Category: Top Sponsorship Tips

How SMEs can utilise Sponsorship to Grow 24th September, 2010

Sponsorship gives the impression that only international brands and high salary footballers can benefit from these strategies, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Sponsorship by its nature is a partnership opportunity for two organisations to create synergy. Synergy creates savings for both businesses and so should really be something every company should undertake – especially in an economic climate such as ours. Small businesses are even better organisations to undertake sponsorship initiatives as they are more flexible providing them the opportunity to leverage their sponsorship activation strategy when and as it is needed with the opportunities that arise.

Small Business Sponsors Supporting the Community

Sponsorship works for businesses who understand their target audience. This needs to be the starting point. Once you understand your target audience, you then have to consider where this audience communicates and how you can communicate with them. Community sponsorship programmes are a great starting point, especially in the ways of sport.

Many school and community sporting events/teams are desperate for sponsorship to provide their athletes with new equipment. Sponsoring these teams can be a cost-effective way to build brand awareness to your community. This works especially well if you are a business who deals with customers within your area – such as restaurants, flower shops, etc. If you considered the amount of people who are attending the games (both home and away!) and compare that to an advertisement spend in your local paper, I’m sure you will see the benefits. In addition to providing a CSR programme for your company and its employees.

Getting involved with community sponsorship programmes such as sport can also bring an additional element of staff engagement to your business. If this is your objective, speak with the organisers of the event(s) you are sponsoring and see what opportunities you could create. It might be that your local pizza shop provides pizza for the team when they have won a game or that your staff help out at practice. This will give your staff the opportunity to be a part of something bigger – part of the community and part of your company – through your sponsorship.

Contra Agreements to Provide Your Services

Your business offers a great service or product which others need. A great way to get involved with sponsorship with little investment would be to provide your services or products for free in return for sponsorship of an event/programme or perhaps your branding within their communications to their clients. The key to choosing the right sponsorship contra agreement is to make sure that the event you are sponsoring and the sponsorship proposals you are considering have a large enough audience for you to gain the benefit of reaching them.

Another great example of SME sponsorship is from one of our current sponsors Phil Stannard Associates. A small audio visual company, but with great potential, they approached the DMA Awards to get involved. Through a contra deal, they are now the Judging Event Sponsors – an event that brings together 200 of the most influential people in the marketing industry during a four day event. With no financial investment, they are able to showcase their services and their equipment to the people that are most likely to purchase from them in the future providing them significant ROI moving forward.

These are just a couple of the thousand ideas that are out there on how SME’s can integrate sponsorship within their organisation and utilise the benefits that many of the top brands receive, just at a smaller investment level. If you ever need further sponsorship tips, be sure to check out our Top Sponsorship Tips on the Slingshot Sponsorship website.

Need Sponsorship? Our top tips will show you how! part II 13th September, 2010

Our last blog gave you some tips for sponsorship seekers and here are some more for you to take away with you!

Tip: Internal buy-in is key

There is only so much one individual can do to make the sponsor feel like a partner. It is imperative that the whole organisation recognises and realises the benefit of sponsorship for the organisation and doesn’t look at it as a hassle or more work. If you cannot get your team to work with you and your sponsor, you will be unable to provide one of the core objectives of the sponsorship – mutual benefits through partnership activity.

Tip: Look beyond logo placement

Sponsorship is about engaging an audience and creating a meaningful experience. By understanding the sponsor’s objectives you can work together to create this. I cannot stress this enough, sponsorship is not about putting your sponsors logo on your marketing. It needs to go beyond logo placement to create brand engagement and touchpoints with the audience so the partnership resonates. Only then will sponsorship be successful.

Tip: Understand your prospects

Tailored sponsorship proposals are the only option when you are looking to generate significant sponsorship funding. Understanding your prospect’s business and budget timelines is key to building these relationships. With so much information available, there should be no excuses for not doing your homework and really finding the value underlying the proposition.

Tip: Account management

Account management is the key to a successful and sustainable sponsor relationship. Ideally, you should be looking to have long-term sponsors who continually fund your sponsorship proposals because they find value in their relationship and they enjoy the positive working relationship you provide. Making your sponsor feel like a partner by involving them in every step of the way will enable stronger engagement by them with you and your sponsorship platform.

Tip: Get help

Sponsorship can be very complex and it is simply not about asking for funding because you have a great proposition. When done properly, it will not only help to fund your activities, but will also create a meaningful relationship between your organisation, your sponsors and your audience – significantly adding value to your whole business. Information on how to create sponsorship proposals or information on how to create sponsorship opportunities can be found online, through forums, blogs, and books. Specialist sponsorship agencies like Slingshot Sponsorship can also provide training and consulting to help integrate a successful sponsorship department into your organisation.

Need Sponsorship? Our top tips will show you how! part I 10th September, 2010

With the recent surge in corporate sponsorship in the UK, sponsorship proposals are coming in faster than ever. However, with so many new organisations and events trying their hand at sponsorship funding, not all of these sponsorship proposals are maximising the total funding available. This is due to the lack of specific knowledge in this area as sponsorship professionals can be hard to come by and are rarely located within an organisation. Most often sponsorship is championed by the Marketing Director who rarely has the time and resource to make the most of their sponsorship opportunities.
To save some time and money take note of Slingshot Sponsorship’s top tips for organisations requesting sponsorship:

Tip: Sponsorship isn’t about you!

Sponsorship happens because you can provide an audience, which helps sponsors reach their objectives. Sponsorship is not simply about someone helping you fund your opportunity or great idea. You need to look at sponsorship as a product you are selling. Most people do not like to pay for something and leave the store empty handed.

Tip: Sponsorship proposals should focus on benefits

Your sponsorship proposal should focus on the benefits you can help them realise. Although there are sponsorship programmes that are for corporate social responsibility, the majority are not, and even if they are, they still need to see ROI. Make sure to focus on these commercial benefits rather than the event itself in the sponsorship proposal.

Tip: Get the right fit

Prospects should be approached who share the same target audience and values. This will not only ensure that the prospect is marketing to their key audience, but also creates an associated brand experience.

Keep following our blog – part II is coming up next!

Sponsorship for Professional Associations 1st September, 2010

Sponsorship revenue for professional associations in the UK is a booming business.

With marketing budgets being scruitinised, value for membership in professional associations is fierce. Professional associations have had no other option, but to start thinking outside the box through mergers, partnerships, and shared expenses. However, one emerging trend is the value and integration of sponsorship departments being led internally or outsourced by specialist agencies.

As sponsorship takes on many different forms, it requires professional associations to think more about integration and relationships for their members rather than monetary expectations, which have been the ways of the past.

By maximising their current assets through sponsorship, professional associations have the ability to create value for their members, their bottom line, and prospective members who attend the events. In this type of relationship – sponsorship is exceedingly successful.

A great example is the Direct Marketing Association UK. With over 50 current sponsors, the DMA has been able to successful help its members get in front of a niche audience of marketing professionals. Some companies have also taken advantage of larger packages which encompass the sponsorship of the DMA’s entire activities in a specific sector.

One such company is consumer credit and business information specialist, Equifax, which provides a range of services to support companies marketing to consumers and businesses. Reflecting its influence and authority in the marketing data arena, Equifax has become the DMA’s Overall Data Sponsor which includes sponsorship of DataSeal, the DMA Awards, regional activity, and the Data Tracking Study.

Laura Marlow, Marketing Manager for Equifax Marketing Services, says that becoming the DMA’s overall data sponsor was the perfect way for promoting Equifax as The Heart of Data Intelligence:

“Marketers have faced some real challenges this year, making it more important than ever that they have access to properly targeted, good quality data. Our role as overall data sponsor of the DMA has put us in an excellent position to make marketers aware of the services we offer, enhancing our brand and reputation in this important sector. We look forward to continuing to work with the DMA and its members to maximise the full potential of marketing data to create the most impactful and cost-effective campaigns.”

Chris Combemale, the DMA’s executive director, states that sponsorship is crucial to the mission of the DMA:

“Through the additional revenue of sponsorship, we can expand the number of professional services we provide, as well the number of insight and networking events we offer. These activities are integral to our purpose of promoting the business interests of our members and driving the growth of the direct marketing industry. Of course, through pairing our sponsor partners with suitably themed platforms we ensure maximum relevance and mutual benefit to their target market.”

Sponsorship agencies have an integral part to play in helping professional associations harness this revenue and creating successful partnerships. By creating a sustainable revenue stream to supplement event and membership fees, sponsorship can help your organisation continue creating value for the industry.

Sponsorship Measurement 26th August, 2010

Measuring sponsorship is one of the most important services a sponsorship agency or property partner can provide. With innumerable ways to measure marketing ROI, it is important that sponsorship provides the same value. It is also one of the crucial points that will decide whether or not sponsors renew.

A sponsorship agency should not only help you deliver value, but it should also measure it.

Three key tips to measuring sponsorship

1. Understand the audience

This should go beyond standard demographic information and include insight on how the audience you are targeting engages with the brand. In order to build a brand relationship through a sponsorship platform, you need to understand where the current relationship sits. This will act as a baseline for measurement as well as informing the brand and activation teams in order to help leverage the sponsorship.

2. Lay the groundwork

In any type of collaboration, it is very important that each party understands the roles they will undertake to achieve their objectives. It is also very important that all parties understand the other’s business – the better understanding of the partner and nature of the relationship, the easier it will be to understand where synergy can be achieved.

This should be discussed right from the beginning of the contract negotiation. Once signed, both parties should walk away knowing exactly what they will be bringing to the relationship. By encouraging this, measurement goals can be set against achievables.

3. Provide valuable data

Data capture during the entire sponsorship campaign – include post-event, is incredibly valuable for assessing the success of the sponsorship. Measuring a sponsor’s impact can be done through fulfilment surveys, surveying social media buzz, interviews, focus groups and third party research.

Surveys and feedback forms can be an easy way to not only measure the success of the sponsorship programme, but also can add value to the sponsor by providing them a few sponsor-related questions. In addition, feedback can provide both parties with insight needed to make the next event even better.

These tips are just some of the ways you can work together to ensure that the sponsorship relationship you build is tangible, which will be key in creating sustainable partnerships.

Sponsorship Sales: Selling the Benefit 25th August, 2010

I recently saw a sponsorship tweet tip that said, “Think about how you can benefit the sponsors business, before you make an approach.” My immediate reaction to this tweet was that it was absolutely ridiculous (sorry tweeter!) – OF COURSE the sponsorship proposal should be about how the opportunity should benefit the sponsor’s business; it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. If you did think otherwise, you’d just be asking for money, free money at that. And no one wants to give away free money.

However, upon further consideration, this tip may not be as ridiculous as it immediately seemed. Slingshot Sponsorship helps brands and rights owners create sponsorship proposals for their assets and it is true that we stress this in every training session – the proposal needs to highlight the benefit not the event, platform, inspiration, etc. The more specific the tailored benefit, the more likely that you will get your prospects attention.

The first stage in this process is to understand your prospect’s brand and really understand what drives their business. Thankfully, we live in a world where this information is at our fingertips, so there is no excuse for poor sponsorship proposals. If you have the time, we’d also recommend that you meet with your prospect or at least speak with them over the phone so you can get a real understanding about what their marketing objectives are.

One of the benefits of using sponsorship as a marketing platform to build brand relationships is that it can be incredibly flexible and tailored. Sponsorship can be used across all media channels and all media sectors. For this reason, you should be able to create an engaging campaign tailored to your prospect. Benefits will arise from these tailored sponsorship proposals and will be the only way to successfully sell sponsorship.

Make sure to keep following our blog as we will be putting out tips on writing sponsorship proposals throughout the year!

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