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Expanding the Definition of Your Customer
When it comes to sponsorship, most companies limit the definition of the customer to the consumer of their products and services, or the end user. Nevertheless, there are countless other customers - let's call them "peripheral stakeholders" - who may be impacted by a sponsorship, and those groups should not be overlooked. In fact, investing in exploitation activities that engage peripheral stakeholders should give your sponsorship more mileage and will likely provide you with a better return on your sponsorship investment. So who are these peripheral stakeholders and how do you include them in your activation plans? The following peripheral stakeholders should be targeted and involved in your sponsorships:
Industry Analysts: The analyst community holds a great deal of influence in shaping investor confidence in your company. So why is it that few companies who actively sponsor also work alongside their analyst relations department to engage and excite analysts? The answer is that analysts aren't necessarily purchasing your products and creating buzz among consumers. But they are capable of creating buzz among financial consultants and investors. The most effective route to gaining attention and positive comments from analysts is to demonstrate increased usage, untraditional applications, or alternative markets for your products through sponsorship. Any of these developments may positively impact your profits, which will certainly make analysts take note. For example, if you are a technology sponsor of a music artist's tour, consider taking analysts on backstage tours to illustrate how your products can serve a new vertical market.
Retail Partners: Sponsors are increasingly becoming wise to the fact that retail or channel partners are customers too and can easily be served through sponsorship. For many sponsoring companies, retailers are their connection to end-users, so it's critically important to assist retail partners in driving traffic to their stores. Consider providing retail partners with pass-through rights, promotional assets such as in-store athlete or celebrity appearances, and sponsorship-themed marketing materials. If you show retail partners that you care about them and their bottom line, they'll make selling your products a priority.
Shareholders: They're usually the forgotten party in any sponsorship scenario. In fact, shareholders tend to be a thorn in the side of many sponsors. Some of you have signed a sponsorship in the past, perhaps ill-timed to correspond with a poor quarterly earnings announcement, only to be flooded with forwarded e-mails from your PR or shareholder relations departments that contain unflattering words from retirees who own five shares of your company's stock. So what do you do? Try explaining to shareholders what that costly NFL or F1 sponsorship is going to do for your brand or how it will help the company move product off the shelves. Inject themes and explain the sponsorship in your annual report. Also, make sure someone in PR is prepping the CEO and CFO so they can articulately explain that naming rights deal at the annual shareholder meeting.
Trade Press/Mainstream Press: Needless to say, strong and positive PR is critical to the success of any sponsorship. Create buzz around your product and you will see retailers clamoring to get their hands on more inventory, and consumers running to the store, logging onto the Internet or picking up the phone to purchase your products. Make sure you build into your activation plan a list of all your vital press targets and then have your sponsorship PR person give them a reason to broadcast or write about your sponsorship. It can be as easy as inviting some members of the press on-site to a sponsored event or sending them a creative physical representation of your sponsorship.
Employees: Later this week, we will discuss the importance of involving employees in sponsorship activities, so we won't give away too much here. Let's just mention that employees can be the best promoters of your company - and your sponsorships - so why wouldn't you involve them? Educate employees about sponsorships and the reasons behind them, and you will end up with walking billboards and a sort of auxiliary PR staff!
