CHAPTER 11
Sponsorship Planning and Management
Sourcing and acquiring new sponsors is not the hardest part of a sponsorship manager’s job. Servicing your sponsor is when the real work begins. Sponsorship is all about building and maintaining long-term relationships. The primary responsibility of organizations receiving sponsorship is to build positive relationships with their sponsors by ensuring that all agreed benefits are provided within the negotiated time frame.
It is equally important that organizations are committed to ensuring that their sponsors are provided with information, feedback, and quantitative and qualitative research results that will assist their sponsors in determining if their objectives have been met. Simply providing the sponsor with the contracted benefits and a media report at the end of the event means you are only doing half the job.
Sponsors require and deserve total commitment from their sponsees. Evaluation is perhaps one of the most overlooked areas of sponsorship servicing today. The most successful sponsorship managers provide complete sponsorship service, which includes in-depth ongoing summary evaluation and assessment.
There is no secret on how to manage your sponsorships effectively. Once you have acquired your sponsorship, it comes down to three simple steps:
1. Develop a sponsorship plan
2. Implement the sponsorship plan
3. Evaluate the sponsorship plan.
Develop the Sponsorship Implementation Plan
Once you have found a sponsor for your event, you must firstly develop a sponsorship plan. The sponsorship plan defines what you and the sponsor want to achieve and how you are going to manage the sponsorship. Every sponsorship, regardless of its size or value, requires its own plan.
Every sponsorship plan should include
• An executive summary
• A situation analysis
• A list of objectives
• Strategies to meet those objectives
• Performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of those strategies
• Target audiences
• An action list/timeline/accountability list
• A budget
• An evaluation strategy
A sponsorship plan states what you want to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and how you will know when you have achieved it. A Sponsorship Implementation Plan template can be found later in this chapter.
In terms of quantifying returns on a sponsorship investment, a sponsorship plan provides you with two critical strategies for measuring returns—performance indicators and evaluation. If it is in your plan, you will not forget it. You will also have agreement from within your organization and from the sponsor as to what you are trying to achieve and how you will measure the results.
Implement the Sponsorship Plan
Sponsorship is about creating an effective relationship between your organization and the sponsor. Managing the sponsorship or implementing a well-thought-out sponsorship plan is about building and maintaining that relationship.
Evaluate the Sponsorship Plan
If you have followed your sponsorship plan, you will have identified performance indicators and ways of measuring or evaluating whether the sponsor has successfully met their sponsorship objectives. The best sponsorship implementation and evaluation plans are drawn up in consultation with your sponsors.
Your evaluation plan should include the following, some of which you will provide and some the sponsor will carry out:
• Pre- and post-sponsorship surveys
• Sales or visitation figures at your event
• Qualitative research results
• Media assessment
Sponsorship Implementation Plan
You should create a sponsorship implementation plan for each of your sponsors. This should be comprehensive, providing a blueprint for the execution of the program.
Introduction
Include details on the overall aims and objectives of the sponsorship plan. Briefly outline the strategies that you will undertake to assist the sponsor in meeting the objectives.
Situational Analysis
Give a brief overview of the state of the sponsorship, who the key contacts are, and any major issues that might affect the sponsorship.
If the sponsorship is ongoing, outline the history of the sponsorship, recommendations for enhancement, and tactics that will be undertaken to refocus the sponsorship.
Sponsor Objectives
In bullet points, detail the objectives of the sponsorship. Remember, objectives must always be SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, results oriented, and time bound.
Each objective should be followed by a list of quantification mechanisms relevant to the objective. For example, one of the sponsor’s objectives is to create a contact database of 5,000 exhibition attendees intending to purchase a luxury car within the next 12 months, and they want to achieve that by the fourth week. Your quantification mechanisms may be:
• Number of names on the database
• Quality of information on the database
• Timeliness of capturing the information
• Timeliness of forwarding the completed database to the sponsor
Target Markets
Who are the target markets? Who else might this program affect? Your list may include staff, audiences, senior management, media, and ticket holders.
Sponsorship Benefits
Include a list of all benefits that have been included in the sponsorship contract as well as a list of any other benefits that may have been agreed to. A detailed list will assist both the sponsors and the sponsee in keeping tabs on the marketing opportunities available.
Evaluation
You should work with your sponsor to determine how they will measure the success of the sponsorship program. Detail how the sponsorship will be evaluated through key performance indicators.
Action List
Detail every marketing activity, event, media launch, report, meeting, and every aspect of the provision of benefits and information you have promised the sponsor. Next to the item, indicate the time frame and person responsible.
Budget
Detail all costs that are required to make this sponsorship plan happen. Ensure that you have accurately costed support and management of the sponsorship. Use your organization’s formula for calculating real staff and administration costs of employment (including overheads). See “Calculating Overheads” in Chapter 2 for more information.
Managing the Sponsor
Although sponsors are generally becoming much more professional in the way that they do business, as a major stakeholder you will probably still find yourself managing the process at one time or another. The following information should help.
Sponsee Information Kit
In your first meeting with the sponsor once the contract is signed, we suggest providing the sponsor with an information kit that contains the following items:
• Details and an overview of responsibilities for all key contacts on your side
• A copy of your sponsorship plan (minus the budget)
• Media/marketing matrix, showing dates for all marketing activities, preferably including the promotional activities of all sponsors as well
• Key dates and deadlines
• Logos, artwork, photos, or other IP, including any guidelines, PMS colors, etc. in a range of electronic formats
• Approval process (for sponsor using your logo or other IP)
• Report template, showing what you intend to provide to the sponsor on a monthly or bi-monthly basis (a template is provided later in this chapter)
• Any other information or materials that will streamline the sponsorship process.
Sponsor Information Kit
At that same meeting, we suggest you also request an information kit from your sponsor that contains the following items:
• Details and an overview of responsibilities for all key contacts on the sponsor’s side
• A restatement of their objectives for this sponsorship, your target markets, core brand values, etc.
• How the sponsorship will be measured and sponsee performance will be evaluated (key performance indicators)
• Logos and other IP, including any guidelines, in a variety of formats
• Any other information or materials that will streamline the sponsorship process
Regular Meetings
No, having a beer with them in the skybox does not count. You need to hold regular meetings with the sponsor from inception of the contract right through to the conclusion. This will ensure that you are aware of their situation and goals at all times and will ensure that you keep on top of all developments, opportunities, and potential trouble spots.
As for timing, we find biweekly meetings to be very beneficial. Under no circumstances should you go longer than a month between meetings.
Written Updates
If you only have time to meet monthly, then you should definitely be providing a midmonth written update to your sponsor. This only needs to be a concise report of where the sponsorship is, noting anything that is currently outstanding. Ask the sponsor from the outset what information they will need so there is no confusion. The following short reporting template should be very useful in gathering this information.
Reporting Template
[SPONSORSHIP NAME]
Report date:
Report period:
Report prepared by:
Contracted benefits provided to [sponsor] during the month of [previous month]:
Added-value benefits provided to [sponsor] during the month of [previous month]:
Overview of activities to be undertaken by [sponsee] during the month of [next month]:
Cash payments or contra to be provided during the month of [next month]:
Key dates, meetings, and activities for upcoming month(s):
Opportunities/issues to address:
Put Everything in Writing
It is important to put everything in writing. This way, you have some recourse if something does not get done, addressed, or checked. Every time you meet, someone needs to take notes and confirm all action items, including responsibilities and timelines, in writing.
Also, if something needs doing between meetings (and it always does), be sure to put that in writing as well. It does not need to be formal, just a quick email will be sufficient.
A great option is to use an online project management website, which both parties can log onto at any time. New action items, deadlines, meetings, changes and more can be documented at any time, with reminders sent. You can upload and share documents, make comments, create to-do lists, and more. There are a number of companies that offer this service. Our two favorites are Trello (www.trello.com) and Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com). Chances are, once you start using tools like these for sponsor management, you’ll end up using them for a whole range of management tracking applications.