Engaging Marketing
Premium sponsorship opportunities are ones that engage attendees the longest.
By Charles W. Allen
“Impressions” have traditionally been the metric used when selling sponsorships in the events and tradeshow industry. To review: impressions are simply the number of people who see a marketing message, such as a hanging banner. In this column, we will take a closer look at the metrics behind valuing impressions.
Premium Impressions
The number of impressions are typically measured in units called cost-per-thousand (CPMs). The CPM model refers to advertising bought on the basis of impressions. This is in contrast to the various types of pay-for-performance advertising, whereby payment is only triggered by a mutually agreed upon transaction (such as a sale or registration).
The total price paid in a CPM transaction is calculated by multiplying the CPM rate by the number of CPM units. For example, fifty thousand impressions at $200 CPM equals a $10,000 total price. The amount paid per impression is calculated by dividing the CPM by 1,000. For example, a $200 CPM equals $ .20 per impression.
If you sell sponsorships for your meeting or trade show, you should definitely consider impressions. Your prospective sponsors certainly will.
What are factors that drive impressions? The better the location and the more the exposure, the higher the numbers of impressions created. The higher the number of impressions, the more you can command for the respective sponsorship. Obviously, the sponsorship recognition banner in the back hall won’t garner as many impressions as the one in the main lobby at the top of the escalator that everyone uses multiple times in a day.
But a new factor is entering into the cost of impressions as more companies experiment with interactive marketing at tradeshows. That new factor is the time people spend viewing a marketing message. Simply, if 100 people spending two minutes viewing something is worth more than 100 people viewing something for just two seconds.
This explains largely why static banners lack the “price elasticity” found in interactive or kinetic marketing opportunities.
The classic approach to sponsorships has been to hang a banner and charge a sponsor. Unfortunately, most hanging banners, just like most billboard advertisements, are static and become lost in the “promotional overload” clutter. Thus, they lack the power to engage the consumer. With higher quality and longer impressions, sponsors are willing to pay more for the sponsorship because they create more impact and thus, generate much greater response rates.
Get Attendees Involved
If motion attracts attention, the next step is getting the attendees involved with the signage (or brand market message) by making the opportunity interactive. We are seeing all sorts of interactive display environments where the attendee is spending minutes, not fractions of a second, involved with the display. Every year, an entire new collection of experiential marketing technologies are introduced to our marketplace.
The savviest event marketers are moving beyond the “metrics paradigm” when making purchasing decisions. They are placing a higher value on marketing messages that engage attendees-and taking a second look at buying impressions that fail to impress.
Charles Allen is chairman and CEO of the C.W. Allen Group, which provides consulting, products, and sponsorship services to the tradeshow and event industry. For more information, contact him at charles@cwallengroup.com.
