When was the last time you provided your corporate partners and sponsors with a return on investment (ROI) report?

You may have already had a conversation with a potential corporate partner where they ask you how you will measure the ROI on the partnership for them. How will you measure the sales they are making out of the partnership and how many of your members take up their offers? If you’re anything like me (and without the benefit of my trusty crystal ball) you soon realise that question is impossible to answer!

The great news is, it’s not your job to measure how many of your members are purchasing your sponsor’s products or services – that’s an impossible ask and that’s their job to be tracking those details. However, you can (and should) still be measuring how often and through which channels you are sharing their key messages, educational material and branding throughout the term of your agreement together.

In any corporate partnership agreement, it’s essential to have a binding contract that details how you will be delivering on the partnership, the opportunities you are providing access to and what the expectations in return will be. Without this, how can you get to the end of the agreement and expect your partner to renew if you haven’t been measuring the desired outcomes? One way to create an ROI report is to outline all the things you have said you will deliver (detailed in the contract) and make up a table detailing when and how often you have delivered on each particular item. For instance, if you have said that in the first quarter of the partnership that you will be sending out 1000 event invitations with your corporate partner’s logo on it, make sure you know exactly how many invitations were sent out and can provide them with that number, as well as all the other ways you have promised to share their messages to your members.

Prior to beginning any corporate partnership, one of the key benefits of being aligned with you can be that you will be providing your partner with regular ROI reports (quarterly is good, but ask them if they have specific reporting requirements that they need to meet, so your reports can support their efforts.) Tell them how you will be measuring the partnership, and ask them if they can also provide you with feedback each quarter on how they are measuring it. How many sales have they made? How many leads have they generated? How are they discerning member enquiries (from general public) that come through to them – do they require your members to quote their membership number? It would be great for you to know exactly how much business they are deriving from being associated with you, so when you come to your formal annual review of the partnership you are both fore-armed and fore-warned which takes all of the guesswork out of renewing contracts.