Sponsorship - Is It a Good Marketing Strategy for Your Business?

Requests for sponsorship are escalating to new levels as nonprofits and charitable organizations grapple with the challenge of raising funds for their cause.

Businesses get requests almost daily for donations, sponsorship opportunities and ad requests under the 'sponsorship' banner. Should you invest in a sponsorship?

Before you decide to sponsor a golf tournament, speaker, the wine at an event, VIP room, an awards reception, educational program, banners, badge holders, audio visual equipment, display computers, tote bags, shuttle buses, napkins or drink cups, you need to set clear, measurable goals. Do you want to enhance your image, drive sales, get positive publicity, increase awareness, be a good corporate citizen, enhance consumer / business relations or differentiate yourself from competitors? Identify primary and secondary goals then consider whether sponsorship is a good fit to achieve them.

If you do sign on the sponsorship dotted line. Make sure to customize your sponsorship so it's relevant and gets people to engage with your brand. If you're a telecom company set-up a recharging station at a trade show so delegates can recharge dead cell / pda batteries on the spot. If you're a water supplier, provide bottled water to delegates or golfers. Get creative and work with the nonprofit / charity to customize a sponsorship so it gets people to interact with your brand. This will help you connect with specifically targeted niche markets without any waste. It's also an effective complement to other marketing programs and, like magic, can have a dramatic influence on customer relations and brand retention.

Unlike the immediacy of magic, however, the results of a sponsorship may take time. But the feel good of helping children, or women, or disabled, or the many other good causes out there does provide an immediate 'feel good' result. 

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