Do you make these mistakes in marketing? Part 6 [ ] Poor management of corporate entertainment program. Companies spend squillions entertaining people at sporting and entertainment events. But how often are those seats empty or warmed by a low value bum? The last minute ring around by sales people to fill the stadium seats for important matches is a familiar pre-event event. Map the year with the events you are attending, assign valuable names to those events (based on data you have collected on entertainment preferences for each client contact), and get the invitations out to them in enough time to replace those who cannot accept with clients or equal value. Or simply watch your entertainment budget frittered away for little return.

[ ] Self-indulgent sponsorships and corporate entertainment. You know the type: the boss likes golf or marlin fishing, so half a mill goes towards it even though the clients/customers don’t give a toss about it. Ask the CFO for advice on how to break it to the CEO. I wonder what the shareholders would say if they knew.

[ ] Poor targeting of sponsorship dollars. Sponsorship is a big hole into which marketing budgets can disappear for little return. Sponsorship should be judged like awareness advertising and measured as such. Who are you targeting? It can be used creatively to tie in staff, channels and customers to help achieve objectives against several target audiences.  ¶ 11:01 AM