Grassroots Sports Branding #2

Smart Ways to Get Sponsors for Your Team

Managing a sports team is not easy. On top of arranging game matches, recruiting new members, and making sure your team members are in top shape, you also need to market and promote your team so you can grow your fan base and secure financial means that will allow you to cover travel expenses, maintain and get proper equipment, and secure venues for game days.

One way to secure funds is to collect membership dues, gather donations, and sell team merchandise. Another way is to find sponsors. In fact, for many (if not all) teams, sponsorship is the main source of income. If you’ve been toying around with the idea of finding sponsors, then read on because, in this post, we’ll cover a few ways to get sponsors for your team.

But how do you go about finding sponsors?

Start with Your Club

One of the easiest ways to find potential sponsors is to start with your club. Whether you run a youth sport’s team or an adult team, there are opportunities to be considered. Parents of the children on your team or team members may be business owners themselves and since they are already vested in your team, it makes sense to approach them about sponsorship. In most cases, they will share some of the core values as your team which makes them more likely to take their support for the team to the next level. Even if they are not business owners themselves, they could be employed by a local business which opens the door to getting connected to the right person to talk to about sponsorship benefits and opportunities.

Let’s start with corporate Australia, what is corporate Australia doing to demonstrate its corporate social responsibility to grassroots and community sport, and to the rusted-on love of sport their employees, clients and customers show every week?

These employees, clients and customers are the same time-poor volunteers who are happily on BBQ duties cooking the sausages and onions to make a few dollars for their local grassroots club so they can purchase new shirts, balls or training equipment for the season ahead. They are the same parents who are flogging chocolates to friends and work colleagues to help their son or daughter travel to the upcoming regional or interstate championship.

The main change in mindset needs to occur at the club level – it’s not a sponsorship, but a partnership. What does that mean? It means both parties are working hard for each other’s’ benefit.

How do clubs approach this at the moment? They offer sponsorship packages where small to medium local businesses can put their name on things like signs, uniforms, events, newsletters, Facebook, the club website etc etc. This type of marketing is called brand awareness marketing, and the problem with it is that it only really works for big companies with big marketing budgets. Brand awareness marketing for most small to medium local businesses is a bad move and, in most cases, does not result in sales for the sponsoring business. This means that most sponsorship investment by businesses is an unwise move.

There are 2 ways to approach this problem:

• Improve: Increase brand awareness marketing effectiveness.
• Change: Allow for greater depth and creativity of marketing campaigns through a varied partnership program.

IMPROVE

Both Internal & External sponsors (external sponsors, in this case, are ones that have had no previous affiliation/connection to the club) can find some improved success with club sponsorship by engaging with the club and its members and by encouraging members to participate actively in club activities. What does this mean? For the local fish and chip shop, it might mean putting up club fixtures in the shop window and decking the shop out in the club colours during finals weeks.

The problem is that most sponsors don’t know how to improve the rate of purchase intention because of sponsorship, and it’s up to clubs to educate them – they’re the ones asking for the cash after all! It’s not enough to mention the sponsors on Facebook once a year, thank them at the end of year speech and whack their logo on a ground sign or scoreboard.

Clubs should be producing a booklet with ideas on how sponsors can improve their chances of increasing sales as a direct result of their connection to the club. Otherwise, you may even run a sponsor’s information session at the start of the season to discuss these ideas.

The other main area to improve is communication with the club members – rather than just putting the business names on newsletters and websites, clubs can really help by strongly and repeatedly encouraging members to use sponsors in all communications. A creative way of achieving effective communication in this area apart from saying “These are sponsors so go buy from them” could be having other members reviewing sponsors products or allowing sponsors to write helpful articles in your newsletter. The possibilities are endless – get inspiration from the nature of your club and the nature of the sponsor’s business and the right idea will show up.

CHANGE

Moving the focus away from brand awareness marketing may mean fewer signs on the fence, but a lot more money in the club account! This approach allows sponsors to start their sponsorship investment at a lower level, then growing that investment when they see the results.

The approach is this: investing in a sponsorship allows the door to the member database to be opened to the business, and the level of sponsorship allows for different levels of marketing campaigns by the business. Allowing the business to take control of their in-club marketing allows them the chance to develop creative campaigns that increase sponsor retention rates (where members can remember the names of sponsors).

A couple of ideas:

Basic Level (perfect for dipping the toes in the pond):

Membership Discount Card – used for discounts at all local sponsors – accompanied with a professional booklet listing all the discounts. When I surveyed one group of fans, most couldn’t name any minor sponsor, apart from one that had a fantastic discount. In fact, most could only name the 3 or 4 major sponsors for the year and had trouble remembering the major sponsors of previous years. It works with an economy of scale – a lot of smaller sponsors can add to the bottom line.

Medium Level:

Sponsors Rounds – Sponsors set up a stall selling their products and services at the game, also handing out flyers. It gives the sponsors a chance to get to know the fans and get associated with the club. Costs practically nothing for the club.

Sponsor Networking Meetings – Host regular meetings (or host them at a sponsor’s venue) expressly for sponsors finding a useful referral base for word-of-mouth marketing. This can be used to set up a local business trading group. Willing sponsors pay for the meal/drinks and can potentially make connections worth thousands of dollars for their business.

Higher Level

Round Sponsor – Allow a major sponsor to run a Family Round at your ground, supplemented by direct marketing to the member database in the fortnight leading up to the event. This allows them to hand out marketing materials.

Creative Activations – At this level, you can get creative by matching with businesses that relate to parts of club life. For example, micro-breweries seem to be popping up everywhere in Victoria and they often make seasonal, short-run beers for the micro-brewery beer enthusiast community.

Clubs could partner with the brewery to create an exclusive beer for the club which earns the local brewery loyalty to their brand. Each beer sold makes money for both parties and generates a pride for the locality. The beer could then also be sold to local bars, restaurants and supermarkets with profits split between brewer and club.

Another example is local kids play centre hosting sports-related games and activities at your venue for kids who aren’t participating in the on-ground sport.

The Key

The key for all of this is to make sure that club sponsors are remembered and doing it in a way that encourages members to use their services or buy their goods. If a club is intent on creating relationships with the local community and helping the local businesses that help them, they need to either pull themselves away from the addiction to pointless naming rights and signage and move toward a real partnership structure or improve the current brand-awareness-heavy packages by educating sponsors. By doing both your club will make your sponsors happy and they’ll keep investing in your club. It’s a win-win!

Look Around Your Community

Targeting your community and local businesses within that community can be a great way to secure a sponsorship. Even though they aren’t directly connected to your team, you still have the community in common

Some business will serve the exact same audience as your team – perhaps a local store sells school supplies to the kids on your team. Or, maybe there’s a local auto repair shop where your team members go every time they have car trouble.

Whatever the case may be, there is a good chance that each of those business owners is already aware of your team. Asking your players to make the introduction is a great way to establish a relationship with the business owner and approach them about sponsorship.

The key point to remember is that you aren’t restricted to targeting only local businesses that belong to the sport’s niche. If you serve the same community, you can approach them and strike a mutually beneficial relationship.

Go National

If your local community is not giving you the results you want, consider expanding your horizons and going national. Often, smaller, local teams think they cannot bring any benefits to the table but that is not the case. Larger businesses and corporations are always on the lookout for promotion opportunities so it’s a good idea to make a list of businesses that cater to the same audience.

In some cases, you may even attract a well-established brand that’s looking to give back to local communities and sports teams.

Associating yourself with a big brand name also has the potential to elevate your team to a new level and make it more attractive to other businesses and entice them to get involved.

Consider car dealerships, food chains, store, or any other franchise that has a branch in your area. Reach out to them with your sponsorship package and they will be more than likely to consider yet another opportunity to market themselves and reach a new audience.

Make it Personal

A great way to ensure you get sponsors is to create a personalized sponsorship package. While there is nothing wrong with having a general structure in place, you need to make easy for the business owner to see the benefits of sponsoring you.

Use your sponsorship package to outline everything you can offer to a potential sponsor. This can include the size and the demographics of your audience and loyal fans which can include not only people who attend your games but also your website visitors, email subscribers, social media followers, and more. You can then proceed to specify the details about advertisement placement, the duration or how often you’ll promote them. You also need to consider the type of business they run and tailor your package accordingly.

Being authentic and working on establishing a personal relationship before making the pitch goes a long way towards showing that you’re not in it just for your benefit. It will also provide them with a great sponsorship experience which can turn into long-term continued support.

Be Creative

Finally, don’t think about sponsorship solely in terms of financial benefit. Sometimes, it pays off to think outside the box and maintain that creativity when approaching potential sponsors

Most sports teams approach sponsorship as a cash in exchange for promotion deal. However, some business might be afraid of the potential risk in sponsoring a team. You can reassure them and lower the perceived risk by offering a promotion in exchange for something else in return.

Consider, for example, equipment. If a local business sells sporting equipment, then try asking them to donate some of their stock in exchange for having their logo displayed on a banner. Or, you could ask the local restaurant to cater your next game or event.

Another way to be creative and make the offer more attractive is to consider a sponsorship raffle. Sell tickets for a lower price rather than asking for a large sum of cash. This will make smaller businesses more likely to participate since the financial risk is much lower and the gain can be even greater for them.

In the long run, consider what you want to get out of the sponsorship and decide whether it’s pure monetary gain or if your team could benefit in other ways.

Go Out There and Find Sponsors

Sponsorship is one of the best ways to secure a reliable financial support for your team, but it can also be a way to ensure your team has the proper equipment or to secure a transportation to your next game day. Use our post above to help you find sponsors for your team and download our cheat sheet so you can keep a handy reminder with you when you’re ready to reach out to businesses.