Measuring ROI – Setting Baselines and Strategy!

This is week two of Measuring ROI. Last week, we looked at the considerations involved before you can even begin to measure ROI in your sponsorship programs. This week, we will look at the importance of setting baselines and having a strategy for measuring ROI.

Once you have determined what you will measure for ROI, you need to set benchmarks or starting blocks. If there is no baseline to measure against (be it set by initial research prior to the launch of a sponsorship investment or at any given point during the investment), you cannot tell if there has been success.

1. When the goal is to increase brand awareness, sales, traffic, or employee retention by 10%, unless you know where you stand prior to the sponsorship or have a baseline for measurement, you cannot tell if growth has been achieved.
2. The baseline can start at the beginning or middle of an agreement and then be reviewed annually, after an event, or other time.
3. You need to ensure the base is applicable to the goal and audience. If you are measuring sales growth, there is no need to do polls or surveys. If measuring unaided or aided recall, the same audience must be measured for base and post.

A strategy and plan need to be in place.

1. The strategy must include goals, objectives, measurement outcomes, and measurement metrics.
2. You need to look at both the activation strategy and the rights agreement strategy. They must be holistic and conducive. There’s nothing worse than investing with a major objective of generating sales leads and then running an activation program designed to build brand! To measure success, they must all be aligned.
3. The strategy also must determine timelines, ongoing research, measurement goals, and metrics.
4. You don’t need to measure ROI on all your events and investments, but rather key and random ones.
5. You can have internal metrics and software, or systems built to measure all this in house instead of outsourcing.

Next week, we will look at required investments for measuring ROI. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship ROI and measuring it, purchase your ticket today to the WSC – Alberta Forum. At this event, you will engage with and learn from leaders who see the new world and are making it happen!

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