Last night, I was at an event in Ikeja and was discussing with a fellow poet and he said the following….

“I am into branding and media, so I get firms asking for advice on events to support/ sponsor to promote their brands and products., pt I hesitate to recommend poetry events because I don’t know what to answer if they ask for the ROI of sponsoring a poetry event.”

Hmm, interesting perspective, right?
So let’s dig into this and start with, what is ROI?

ROI – tries to measure the amount of return on a particular investment, relative to the investment’s cost. To calculate ROI, the benefit (or return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

Ok, now we know what ROI means. But whats the ROI on sponsoring a spoken word poetry event?

Permit me to use an event I am used to, (i.e. War Of Words – Slam Poetry Competition), to illustrate the ROI on sponsoring a spoken word poetry event, using the following metrics:

1. Brand visibility/ Brand equity – how much would a brand spend to produce over 100 professional videos within 2 months. As well as, upload and share on major social media channels. Each video would have a backdrop with the brand’s logo, and/ or product placement. Also, more than half of the 100 videos would be themed (i.e. based on the sponsor’s slogan). The themed videos are infomercials for the brand.

2. Content strategy – daily uploads and shares of videos clips, pictures, audio content and words that generate controversy, conversation and engagement.

3. Targeted marketing – the consumers in this niche can be termed “mass literates.” And we know 90% of sales is mainly about the heart and not logic. The art form creates an emotional bond between the mass literates and the brand.

4. Consumers perception – it makes the sponsor to be seen as the “great” one who aided the birth of a “new” industry. An industry that entertains, educates and elevates (i.e. via employment, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, emotional therapy etc).

Other metrics of stating the ROI of sponsorship include: community goodwill, efficient lead generation, sales goals, audience insights and business relationship/ collaboration.

I hope you were able to decipher the sense in all what I stated. If not, we can sit down over a bottle or two and I will further break it all down into Naira and Kobo for easy comprehension.

Signed
Olumide Holloway aka King Olulu, not from Zulu.
2020 and beyond.

+2348025070892, olulu4ever@gmail.com, Twitter @olulu4ever, Instagram @olulutheking