Sponsorship Marketing

Sponsorship versus affiliate programs: how it works.

Sponsorship versus Banner Ads

hereas banner ads draw visitors away from your site, sponsorship marketing does the opposite. The message and effectiveness of your site is enhanced and emphasized by a bonding between the site owner and its sponsor(s). Rather therefore than surround the page copy with peripheral adverts, you'll write copy that gradually develops into a pitch for the sponsor's products, only allowing links out when appropriate. Naturally, sponsor and site owner must see eye to eye, and in the more successful sites do indeed share a common vision and passion for the site's objectives.

But there's a complication. No site thrives unless it serves its customers, but a sponsored site has the additional requirement of steering itself towards the market objectives of possible sponsors. The winning site takes some time to build, therefore, and these are the recommended steps:

1. identify the needs of your audience.

2. ensure your site supplies that need, either by in house research or by contracting out.

3. keep building site traffic through audience feedback.

4. research companies that are also targeting your audience, analyzing their websites and company reports.

5. draw up a short-list of such companies, ensuring that you understand and can find common ground in their objectives and policies.

6. make the appropriate approaches.

7. bring in an agency if appropriate.

8. explore and quantify the areas of mutual benefit.

9. formalize matters, paying particular attention to:

   • exclusivity: other sponsors or not?

   • length of agreement.

   • contingencies in sales, products or web traffic.

   • policy shifts in one or both companies.

Pros and Cons

All advertising carries restrictions, but in sponsorship you are more closely identified with your sponsors, sharing in their image and business fortunes. These can be a problem in:

• responsibility: who decides what is promoted on the site?

• diversification: can you live with a company very different from its incarnation of two year's back?

• divorce: can a parting of the ways be amicable, and not injure company reputations?

Banner Ads and Sponsorship: Using an Agency

Advertising is a cut-throat business, and if the contracts are binding they are also very technical. Why not use a Ad Rep Agency to act as honest broker? After all, you'll have your hands full with your side of the business.

Some points to bear in mind. Agencies:

• take a high percentage of sales, up to 40%.

• are only interested in the larger sites, with a million hits a month or more.

• expect extensive demographics, with documentation.

• often handle TV advertising as well, which gets preference.

• require exclusive rights to sell ad space on your site for periods of 6 or 12 months.

By way of compensation, agencies employ experienced staff, who:

• know the business and can negotiate the optimum deal.

• are more at home in the rough and tumble of the advertising world.

• can better recognize the potential of your site, making helpful suggestions for improvement.

• liaise with the advertiser, saving you exasperating telephone conversations.

Banner Ads: Third Party Networks

Rather than use an agency, some sites prefer to register with a third-party network that brings together ad hosting and the ad placing companies. Companies wishing to place banner ads register for membership, stating what they wish to pay (in CPM, CTR and/or CCT). Companies wishing to host banner ads also register for membership. Once granted, membership allows both parties to see what's on offer. There are generally no fees for membership, but the third-party network takes a commission from the hosting company's revenues.

Getting Paid: How Much Do You Charge?

Put yourself in your sponsor's shoes. What do they pay elsewhere for what you could offer them? Find out by at least checking the banner ad rates from competitor sites. Suppose they employed an agency — they almost certainly do — what return do they get from their advertising spend here? What do other sites charge for sponsorship? Precise figures may be hard to come by, but you'll get some idea of what's reasonable at present. Show your sponsor that you're serious about their business, and you're halfway to finding the win-win relationship.

 

Company  | Disclaimer  | Email

Copyright © 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 LitLangs All Rights Reserved