At SQN, we employ our ‘Objectives Framework Approach’, which ensures we make a clear thread for our clients between the overarching business objectives needing to be fulfilled, the resultant strategic corporate, sales, marketing and tactical objectives.
Often brands or their agencies point only to the tactical effectiveness of each part of the activation, but this, if seen in isolation, doesn’t necessarily help measure sponsorship effectiveness or success. Measuring only highly tactical activity results such as Facebook likes, LinkedIn followers or advertising equivalent values (AEV’s) can be helpful, but are only part of the story.
This doesn’t only happen in sponsorship, but also across the marketing mix, mostly because these are seen as easy, tangible data points to collect. Whilst there is clear merit to measuring and monitoring this data, if used as a standalone measure of success, they at best do not tell the whole story and at worst can be meaningless or give a false impression.
Take the example where over a period of time you wanted to increase your Facebook likes from 1,000 to 5,000 and you actually achieved 10,000. On the face of it that seems like an awesome result. However, if the business challenge was to drive enhanced relationships with a certain specific audience and the bulk of the new Facebook likes were not from that audience type, then the activity should not be considered a success against the initial objectives set.
We have included some measurement examples in the framework opposite. These are not exhaustive, nor are they all necessarily relevant at once. Taking the time to understand what’s driving your sponsorship and what point in the sponsorship lifecycle you are in is key. This will enable you to set appropriate targets in a specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, timebound (SMART) fashion, to monitor the performance of your sponsorship over time.
For more on articles from our sponsorship mini-series head to https://sqn.agency/sponsorship
