My blog is usually full of advice, a few opinions on hot industry topics. What I’d like to do this time is provide a list of some of the resources and tools I rely on to get good information on corporate sponsorship.
ABI/Inform Full-Text Online
This is an essential (and free) resource for people in this industry. I could not be effective in my job without it. You can enter – Google-style – keywords and it will search the full text of articles on thousands of business publications around the world and bring you back the whole articles. You can mark the ones that are interesting to you and e-mail them to yourself. The kind of things you will find:
- Examples of best practice sponsorship – win-win-win!
- Examples of interesting, out-of-the-box partnerships
- Examples of interesting, out-of-the-box sponsorship benefits
- Precedent to add weight to that great sponsorship idea you have
- Background on how other sponsors use their sponsorships of art galleries/festivals/whatever
- Background on what multinational sponsors do in other countries (sponsees, you’ll make yourself look really smart if you do this!)
The kicker is that mostly only university and major public libraries have a license to this. The good news is that you should be able to get a library card and pin number to remotely log into the online materials from your office. That’s what I do with the State Library of NSW. Just call and ask your closest major library about the process to get a card and pin number because you want to access ProQuest databases (ABI/Inform is a ProQuest service).
Publications
There are thousands of free e-newsletters that are related to our industry, and that can be a great way to get lots of information in a concise format. That said, there are many valuable industry publications that are worthwhile reviewing in hardcopy. If you only have a limited amount of time, I recommend subscribing to the following hardcopy publications:
Brandweek – This is a treasure trove of great ideas for sponsors and sponsorship seekers. Big emphasis on below-the-line, providing a huge cross-section of leverage ideas that can be integrated across all of your communications. Note: ABI/Inform does index Brandweek, which is great if you are looking for something specific. If you just need an idea boost, however, there is nothing better than spending 10-15 minutes trawling through Brandweek to see what you find.
Weekly/biweekly ad industry magazine (varies) – This is different in each country, but examples are AdAge, AdNews, Adweek, etc. This is a particularly great tool for sponsorship seekers, as you will know what brands are up to – new initiatives, messages, target markets, etc – before their campaigns hit the market AND you will get the name and title of the brand manager (the person who you should be approaching).
PROMO Magazine – They bill themselves as a resource for CMOs, but brand marketers will get a lot from this magazine.
Recommended sponsorship blogs
I follow a lot of blogs – sponsorship, sports marketing, non-profit marketing, lots of brand marketing, and tech stuff (I love tech stuff). In addition, I have set up Google Alerts for several phrases, giving me access to specific posts I might not otherwise see. If you use Google Reader (I do), you can get those alerts to show up right in your feed. Very convenient.
The blogs I recommend that are specific to sponsorship are below. I have left out a number of big names who do blog, but aren’t all that insightful, taking an approach something like, “I’d like to bring your attention to this issue. It sure is a big issue and I recommend you keep it in mind. The end.”
- Kim Skildum-Reid’s Corporate Sponsorship Blog (yes, that’s my blog) – http://blog.powersponsorship.com
- Partnership Activation Blog by Brian Gainor – http://www.partnershipactivation.com
- Sponsorship Blog by Linda Antonidis – http://sponsorshipblog.com/
- The Business of Sports Blog by Russell Scibetti – http://www.thebusinessofsports.com/
- Culture Scout Blog by Patricia Martin – http://blog.patricia-martin.com
- Chris Reed on Partnership Marketing – http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/chrisreed/default.aspx
- SponsorPark’s blog – http://www.sponsorpark.com/blog/
I’m also going to be putting these blog links on the Power Sponsorship links page. If you know of a blog that I should showcase on my links page, please do let me know and I’ll check it out – kimsblog@powersponsorship.com.
Twitter recommendations
If you’re on Twitter, you should check out these industry professionals. They provide good information, insights, and post regularly. Have anyone to add? Ping me on @KimSkildumReid and I’d be happy to follow you back!
@KimSkildumReid (that’s me!)
@sports_business
@khuda1
@kadisco
@sponsorpark
@pmcnamara1
@sportsmktgrev
@sponsorship123
@sportmktgprof
@Sponsoredux
@sponsorpitch
@mmahoney13
@dhgarske
@meaghery
@ardikolah
@nfpn
@MarketingProfs
@BrianGainor
@Groupable
@cfullerrun
@sponsorshiptips
@sbjsbd
And the all-around hero of the technical class, @mashable.
There are plenty more – I follow hundreds of people. If you want a full list of who I follow, go to http://twitter.com/KimSkildumReid.
Other tools that will make your information-gathering easier
Okay, I know I’m not a productivity guru or anything, but there is a lot of information to synthesise that is relevant to this industry. Some of my favourite tools to capture and organise this stuff are:
Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
You can set up alerts for various phrases. Anytime a blog is written using those phrases, you’ll be alerted via either a daily email or (even better) the blog will appear in your Google Reader feed.
Google Reader – http://reader.google.com
There are a lot of readers that are very useful, but I prefer using Google Reader because I can put Google Alerts for specific phrases right into the feed.
Evernote – http://www.evernote.com
I am an Evernote evangelist. It took me all of two weeks to go from a free user to paying the whole whopping $40 a year to have a professional version. (It took my offsider about an hour!) Why? Because you can clip all or part of any webpage, email, blog, scan, document, PDF, voice recording, or text note, etc, tag it, and store it in Evernote. You can create folders for different topics and generally keep track of all the fab info you find. It synchs to their server (securely), will synch across multiple machines, and has an iPhone app. If you get the pro version, you can share some or all of your folders – I share about 1/3 of mine with my admin and research assistants. Try it free.
Twitter dashboard application
Don’t use the Twitter page as your main interface with Twitter. You want to use an application on your computer and one on your phone. I personally use Seesmic and Tweetie, respectively, but it’s a matter of taste. Not on Twitter? You really should think about it. You can find some very good industry information and people through Twitter.
PowerTwitter add-on for Firefox – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9591
Yes, I know… Google Chrome is supposed to be cooler, but I love all the add-ons I can get for Firefox, so I stick with it. This is one of my favourites. It’s a Twitter plugin that puts your homepage view of Twitter on steroids. It previews links in tweets and gives you a lot more insight and options. I use Seesmic/Tweetie to manage my Twitter feeds, but when I need to manage followers, etc I use PowerTwitter on my Twitter page.
My books
I would be remiss to write this blog and not mention my own books: Two industry bestsellers and the top book in the world on ambush marketing…
These links will take you through to Amazon, but they are available at good booksellers worldwide.
I know the list isn’t exhaustive. I’ve tried to keep it down to the tools and resources I rely on every day that are also specific to sponsorship. For more, I suggest you check out the Power Sponsorship links page.
I hope this has been helpful! Got any suggestions? Let me know on kimsblog@powersponsorship.com!
