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August 25, 2008
It's the niches, stupid
To sponsor, or not to sponsor. Always a gamble, especially in the emerging media world of bloggers and "influencers," a concept of questionable merit.
The gossip blog Valleywag, as is its custom, takes a pretty simplistic view of the idea: "Why Sponsoring Bloggers is a Waste of Money." Its single piece of evidence: Seagate's sponsorship of tech blogger Robert Scoble. Because the hard drive maker's stock price is down 35 percent, its sponsorship of Scoble is deemed a failure. As if stock price is a metric of sponsorship success.
These days, sponsorship for most companies is a port into a niche audience, of reaching out to the audience of geeks and nerds of an industry-within-an-industry. It's a multi-level bet based on credibility at a super-niche level. Scoble's a smart geek but hardly anyone would qualify him as a knowledgeable expert about hard drives. That's an industry-within-an-industry.
Today's super-niche sponsorship principle applies to any industry. After spending millions sponsoring Tiger Woods, GM finally realized he can't sell Buicks. He's not a credible car geek. GM kicked Woods upstairs to corporate marketing, which will probably employ him behind the scenes as a draw at events for dealers and suppliers, which is a far better investment.
Sponsoring bloggers is a matter of the right company sponsoring the right blogger at the right time. For your product or service, sponsor the super-geek bloggers who've built their credibility around the category and live, breathe and die by it.
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I've sponsored niche geek bloggers and conferences, but I'm having a lot of trouble proving that the sponsorship has worked (even with special coupon codes and the like). Intuitively, what you're saying feels right -- I agree with it! -- but I would still like some metrics to back it up. Our actual conversion rate for the blogger is very low, but intuition tells me that the brand exposure has been good for us. Unfortunately, getting metrics on sponsorships like advertising and PR, offline or online is hard. But maybe you folks have those metrics in your back pockets for the next blog post? :)
It is a shame that companies still value sponsorships strictly on a ROI (sales) basis. A shame because sponsorships can and do fill different roles. Companies should be more strategic. Start by defining the role sponsorships will play in the marketing mix. Then define the decision variables (awareness, brand affinity, entertainment opportunities, etc.) and weight those in the total decision. By looking at sponsorships through a strategic lens they will be better armed to select the right sponsorships (for the right reasons) but more importantly better armed to defend those decisions.
Excellent point! I often wonder how companies doesn't realize simple ideas like this. And like you said, "As if stock price is a metric of sponsorship success." There's some things it seems large companies will just never get.
The reality is in their rush to hire a spokesperson, any spokesperson, they lost sight of the 3M's (no, I don't mean they forgot their post it notes) but the 3M's which may very well be replacing the 4P's
* Market
* Message
* Media
For any campaign, now more then ever these three elements must be in alignment.
