Commentary: Choosing sponsorships with care

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You see the signs — your executive director is darting around the firm attending countless committee meetings and finance committee members are spending more time together in boardrooms than families do during the holiday season. It’s budget time.

In today’s uncertain economy, you need to review your firm’s marketing budget and reallocate marketing dollars from categories that show little return on investment to areas that provide the greatest return.

This is not the year to slash marketing budgets, but may be time to trim back in certain areas.

The legal industry generates reliable statistics on which marketing efforts yield the greatest return, such as strategic business development initiatives, targeted networking efforts and continued focus on improving client relationships. But one area that may benefit from some scrutiny is the use of sponsorships.

All sponsorships are not created equal: those that offer little more than the firm’s logo on materials distributed to individuals who may not even be prospective targets for business are probably not worth your marketing dollars.

You need to reassess your sponsorships carefully. Some that provide minimal value may have been in the budget forever and simply roll over from year to year without question. Others bring clear benefits, such as an event that is important to a key client. What is key is an objective assessment on a firm-wide basis of all sponsorships, to determine which actually benefit the firm’s bottom line or are necessary to maintain a client relationship or community connection.

What type of sponsorships may not be worth the money? One example is random table sponsorships for events that it’s very hard to find people willing to attend. Others worth reconsidering include golf hole and outings sponsorships, sporting events, playbills and local community events, special interest groups and annual fundraisers.

Although many of these support worthy causes, law firms can no longer be all things to all people in the hope that business will fall in their laps.

On the flip side, some sponsorships can make great business sense. To determine what falls into this category, consider the five W’s:

Who benefits from the sponsorship? (an individual attorney, the firm, a client, etc.);

What is the firm’s return for its investment?;

When is the event? (if it’s a Friday or Saturday evening, it’s even harder to get people to attend);

Where is the event?;

Why is it beneficial for the firm and does it align with the firm’s overall strategic goals?

Once you decide a sponsorship is worthwhile, it’s important to get a commitment to the necessary networking, attendance and interest. If there’s zero follow up internally, then you’re not getting value for your investment.

This takes some effort. But with an educated and well-informed approach, law firm marketers can objectively assess expenditures based not on who the request is coming from but rather what the benefit is to the firm.

Michelle Friedman is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Davis & Kuelthau. She is responsible for the marketing, communication, public relations and business development efforts of the firm. She is also a veteran of the United States Army Military Intelligence Corps where she served as an Arabic Linguist.