Getting Your Feet Wet in Sponsorship

How To Start A Sponsorship Marketing Program

Multi-million dollar sponsorships, such as naming or apparel rights, get the big headlines, and rightfully so.

But don’t let that give you the impression that sponsorship is only for the well-heeled.

In fact, sponsorship can be a very effective and efficient tool for local marketing, with a reasonable budget.

These local sponsorships offer many of the benefits of big-name deals, at a fraction of the price:

• -       A chance to tap into fan loyalty
• -       Prestige of joining a winning team
• -       Increased awareness among a plugged-in demographic
• -       Assurance of a proven marketing vehicle
• -       The chance to network with other local business
• -       And many more

The key is that the impact will be on a smaller scale. If your business operates within a limited geographic area, or has a very well-defined customer demographic, you can tailor a sponsorship program to deliver on your marketing needs.

Follow these five steps to sponsorship success:

1.  Begin with your customer. Define their lifestyles – what are their activities, their interests, their passions?

      2.     Match these against your own company’s offerings. How do your products or services intersect with these customer pursuits and passions?
3.     Identify possible sponsorship opportunities within this emotional intersection of your customers and your offerings.
4.     Rank the opportunities on a scale of 1-10 based on their ability to seamlessly represent your products and services.
5.     Evaluate the best opportunities in terms of your available marketing budget, and act accordingly.

You may find that it’s more effective and more economical to pursue a relatively narrow sponsorship-based marketing strategy than to use traditional media to drive your marketing goals.