Five Metrics For Measuring Sponsorship ROI

How will your sponsors measure the worth of working with you? There are many important metrics of success to keep in mind from conceptualization through renewal conversations to maximize sponsorship effectiveness. Winning partnerships begin by first achieving a clear understanding on how you can best paint the picture of benefits reaped for each sponsor in particular. However, there are a few best-practice strategies to implement across the board as you define overall value. Demonstrating results to your promises are crucial whether you are recapping performances or selling future activations.

Fulfillment Report This summary compares and contrasts the benefits promised to the delivery and execution of each item. This is the place to highlight the performance of each asset and note ways in which the program exceeded expectations or give an explanation for failure or delay of delivery. Images are efficient for proof of performance - this includes physical signage and screenshots of digital deliverables. Bonus points for providing a breakdown of the attendees/audience that were exposed to the said assets.

Formulas BizFluent provides us with a precise template for calculating sponsorship ROI. In short, this involves adding up the value of all consumer impacts– tangible benefits and media exposure – to get the value of the sponsorship. Then, subtract the cost of the sponsorship from the value of the sponsorship to get what is called the net gain. Lastly, divide the net gain by the cost of the sponsorship. This will yield the ROI that is so essential for proving value and retaining sponsors.

As you see from the Nielsen Report infographic below, you may also measure ROI by dividing the monetary value (media value and market research) by the sum of costs for activation and sponsorship. If the result is below 1, the partnership is underperforming compared to the sponsor fee – but if it’s greater than 1, then a sponsor can clearly see the results that make a sponsorship with you a great investment. Source: Nielson Sports 2017

Computer Vision As discussed in last week’s blog technology has caught up to the dire need of sponsors to justify the money spent to associate themselves with your property. Vice versa, a property cannot add or promote value to their sponsorship opportunities without an accurate way to measure it. Luckily, there are software solutions which attempt to place a tangible dollar value on the promotion of brands by athletes, teams and events.

Survey / Customer Feedback There are still few things more valuable than direct feedback from the consumers in which the activation was geared to. Whether it’s positive/praise outlining the strengths of the partnership OR negative/constructive criticism – the voice of the consumer should serve as the foundation for building the next activation or renewal agreement more strategically. To increase the quantity and quality of responses, be sure to collect feedback in a timely manner for relevancy and details.These surveys can be given onsite or collected digitally using an event app or blast email (via SurveyMonkey for example ). Of course, if you send it electronically, then consider the metrics such as open rate, bounced emails, etc. Creating a graphic that encompasses the responses you’ve receive will serve as a great visual to provide a sponsor during recap.

Social Listening and Analytics There is data collected with each social media post and the digital marketing strategy should encompass the capture and critique all analytics.With the right combination of tools, not only can you identify and reveal who was exposed to a sponsor’s brand or message, but also who is/was most engaged with the sponsorship program. Social listening is important to execute before, during, and after the activation. It validates your marketing efforts and decisively narrows down what sponsors and content work best among your audience. When reporting ROI, you should never leave out the attendee/user-generated content that brings attention to a sponsor in addition to your own posts. There are many platforms that make it easy to produce and export data-driven insights such as Hootsuite, Google Alerts,Mailchimp, and Mention