Moving the Needle: Quality and Quantity Required

Lots of properties contact me to tell me about what a great match they are for one of my clients. They have spent a lot of time rationalizing. Very often they are trying to make something fit because it meets their needs not the sponsor’s. So they twist and mush until they think they have an exciting story to tell. Sometimes there even is some alignment.

But for the moment, let’s set aside the alignment and focus on moving the needle. If you want big dollars for your sponsorship you need to prove the case that you can make big dollars for your sponsor. The size of the audience is important. Ten thousand hits may sound like a lot on a web site, but not if you compare it to 12 million a day on ESPN.com. Sponsors hate risk. If you want them to stop doing what they are doing and invest in your property then you have to not only get them excited about your property, but you have to prove that you have lots of prospective customers for them in addition to being a good match.

If you are going to “move the needle” make sure you understand their other channels, what their goals are, what their conversion rates are. If you can covert at a higher rate or more cost effectively it doesn’t mean much unless you can supply a meaningful quantity. Sponsors are busy. They might love your idea or your property. They might agree that it is a great match for them; but if it doesn’t provide enough volume, then it isn’t worth their time.

During the mortgage boom, I had a client that was sending out over 20 million pieces of mail a month and had a major online presence. We were able to add hundreds of events to their lead generation campaign because they needed even more leads. Even though our cost per acquisition was slightly higher, they had excess capacity and were willing to pay a little more to keep their pipeline full.

Now, the math still has to work, and if their capacity dropped, they would certainly drop the highest cost source first, but for several years we were able to provide them with additional leads at a price that while a little higher, still left them the margin they needed.

If you expect a sponsor to go with you, make sure you can supply them with a quantity that makes trying something new, worth the risk.

For more details, please contact me.