From Start to Finish: Strategic Approaches to Sponsorship ROI

David Corelli from TrojanOne is truly passionate about sponsorship and how it is an important business tool that can solve problems throughout an organization. In one of the first sessions of the day, he spoke to a full room about the five business priorities that can be advanced using strategic sponsorships: consumer perception, employee engagement, earned media, new business relationships and community engagement.

Sponsorship can be used to improve consumer perception, whether you’re launching a new product (like Gatorade did when they established G Series as a performance enhancing product) or trying to establish a new positioning (like RONA’s partnership with the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, which established them as a company that cares about Canadians). Employee engagement is also a key problem that sponsorship can help solve, as examples from CIBC and AON demonstrate. These two organizations were both able to use sponsorship to transcend cultural and geographic boundaries and unite their employees. Earned media impacts a company’s bottom line more than advertising ever could, and can also provide one of the fastest returns, as Red Bull and Speed Skating Canada have proven with their sponsorship programs. New business relationships can also be formed through partnerships, as GE learned when they entered China for the Beijing Olympics. Finally, grassroots community engagement is one of the most important ways to maximize ROI – companies can make themselves locally relevant by becoming a part of the important moments in their community. Macy’s localization initiative, My Macy’s, is a great example of engaging communities.

During the question period, David discussed ROI measurement and how to prove the value of your sponsorship investment.

Listen, Measure & Engage in Social Media

Social media is an important tool that companies and properties alike can use to connect with their audience, but engagement is about much more than simply being present. Dave Thomas from Radian6 took the stage today to discuss the importance of listening, measuring and participating in a social media program.

If Dave could leave delegates with only one thing to take away from his presentation today, he’d hope it would be to focus on the fundamentals. Lucky for me, I took away a little more and would love to share it with you.

“Only you understand your business,” says Dave. Everyone has an opinion about social media and it is important to figure out what works for you and your business. Social media has forever changed the way people and companies communicate. Speaking through press releases is no longer enough; people expect to communicate with human beings and as human beings.

Below are the top key learnings that resonated with me from David’s presentation and will help you “rev up” your social media ROI:

Number one: Listen. You need to know how to make it about “them,” not you.

Plan. Social media is only effective with it ties into your business objectives.

Engage. Talk to people the way they like to be talked to. Share information that they will find useful and give people something they want. Dave uses the analogy: how many people “liked” a business Facebook page because they love to read their press release? (No surprise, no hands!) Whether it’s a business blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed, the reality is people engage because the like their content. Key learning: Tag it, excerpt it… infuse it with the “Google juice!” Think about how you can best optimize drive to your conversation

Analyze. Are your social media activities providing any value? Do you have what people want?

Integrate your findings into your strategic planning process.

Understand the value of your time. Analyze how much you spent compared to how much you sold.

Start with campaigns vs. understanding the ROI of your entire marketing department. That’s a realistic number that you can attain and plan for in a reasonable amount of time.

Make your campaigns trackable.

Be realistic.

Follow Dave on Twitter @DavidBThoms for more insights! You can also find his presentation on slide share.

Start Your Engines: Rev Up Your ROI

The 2011 Canadian Sponsorship Forum has officially begun! Justin Orfus kicked off the opening ceremonies with an introduction of five of the TrojanOne team members, and then encouraged the audience to introduce themselves to those around them. Next, Mark Harrison of TrojanOne took to the stage to introduce the weekend and give an overview of how to rev up your ROI. Mark covered many of the topics that other speakers will delve into over the weekend, including social media and word of mouth, the power of turning participants into promoters, and how to get more by giving more. He discussed going beyond sponsorship to make genuine connections. His presentation included a lot of examples, from Hellmann’s to Coca-Cola, from Kraft’s involvement with Hockeyville to the Purolator Tackle Hunger program. He spoke about the lessons we can all learn from Richard Branson expanding, Oprah quitting, and even Michael Jackson dying.

A clip from Charlie Sheen wrapped up the opening keynote before delegates moved out into nearby rooms for the breakout presentation. Stay tuned for more from the Canadian Sponsorship Forum!

Keep up to date with Mark Harrison on Twitter – @MarkHarrison3.

Welcome to CSF 2011!

It’s finally here! Yesterday, I hauled myself out of bed at 3:30 a.m., took two separate flights, and spent the evening greeting arrivals to the Montreal airport for one thing – the 2011 Canadian Sponsorship Forum!

The Forum has played a large role in my life for the last few months. I’ve written a lot of the session summaries, which got me excited for the many amazing and varied presentations that will be taking place this weekend. I’ve gathered information for speaker bios, and was wowed by the high calibre of presenters that will be gracing the stage this year. In weekly Forum meetings, I watched as the dedicated and hard-working team put all the pieces together and made sure that no detail went unnoticed.

As I mentioned, I spent most of yesterday (well, the part of it that I wasn’t sitting on a plane) at the Montreal airport greeting the Forum delegates that arrived early. It was great to be the first face greeting many of these people as they landed. I spoke with groups and individuals from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and probably a few other cities that I didn’t catch. Others arrived on the TrojanOne Express train from Toronto, and even more will be making their way to the Delta Centre-Ville tomorrow.

Last night, I got my first introduction to the Forum and Montreal during Formula 1. How crazy! Friendly, smiling people everywhere. Streets filled with energy and excitement. I’m looking forward to things ramping up even more as the city roars towards the big event on Sunday: the Formula 1 race.

Tomorrow, I’ll be greeting delegates again and making sure they’re in the right place. Then, I’ll be watching the opening ceremonies and keynote presentation from our own Mark Harrison before volunteering at a couple of different sessions. So stay tuned tomorrow for updates – and don’t forget to tune in to the conversation on Twitter by following our hashtag #CSF2011.