Activate Sponsorship Marketing

Your store might financially support a business seminar for retailers in your community, staff the press room at a week-long local trade show using a few of your paid employees, or provide supplies from your store stock for a children’s soccer team for an entire season.
     When your store gains broad recognition for an activity like this, it can be called “sponsorship marketing.” Although sponsorship marketing is usually associated with charitable or nonprofit activities, tie-ins with other businesses also occur.
     A recent Harvard Business Review posting about sponsorship marketing reminds us of the opportunities and pitfalls. From a shopper psychology perspective, the advantages of sponsorship marketing accrue because people participating in the sponsored event or activity develop positive feelings toward your business. Here are some ways those positive feelings can enhance your profitability:

• Soften objections to your expansion. If you choose to expand your store or carry new product lines, the good feelings about your care for the community can mean fewer and less vigorous complaints to the planning commission. For this advantage, you’re depending on consumers’ memory. The need for good will may come long after the sponsorship. It works best when there is a clear affinity between your store and what you’re sponsoring. A larger retailer sponsoring a business seminar for smaller retailers can count on more memorable payoffs than the larger retailer sponsoring an art exhibition.
• Obtain enhanced information. People participating in the sponsored activity will have opinions about any supplies you contributed and about your store. Positive feelings open up people so you can listen in. If you’re a major sponsor, participants become more willing than usual to complete survey questionnaires. The effect is greater when your sponsorship presence includes interactions with the participants, such as staff from your store on site and fun games. Select sponsorships which attract the sorts of consumers whose information you value, and then don’t forget to make provision for the data gathering at the activity and for analysis of the data afterwards.
• Verify your value to the community. Maybe you’re not expanding your store footprint or product and service offerings right now. Maybe you already have plenty of data about consumers to process. Even then, sponsorship marketing can pay off. The good feelings among event participants can lead to them wanting to spend dollars with you. Be sure your store name is featured prominently at each event you sponsor.

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