketing budgets
  to event sponsorship

9
One major irritant of event marketing

• Ambush marketing
• Or, as better said by Michael Lynch VISA
• Parasitic marketing
• HOWEVER

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Still the Promo survey

• 30 admit to ambushing!
• And
• 26 have been ambushed!
• I dont like it but
• The Ambush Marketing Toolkit is available
  through McGraw-Hill Book Co. (Kim Skildum-Reid)
  if you must
• To my way of thinking its dishonest and unfair
  
• for everyone

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More from the Promo survey

• Sponsors measure impact by sales, intent to
  purchase, brand preference altered and amount of
  time engaged with product
• Marketing activities tied to events included
  sweepstakes, contests, data collection, sampling,
  coupon distribution, local advertising and radio
  tie-in

12
Interestingly

• The IEG survey people are still interested in
  branding and demographics!
• And, IEG says
• 46 determine their budget 4Q
• 25 3Q
• 9 2Q
• 20 1Q

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The joy of statistics!

• Basically, people have money and they are going
  to spend it on sponsorship your job?
• Get them to spend it with you!

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How to do that

• Must follow the 12 steps
• Take inventory
• Establish media and retail partners
• Develop sponsorship offerings
• Research partners
• Make contact
• Set appointment

15
continued

• Be creative on the sales call
• Ask for the order
• Keep the sponsor in the loop
• Involve the sponsor in the event
• Provide post-event report (ROI, etc.)
• Renew for next year

16
Positive aspects of Recession

• Media will be more willing to work with you (they
  need you and your assets) this is good for you
• Competitors are cutting budgets you will stand
  out this is good for your sponsors
• Staying in front of your customers indicates you
  are a survivor good for sponsors

17
Please remember this

• Sponsorship is THE BEST MARKETING TOOL to use in
  an economic downturn because it provides the
  greatest return on investment based on cost per
  thousand (CPM)

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Friday Activating Sponsorship to Maximize Value
and Return

• How to make the sponsorship work!