Viewers. Readers. Members. Visitors. Subscribers…many organizations tend to think of their audience in a very linear or monolithic fashion. A common result is that they often think of the relationship between their sponsors and their audience in the same traditional, linear way. But it’s important to remember that your sponsorship and advertising partners are an audience segment too—one that needs to be engaged and nurtured. You might be thinking right about now: “That’s why we have sales reps.” However, your reps are chasing a lot of different prospects and your advertisers are certainly exploring other opportunities, not to mention being the targets of your competitors. In today’s commoditized digital advertising world, you need to stand out; provide real, unique value; and build a long-term partnership with your sponsors to truly take your ad programs to the next level.

How to Deepen Connections Between You and Your Sponsors

Interactive content is like the Swiss Army Knife of sponsor engagement. Not only can you use interactive content experiences to discover deeper insights into advertisers’ goals, needs, and ideas; you can also leverage them as actual data-generating advertising programs for your sponsors. Here are three useful ideas and insights:

Gain Insight into Sponsor Intent

Move beyond impressions, reach, and clicks. Use an interactive assessment to engage your current sponsors. Yes, ask what’s working and not working; but go deeper too. What are their business objectives? What specific audience interactions would help them best achieve those objectives? What are the desired outcomes of their campaigns with you? And it doesn’t have to be a one-off interaction. Hold an ongoing conversation with your sponsor partners over time. It’s an innovative way to consistently ensure your ad programs are aligned with your sponsors’ needs—as well as a terrific opportunity to gain the insights you need to develop customized offerings.

Find Out Which Audience Data Matter Most

With traditional digital ad offerings, advertisers are conditioned to think: “Ok, I want to reach this many people—in this target market— to drive this many actions—spending this amount of money.” Boring…ZZZZ… Interactive content experiences help you stand apart from the competition by digging a little deeper. Ask them what information they need to know to surface the ideal prospective customer. What are the key steps that prospects should take in discovering and experiencing the value of the products and services your sponsors are promoting? By understanding the underlying data, actions, and insights your sponsors are looking for, you can develop powerful, interactive ad programs that make access to your audience absolutely indispensable for your sponsors, partners, and advertisers.

Deliver on the Experience and the Outcomes

Now that you understand your sponsors’ goals and the data and insights that can turn those goals into reality, you can leverage interactive content experiences to create compelling audience experiences that deliver the results your sponsors crave. It’s important to focus on the audience experience to keep them engaged. And don’t forget to report the outcomes to your sponsors—the traditional KPIs combined with the deep insights and data generated from your audience activity (audience answers to questions, lead qualification data, demographics, comparisons, and more). You’ll be delivering actionable intel and insights, as well as tangible value for your sponsors that they can’t get anywhere else.

A Match Made in Heaven

Let’s recap. Introducing interactive content experiences into your sponsor engagement efforts and advertising product suite can deliver big results for both your sponsors and your organization by:

• Deepening your partnerships with sponsors by creating long-term value and reducing churn
• Delivering unique, actionable data and insights your sponsors can’t get anywhere else
• Increasing engagement and delivering value for your audience
• Enhancing the long-term value of your audience with first-party data
• Gaining additional pricing power for your ad products

So, is it time to rethink how your organization is engaging your sponsors and advertisers?