Recently we have done some out of the box marketing. Everything from
sponsoring Starcraft maps (millions of views for less than $1,000) to
sponsoring MMA fighters on FX (1.3 million viewers).
Lots of people have been asking about the ROI on these things.
I know in our world we look for instant gratification of I spent X and my return was a positive X.
For these items both of them cost me about 1/10th of what I would consider a "test" buy for a affiliate campaign. They were huge opportunities to put our brand in front of millions of people.
Instant ROI
ROI on sponsoring the UFC Fighters:
Instant ROI wise its hard to tell... during the UFC event or that night, we got almost 2500 new subscribers on our newsletter which from our calculations is generally worth about $5 per organic subscriber. Will new users be worth that? Very hard to tell yet.
ROI on sponsoring the Starcraft Map:
Again we saw a large influx of new users on our newsletter. There was also lots of talk on the forum for the map we sponsored which linked to ShoeMoney.com. This is a little harder to measure because it was over a weeks time.
Full disclosure: After about a week of sponsoring the map the map was removed by blizzard for not following their guidelines. Evidently you can't take a sponsor for maps. This cause a HUGE shitstorm on their forums and if ShoeMoney was not well known to the millions of people who played this map it was now. There was a lot of hate but also a LOT of support for me and that I was supporting the map. The 2 days that the map went down the traffic from Blizzards official Starcraft Forum.
Longterm ROI
While I strongly believe the evidence is there that we will receive a great return financially on the sponsorships, that is pretty much up in the air. Honestly I just wanted to do it. Its 2 things I love...
