By Paul Birdwell (paul@roaringforkagency.com)

There is no better Sponsorship resource on the Internet than Kim Skildum-Reid’s Power Sponsorship website…

www.powersponsorship.com

….and in a blog post from October 2011 Kim Skildum-Reid laid out the essential questions that anyone working at a company that is considering sponsoring an event should be asking themselves before making that sponsorship investment:

Corporate Sponsorship SAQ (Should-Ask Questions), Power Sponsorship, Kim Skildum-Reid

“Questions sponsors should ask, but usually don’t…

Why are we sponsoring this? Why are we sponsoring anything?

This is THE big question, and while many sponsors do ask it, most don’t really dig for the answer.

If you answer this question with anything having to do with the sponsorship itself, you’ve got it wrong. You aren’t sponsoring it for awareness. You aren’t sponsoring it because it’s a good cause. You aren’t sponsoring it because it’s a bargain. You aren’t sponsoring it because it’s iconic or prestigious or well-matched. You are sponsoring for only two reasons:

To change people’s behaviors

To change people’s perceptions

Everything, EVERYTHING you do with sponsorship – as a whole and individually – is about one or both of those things. If you can specify exactly what you are trying to change – all tying back to your overall brand or company objectives – suddenly, everything else will fall into place. You’ll know how to leverage your investments. You’ll know how to measure the results.

Do we have the resources to make the most of this investment?

When most people think of “resources”, they are really thinking “money”. Honestly, money is the least of your concerns, as it is possible to leverage sponsorship fantastically for far less money than you probably think (10-25% of the value of the fee, in most cases). Instead, you really need to think in terms of all of the resources you’re going to need:

Lead time – Do you have the lead time to plan and implement a strong leverage plan?

Human resources – Do you have the people and the hours to make the most of this investment?

Buy-in – Do the stakeholders within your company see the potential? Are they keen to use it across what they do?

Budget – Do you have (or can you access from other budgets) enough to make the investment and leverage it?

Does this sponsorship have the critical mass of care to leverage effectively?
This is another big question. A sponsorship doesn’t have to be huge to work, it has to have...."

One can find the rest of Kim’s Corporate Sponsorship SAQ (Should-Ask Questions and blog post here…

Corporate Sponsorship SAQ (Should-Ask Questions, Power Sponsorship, Kim Skildum-Reid

….and when someone finds themselves in a position of considering a sponsorship investment in an event, venue naming rights opportunity or anything else where corporate Dollars are going to be spent in the sponsorship arena it is a MUST that the critical questions around what the return-on-investment will be on that sponsorship commitment be asked before the Dollars head out the door.

The Bottom-Line Question that we often ask ourselves here at the Roaring Fork Agency when considering what companies to approach about sponsoring an event or a venue naming rights opportunity is:

If the company we pitched decided to make the investment would the event sponsorship or venue naming rights opportunity impact in a positive way the Bottom-Line of the company in question?

If we cannot answer the above question with a resounding….

YES!

….then we are wasting our time, their time, the event or venue’s time or in other words…

Everyone’s Time!

Anyone interested in Sponsorship issues could not find a better place on the Internet than Kim Skildum-Reid’s…

Power Sponsorship – www.powersponsorship.com

….website and three books of Kim’s that we have had around our offices for years that are a MUST to own & read for anyone involved in the sponsorship business on the agency or corporate side are:

The Corporate Sponsorship Toolkit