Sponsorships from the Buyer’s Side
It’s that time of year, thousands of brands are engaging with millions of consumers through live events this summer. You did a great job negotiating the best price, but are you helping your company to reach their goals or are you wasting their money? I have had the pleasure of being on both sides of this fence, from selling sponsorships to leveraging the best assets for my clients. Here are the top 3 takeaways every buyer should be aware of before signing on the bottom line for your next live event sponsorship.
Goals
Defining the company goals (leads, branding and/or sampling) will help you determine which event is right for your company and help you negotiate the right assets. If the goals are leads and sampling, make sure your sponsorship includes high traffic on-site exposure to maximize interactions. If branding is a priority, you want to negotiate more media and on-site logo exposure to gain more impressions.
Early Start
Once you have selected the right event platform, don’t drag the negotiation process on for too long. You want to make sure that you get every available impression available in the contract. Many brands wait too long to sign the deal and by the time the event up-dates their website, adds your logo to the promotion and revise the radio scripts, you have lost weeks or months of exposure.
Remember the Activation
This is the number one mistake brands make when negotiating a sponsorship. They don’t leave enough money in the budget to invest in their on-site activation. How many times have you been to a venue or festival and seen the non-branded tent, table and unmotivated people on their cell phones? I have seen it a hundred time and it drives me crazy. It’s hard enough to attract people to your activation, it’s even harder if consumers are afraid of you because of your appearance.
There are many more pot holes on the way to navigating the perfect sponsorship. If you have the right partner, they will help you avoid most of the standard mistakes, but if you keep goals, impressions and the activation top of mind, you will be off on the right foot. Good luck and I look forward to talking to your trained and motivated brand ambassadors at the next festival.