Collaboration is King in Sponsorship
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Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Best Kept Secrets In Sponsorship Marketing
Secret #5: Small Business involvement is key
Despite the recession, we’ve been hearing about the continued growth in the sponsorship industry. In the past decade, companies FINALLY have been realizing that the holy grail of marketing products has arrived. After all, meaningfully connecting people and lives with “YOUR” product at an event or activity is pretty powerful marketing stuff, right?
I still get the calls.
“Hi, we’re a nice small non-profit that needs help in finding corporate sponsors. We had help for years but all of a sudden, our corporate supporter decided they didn’t want to work with us anymore.”
The size of the sponsorship marketing industry is expanding, no doubt. IEG, Omnicom, EdelmanPR and many other major players are promoting and defining this discipline to their large clients and activating high profile properties every day.
But, the trickle down theory of opportunities for smaller events hasn't quite happened. In fact, because of their lack of sophistication, or more importantly, lack of understanding about how to handle sponsorship, they're beginning to loose out. Without the personnel or resources, they're not able to compete with offerings made available from more sophisticated organizations. They’re just doing what they do best in making a difference where it counts, in their own community.
These small organizations need to be armed with the tools to support their developing and maintaining corporate partnerships. Just as important, the small business community must have a stronger understanding of how to utilize local sponsorship opportunities to enable the growth of their business. This would eliminate the need for small non-profits competing for dollars from multi-nationals with large non-profit organizations.
Until the sponsorship industry has a stronger educational platform, its use as a marketing tool among small businesses will remain minimal. And, until the sponsorship industry has an association that disseminates best practice and promotes its use, it'll be an uphill battle for those local non-profits.
And I'll be happy to take that call.
Despite the recession, we’ve been hearing about the continued growth in the sponsorship industry. In the past decade, companies FINALLY have been realizing that the holy grail of marketing products has arrived. After all, meaningfully connecting people and lives with “YOUR” product at an event or activity is pretty powerful marketing stuff, right?
I still get the calls.
“Hi, we’re a nice small non-profit that needs help in finding corporate sponsors. We had help for years but all of a sudden, our corporate supporter decided they didn’t want to work with us anymore.”
The size of the sponsorship marketing industry is expanding, no doubt. IEG, Omnicom, EdelmanPR and many other major players are promoting and defining this discipline to their large clients and activating high profile properties every day.
But, the trickle down theory of opportunities for smaller events hasn't quite happened. In fact, because of their lack of sophistication, or more importantly, lack of understanding about how to handle sponsorship, they're beginning to loose out. Without the personnel or resources, they're not able to compete with offerings made available from more sophisticated organizations. They’re just doing what they do best in making a difference where it counts, in their own community.
These small organizations need to be armed with the tools to support their developing and maintaining corporate partnerships. Just as important, the small business community must have a stronger understanding of how to utilize local sponsorship opportunities to enable the growth of their business. This would eliminate the need for small non-profits competing for dollars from multi-nationals with large non-profit organizations.
Until the sponsorship industry has a stronger educational platform, its use as a marketing tool among small businesses will remain minimal. And, until the sponsorship industry has an association that disseminates best practice and promotes its use, it'll be an uphill battle for those local non-profits.
And I'll be happy to take that call.
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