Are you measuring your sponsorship program results? In the past few months, I have seen and heard more and more about measuring results. In fact, part of my keynote address next month at the WSC® (Western Sponsorship Congress® – Alberta Forum) will focus on measuring results and gaining success in sponsorship (in more detail than in this TMC). Just as 2008 forced companies (sponsors) and properties to invest in more evaluation of their investments, the pandemic has taken it to an even more critical level. We need to be able to measure results. Without tracking and measurement, our investments are not sustainable.
As we work with our corporate and property clients, we try to give them the tools to measure successfully. They all get reports from their investments in Facebook and Instagram, etc., and their Google analytics reports, but they lack tracking tools and measurement of ROI from a sponsorship perspective. In a nutshell, here is the advice we provide.
- The evaluation must include everything—not just sales or impressions, but everything from traffic to sales, margins and profit to engagement, timelines for the journey to full customer acquisition or retention funnel, and if applicable, employee engagement and interaction. It all needs to be addressed—not just one silo!
- Have a “main objective” and its goals and aspirations/what you want to achieve. Also include all the tertiary objectives as noted in the first bullet point above.
- Include all your marketing channels—activation in sponsorship, digital alignment, social, and if applicable, a PR/GR/IR channel.
- Have the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are essential for reacting and altering campaigns in full flight, if needed.
- Track leading indicators that can trigger you to increase or decrease your sponsorship marketing investment, and track between the different marketing channels, timelines, and conversion rates associated with those elements.
- Have a starting benchmark and measure against it to track success. With no starting benchmark, you cannot measure success and outcomes!
- Use the technology that’s out there to support you in all of this.
I hope this gives you a baseline and starting point in your quest to measure success.
Obviously, there is more to it, but this is a great beginning. If you would like to talk further about ROI measurement, feel free to reach out. I am passionate about this!
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