Previous clan and organization sponsorships have universally not worked out for a number of reasons.
- Neglect. Teams and organizations usually are good about advertising the sponsorship at the beginning, but over time, NFO stops being mentioned, and the servers may stop being used.
- Lack of communication. Most partners communicate well initially but stop following up later. NFO also has not been good about taking the time to keep up communication.
- Inability to deliver on promises. Partners often expect to expand rapidly and for their players to want to buy our services. However, often communities do not take off, and the players ignore the messaging.
- Ineffectiveness. Fundamentally, sponsorships just haven't worked to get us more business than the sponsorships' resource costs, or more than traditional advertising would.
- Fully vetting the prospective partner to ensure that their expectations are realistic, that they'll stay around, and that they are a good fit for advertising.
- An innovative plan for how to keep NFO's name at the top of players'/visitors' minds.
- Metrics to measure how many prospective clients are being referred to NFO and how many of them follow through and purchase an NFO service.
- A contract stipulating exactly what each sponsorship requires from both parties, for a well-defined period, with consequences if goals are not achieved on either side.
- A dedicated employee at NFO to regularly look at each sponsorship and make sure that the plan is being followed.