There's a balance between partner satisfaction and smart marketing.
A partner approached me to be a sponsor at an upcoming open house. They are tincupping to multiple vendors and claim they will have a few hundred people at the event. No problem with that.
They have already made reservations for the Microsoft RV, so MS will have a pretty good presence there.
They've asked me for $1500.
I'm leaning towards no, despite the fact that it will make them "feel good." And trust me, I value relationships…but it has to be of mutual value.
Here's why…
- I've extended them 4 event offers, 3 were recalled because of failure to execute
- For the one other event, I bent over backwards to get them a presenter. They assured me they'd have 25 customers. They had 9.
- They refuse to use click to attend for registration (or even a bulk upload)-which every other partner does and won't use it for the upcoming event. This is critical to visibility and joint sales efforts.
No ROI
The average cost of a breadth event is about $350. We've done 75 of them, generated $2mm in pipeline and are tracking 1000 activities w/partners.
This partner is asking for 5 times that number and offering me NOTHING except for "presence" in front of their customers…which I feel like we'll have addressed with the RV.
I once read a great book called The End of Marketing As We Know It by Sergio Zyman, the former CMO of Coca Cola. He said…if you don't know where your money is going or what it is going to do for you, don't spend it.
So, I'll say this… If I can't track our marketing $, I don't want to spend them.
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