Tag: Sponsorship sales

Sponsorship Sales: Make a Lasting Impression 8th March, 2012

So, your consumers and audience have been audited, your assets valuated and your sales materials designed. Now the time comes to really nail down specific brands that you will be approaching with your proposal. This is often not thought through. Far too often, rights holders are not taking into consideration the actual likelihood of the brand wanting to partner with the property or the brand’s objectives, this leading to a significant amount of time being wasted in getting knocked back by brands with little interest in discussing the opportunity.

This blog provides a brief insight into how to adopt an improved, more streamlined and strategic sales approach allowing you to encourage qualitative conversations, save time in approaching irrelevant prospects, close deals faster, improve sales staff morale and generally increase sponsorship revenue on the whole.

Sales Preparation

Prospect lists: It is easy to rush this process and simply name all brands within sponsorship categories that may be of relevance to your property. For example, motorsport lends itself to brands looking to promote the idea of luxury and wealth and/or simply raise awareness on a mass scale as a result of the sport’s extensive global following. Sponsorship categories therefore tend to consist of such brand areas as alcohol, telecoms, financial institutions, insurance, watches and consumer electronics to name those most prominent within the sport today.

Simply listing all brands within each of these categories without really looking into whether they will actually consider the opportunity can be highly time-inefficient and will also hinder the sales approach as the knowledge of each brand will not be deep enough to hold a sales conversation regarding how this opportunity is going to help this brand in particular.

Sales

A tailored approach: Take the brand’s objectives into consideration – there is nothing more off-putting than a generic call which screams “you are the 100^th prospect I have approached today.” Although initially being more time consuming, researching company and brand objectives will allow for a more engaging and qualitative conversation, giving your contact the incentive to find out more.

As a sales person, this is also much more satisfying than repeating the same old spiel to each prospect you speak to. Taking a thought-out approach will also prepare you to be more responsive when asked, “how exactly do you see us (the brand) getting involved?”

Little details: Research the prospect’s previous activity and make note of some specific points that relate to the platform you are offering. This will show that you have really considered the company and have a good knowledge of what direction they are looking to take the brand in.

Build a rapport: From first contact to signing on the dotted line, most deals will generally require a number of calls and meetings, so try to establish a rapport with your contacts from the get go. Be sure to make notes of any personal comments they have made, plans they have coming up, comments about their day, which football team they support – anything that can be brought forward to the next conversation will help emphasise the fact that you are being considerate of both them and their brand.

Also, keep it in mind that the opportunity you are presenting will be equally beneficial to both parties (the rights holders and the brand) and so a call should take the format of a conversation rather than a one-way sales pitch. By being personable, upbeat and positive, you will project the fact that you believe in your project as a sponsorship platform.

Relevant opportunities: Certain sponsorship opportunities will appeal more to different audiences. For example, financial institutions that rely on consumer trust loyalty may be more interested in hospitality in order to build and deepen their customer relationship. Alternatively, car manufacturers may be keen on utilising online and social media integration, exclusive content and promotions and competitions to build awareness of new product launches.

Feedback: Many disinterested brands will tend to simply state that the opportunity is not relevant to them, providing no further feedback. However, you should always try to ask for more detail on what their current objectives are, how they currently market themselves, and what sponsorships they may look to be involved with in the future. This will give you a better idea of how similar brands may react and how to deal with it as well as give you some key information about the company’s marketing activity. This may prove useful as it may be that they are more suited to one of your alternative platforms.

Sales are often looked at as the most difficult and daunting part of the sponsorship acquisition process; however when it comes to selling your proposal, it is important to remember that if you have a strong property with suitable lead time, are approaching the relevant brands and taking a strategic approach, securing sponsors should be a piece of cake. Just remember, Slingshot Sponsorship is here to help with the rest… and sales too!

Top 10 Sales Tips for Sponsorship Rights Holders 12th December, 2011

With an increasing number of platforms available for corporate partnership, the selection process for brands is becoming more complex, with a wide range of factors influencing the allocation of marketing budgets. Therefore when approaching potential partners, it is important for rights holders to ensure that each of the following factors is taken into account:

1. Price

The fees asked by the rights holder play a key role in the decision-making process for a sponsor to come on board with a property. The price of association is often the first aspect of a proposal to be looked at and it is therefore imperative that rights owners understand how to value their sponsorship assets correctly.

2. Timing

Depending on the company and industry, budgeting can take place at different times of the year. However, as a rights holder, the important thing is to understand the general time of year that marketing budgets will be allocated by your prospects in order not to miss the boat.

Depending on the size of the investment relative to the prospective sponsor, opportunities with lower fees may be handled on a tactical basis. However generally, companies will be much less open to new partnerships once budgets have been set and it is therefore crucial to get in there early.

Typically planning periods are September/October and March/April.

3. Prospects

It is important that rights holders understand the key demographic of their property’s audience as misunderstanding this can lead to approaching an inappropriate market and wasting valuable time.

Once understanding the relevant brands to approach, the next step is to understand their behavioural tendencies in terms of their general sponsorship partnerships and activations and how they have utilised these relationships in the past. This will highlight which assets are relevant to each sponsorship category and in turn allow for a more tailored approach.

4. Audience Resonance

Are the prospect’s consumers interested in the sponsorship? And furthermore, will the sponsorship audience be interested in the prospect’s products and services? A sponsor will always have their target audience in mind when activating a sponsorship and therefore you as a rights holder must also adopt the same thought process, ensuring that the needs and wants of your prospect’s consumer base align with the benefits of your property.

5. Attendance

In the case of an event-based platform, the attendance is always of high priority to prospective sponsors. Whether the focus is on engaging with a specific audience or allowing for key networking opportunities, the attendance must present the prospect of new business opportunities.

A common error in the sales approach of a rights holder is approaching all companies within their property’s industry rather than taking the time to break down it down by relevance. By evaluating the industry and which areas will be most relevant, sales teams can prioritise their approach, generally receiving more positive feedback and in turn taking less time to close new partnerships.

6. Reflection of Company Values

The more a company can see of itself in a property, the more willing they will be to forge a partnership as a key aspect of a sponsorship is to emphasise brand values. This again relates to audience resonance and the tailoring of a sales approach as different selling points will appeal to different brands depending on their relative markets.

7. Comparison of New Business Figures with Previous Sponsorships

Producing financial, attendance, or media value figures are one of the most effective ways in which to sell a property as they are cold hard facts that cannot be easily manipulated. Tangible figures and facts provide a clear indication of such highly influencing factors as ROI, media coverage, attendance and give the prospect an immediate understanding of the tangible benefits they would receive from their investment.

8. Prioritisation of Company Goals

Each sponsorship platform caters to different aims and objectives of sponsors, this being a huge factor in the prospect’s decision making process. What is the largest benefit of sponsoring your property? There may be more than one but at least one of them should align with the core objective of the brand.

9. Cross Marketing Opportunities

Sponsorship platforms can attract brands from different industries with similar audiences. These rare opportunities can create cross marketing benefits that add substantial value to a sponsorship. This tends to occur with Media Sponsor rights and we’d highly recommend considering bringing on board something like this to strengthen your event or program.

10. Data Provision

Another advantage of sponsorship is the opportunity to carry out research amongst a captive sample of a brand’s target audience. If you are able to offer behavioural data to your sponsor helping them streamline their products and services, this brings a whole new level of value to the sponsorship – gaining important exposure whilst receiving precious qualitative feedback.

By putting in the time and research to evaluate each of the above factors before pitching to prospective sponsors, rights holders are able to carry out a truly time and cost effective sales approach. This will in turn allow for a more streamlined prospect list, resulting in fewer knock-backs and improved close-ratios.

Furthermore, adopting a more methodical approach will significantly increase sales staff motivation, driving the property forward in terms of investment and the opportunities for expansion that come with it.

Why Sponsorship Continues to Prevail 24th October, 2011

With sponsorship budgets continuing to increase year upon year, what advantages does this innovative marketing medium have over those more traditional elements of the advertising mix?

Engaging the Consumer

With marketing mediums such as advertising and sales promotions becoming ever more saturated, companies need to be extremely creative in their efforts to gain brand exposure – especially in terms of activations and partnerships.

Especially with today’s average consumer receiving more information on the products and services available to them at a much higher frequency than ever before, traditional marketing methods are becoming significantly less effective as the general public require something more innovative and engaging in order to provide a focal point within today’s plethora of commercial activity.

Cut-through

Sponsorship is invaluable within the marketing mix as it touches on all the consumer interaction with a property and brand. It can include and is typically a combination of brand advertising, sales promotions, email marketing, experiential, sampling, and social media. A truly engaging sponsorship campaign provides cut-through because it has built a relationship and a commitment to the audience. This relationship creates a primed and responsive avenue to deliver brand messaging, ensuring that the marketing does not fall on deaf ears.

Added Value

An additional reason behind the growing use of sponsorship is down to the value that a partner can bring to a property. Whereas simple branding and promotions result in only a financial benefit to the rights holder, sponsorship provides the opportunity for much more engagement with all parties involved. This can include enhancing the experience of the guest whilst giving the sponsor the opportunity to gain first-hand feedback on their products and services whilst achieving extensive exposure amongst their target audience.

As a result of the potential added value, rights holders are increasingly favouring corporate partnerships as an alternative to simple advertising, due to the added depth and quality delivered to the property whilst also increasing the number of channels for promotion.

The Figures

Emphasising the shift from conventional branding to today’s heavily integrated campaigns, sponsorship is continuing to increase its share of the marketing budget. Despite 2009 being the first time in history that corporate partnership spending in North America saw a decrease from the previous year, 2010 saw sponsorship sales back in full swing with expenditures growing by a healthy 3.9 per cent in 2010, with 2011 forecast to see an impressive growth of a further 5.9 per cent, seeing a total of $18.2 billion spent by the end of the year.

Global sponsorship spending, on the other hand, has well and truly weathered the economic storm, with 2011 set to witness similar growth as seen in 2010 of around 5.2 per cent, bringing worldwide spending to $48.7 billion as reported in IEG’s annual year-end review and forecast.

In comparison, advertising in 2010 is only forecast to increase by 3.9 per cent where as sales promotions have by far taken the biggest hit, forecast to show no signs of growth in 2011 and having shrunk by 3.3 per cent in 2010.

The Future of Sponsorship

Over time, sponsorship as a marketing medium has established itself as a key part of the modern advertising mix, providing opportunities for both brands and rights holders that traditional forms of advertising cannot.

With the recent social media boom also taking sponsorship opportunities to a whole new level, the medium is now more powerful than ever. Integrating social media platforms presents a further development of integration with a fraction of the cost you would have with print – creating truly cost-effective marketing campaigns.

With an increasing number of companies owing a boom in brand awareness to engaging corporate partnerships, the growth in sponsorship is showing no sign of slowing down reflecting the increasing demand for innovation in today’s marketing environment.

Price Follows Prestige: Brand Asset Valuations 22nd September, 2011

Do you know how much your sponsorship proposal is truly worth? We do.

One of the key causes of poor sponsorship sales is over-priced fees. This is often down to a methodology which focuses on covering the production costs of a property, rather than looking into the actual market value of the assets offered. Although making a property available for sponsorship can be a lucrative revenue stream, key factors such as the quality and quantity of rights and benefits, establishment of the property and brand exposure are all highly influential in determining the degree of investment a sponsor will be willing to make for association.

Therefore despite an event potentially carrying high production and running costs, rights holders need to be realistic ensuring that sponsorship fees rise in correlation with the calibre of the assets offered. The concept of price following prestige can also be seen by other rights holders within their respective industries, such as a start-up magazine, with the initial focus on publishing quality content and building circulation figures in order to then attract advertising revenue.

In order to create a fair and realistically priced sponsorship proposal, each of the following factors need to be taken into account:

Tangible Assets

These are benefits of a sponsorship package that can be measured and in turn given a specific monetary value, including such factors as signage, media collateral and tickets. Tangible assets are useful in giving the sponsor a direct insight into where a percentage of their investment will be spent.

Intangible Assets

These are qualitative factors that cannot be given an exact value but are also of significant benefit to the sponsor, such as audience engagement, branding prominence, property establishment etc. Intangible assets can only be measured by the opinion of the audience and therefore their value will alter from person to person, depending on perception. However, by conducting research such as surveys, which offer structured and quantitative feedback, a qualitative benefit can be given an estimated market worth.

Exposure and Reach

Whether a brand is looking to reinforce or alter its image via association with a sponsorship platform, this will only be worthwhile if a sizeable audience is going to be reached. Therefore the PR reach and geographical exposure of a brand’s association is a key factor in determining the overall value of a sponsorship package.

Lead-time

Approaching prospective sponsorship leads can be a time intensive process and therefore properties with short lead times (from commencing of sales approaches to execution) should be prepared to lower their fees if wanting to secure any sponsor investment at all. Corporate sponsorship responsibles have a strong knowledge of the properties within their market along with the value of the assets offered. Therefore by reducing fees, companies will be much more likely to invest when presented with a good deal, much more so than paying full price for something that they know the rights holder is in fact desperate to sell.

How can a sponsorship agency help?

Hiring an agency will bring experience and expertise in the area of optimising and valuating existing brand assets as well as discovering new beneficial aspects of a property that the rights holder may not have even thought of. With unjustifiable valuations being one of the key reasons behind unsuccessful sponsorship sales, an agency will help improve a rights holder’s understanding of the assets they are selling plus create additional benefits to offer, instilling confidence in the salesperson whilst providing a significantly more attractive proposition for prospective sponsors to invest in.

For further information on how Slingshot can provide professional advice on brand asset valuations, plus additional insight into your sponsorship potential, see the Slingshot Sponsorship Boot Camp.

“We Have a Great Cause, Why Aren’t We Securing Sponsors?” 4th April, 2011

Charity Sponsorship: Top 3 Reasons Why You Aren’t Selling

I am often asked to provide consultancy to charities on how they can make their sponsorship propositions more attractive to brands. The charities are often well known and have great causes – with well-planned and well-attended events. Understandably, it’s difficult to understand why more brands aren’t getting involved.

After experience and investigation with a number of our charity clients, I’ve discovered that there are some very simple tips to help make charity sponsorship proposals more attractive to secure sales.

1. Is your sponsorship package worth what you are asking?

Just because you need a certain amount, that doesn’t mean that your package is worth that amount. Far too often I see sponsorship proposals that are clearly not valued based on their tangible benefits. Of course there is a certain amount of association with the charity that is ‘priceless’, but this is not the sole (or even usually the key) reason marketing directors will align their brand to your cause. However, the weight of sponsorship investment is assumed to be the majority of the charity association with media assets such as PR and print ads ‘thrown in’. This is definitely not the approach to take when putting together your sponsorship proposition. Marketing directors are a savvy bunch and they want to see tangible benefits to prove effectiveness. Which brings me to my second point…

2. Marketing directors are busy

Marketing directors receive thousands of proposals, opportunities, and ideas that they can choose from to promote their brand. Your sponsorship proposal is not only competing with other charity proposals, but also all the other available marketing platforms that the brand can align themself to. It is a cluttered market and you have to be clear and transparent. Although beautiful powerpoint presentations with great pictures tend to look great – they make for impractical sponsorship proposals.

Of course the sponsorship proposal will depend on your programme as this format can be effective for selling emotive campaigns. However, more often than not, it is rarely the most suitable option.

3. Make more time

Charities tend to work with limited resources and find it difficult to put all the plans in place well in advance. As such, they don’t start approaching sponsors until they have all of the event information confirmed – typically 3 months before the event takes place. This is typically the time they think it is appropriate to approach sponsors.

Although the event could be absolutely ideal for a brand’s positioning and objectives, very few brands have spare funds within their marketing budget or the additional resource to make use of the opportunity. Marketing budgets are typically planned at least 1 year in advance. Regardless of how much they may want to get involved, they will not have the budget to do so.

As such, charities need to either:

a) start working on the events plan earlier,

b) start approaching brands earlier, or

c) aim to only secure sponsorship for the annual events that have a clear direction and plan in place.

We have recently signed some great charity clients (such as Mencap) and will be blogging more charity sponsorship tips throughout the year. Make sure to check back often or subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss anything!

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