What is sponsorship?
Sponsorship is one of the tools that companies have to gain visibility and generate a positive brand image among their audience...
David Carrasco
3 years ago
Sponsorship is one of the tools that companies have to gain visibility and generate a positive brand image among their target audience. When executed correctly, sponsorship can provide interesting benefits for creators and sponsors. The goal should be for both parties to establish a mutually beneficial collaboration.
Within sponsorship, we will develop the following topics:
What can we sponsor?
Among the various options that companies have to utilize sponsorship, we can highlight the following:
- Events: we are talking about concerts, exhibitions, cultural itineraries, music festivals, sporting events, and other similar acts and events.
- Content: we are talking about newsletters, social media posts, videos, live broadcasts, or podcasts.
- Ambassadors: these are fixed collaborations, while the contract lasts, and not one-off actions. It involves constant exposure, recommendation, and visibility work alongside content creators.
What types of sponsorship exist?
There are different types of sponsorship activities that companies can consider, among which the following stand out:
- Financial sponsorship: this involves providing money in exchange for advertising at the events or activities of the sponsored party.
- Human sponsorship: the company provides human talent and resources to assist in organizing an event or activity.
- Material sponsorship: this involves goods or services that sponsoring companies provide in exchange for advertising or visibility for their brand.
- Media sponsorship: the goal is to achieve media coverage and create buzz, for which the brand is responsible for advertising and promotion.
Benefits of sponsorship
Sponsorship as a promotional activity for a company can provide interesting benefits, among which the following stand out for their importance:
- Greater visibility: through sponsorship, the company impacts a specific audience that may include its target audience, such as followers of a content creator or attendees at an event.
- Leads or potential customers: it has been proven that sponsorship can increase a company's potential customers due to the loyalty shown by followers to brands that sponsor their favorite events or creators.
- Access to a specific audience: in sponsorship, companies access a more specific audience than in other advertising campaigns. For example: events in a sector or designed for certain professionals.
- Generate association: the company can create a positive association between itself and what it sponsors. For example: associating a brand with a content creator who has good ratings and opinions among the company's target audience.
- More interactions: sponsorship increases interactions, such as comments on social media or personal contacts with attendees at an event.
- Greater impact: a well-executed sponsorship can impact more people than traditional advertising, as users are becoming increasingly insensitive to traditional advertising. With sponsorship, you can capture more attention: they are more limited, more selective, and integrate better into the space or event.
What to consider when sponsoring something?
If you intend for your company or business to sponsor something, it is essential to pay attention to these aspects:
- You must create a relationship or association so that both parties benefit. It is not just about putting in the money and walking away.
- Sponsorship involves rights and duties for both the creator and the company. It goes beyond just placing a logo on a banner.
- Both parties must invest for the collaboration to be successful.
- Creativity is essential, so do not limit yourself to the usual and try to make an impact in a different way.
- Choose wisely: it is necessary to seek a symbiosis between brands, creators, and audience interests. Genuine recommendations work much better.
Tips for businesses that want to sponsor
If you want your company to sponsor something, you should keep the following tips in mind:
Get involved as much as possible
It is important to ensure that you have a presence and that the sponsorship will serve a purpose, so do not leave loose ends and take advantage of opportunities to achieve maximum visibility. If you are just looking to put in money and that’s it, sponsorship is not for you.
Constant communication
It is essential to maintain constant communication with the creator or organizer, especially in long-term collaborations. It is crucial to ensure that the message is being conveyed well, whether the sponsorship is working, or if something needs to be changed to improve it.
Real impact
Sponsorship should pursue a real impact, so you need to think about how you can truly reach people and engage them. Adjust the message and the CTA to the channel you use and consider whether you will directly offer the product or service or not. You should also assess whether it is appropriate to create a lead magnet based on the stage of the funnel that the users you will impact are in. You can even resort to discounts, promotions, and product trials to create a greater impact.
Continuous follow-up
Although it can sometimes be difficult to measure some benefits of sponsorship, such as visibility, you should try to measure other aspects, such as registrations on your website or the use of discount coupons offered in the sponsorship, to evaluate the impact it is having. It is something you are investing your money in, so you need to know how it is performing to determine if you will achieve a return on the sponsorship.
It is a strategy
Sponsorship is not a one-off action; it should be part of a global brand strategy in which you choose the best place or event to sponsor. The goal should be for your company to be the only one in your market niche sponsoring what you want without sharing anything with your direct competition.
Use of creativity
If your goal is to sponsor an event, you not only have to invest in the sponsorship but also bring various merchandising products with you, such as a stand, signage, gifts, coupons, or giveaways, among other creative elements. You should consider this when creating your budget for it.
Choose wisely what to sponsor
You must have a clear understanding of the target audience you want to reach, as sometimes we struggle to step out of our bubble and repeatedly impact the same audience. Additionally, you should adjust your message to that audience to ensure you use language they feel connected to.
Tips for creators and organizers of sponsorship
Those who pay for sponsorship should keep in mind some very useful tips, such as the following:
Clearly define the sponsorship criteria
You should be clear about what sponsorship entails, its advantages, the duties you must face, and other important aspects, such as whether it will be shared on social media or when the sponsored content will be released.
Similar values
It is important that sponsoring companies align with your values, as you are associating your brand with theirs. For example, it does not make sense for a vegan product company to sponsor a Iberian ham fair.
Avoid controversies
It is important to be very careful with controversies that could damage your image. You must be consistent with your company's values, and for that, your actions must reflect what you want to convey with the sponsorship.
Acknowledge the sponsorship
You must make it clear to your audience that it is a sponsorship, even if the recommendation is genuine on your part. It is an exercise in transparency with your audience, who will surely appreciate your honesty.
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Contact us nowHow to get sponsors
To get sponsors, you need to carry out research that includes the following processes:
Review the sector and competition
It can be very helpful to review what other companies in the sector are doing and see where they are spending their money on advertising. You can also review your direct competition (similar events, similar content…) to see what sponsors they have secured.
Ask contacts
One way to find potential sponsors is by asking contacts and people in the industry. They may know of a company interested in sponsoring you much faster than you think. You should reach out to people who are directly responsible or who have influence in decision-making, and ideally, you should contact them directly and not through a generic company email.
Create an informative dossier
It is advisable to create a sponsorship dossier in which you provide all the information that a potential sponsor may need. Include who you are and your experience, data about the event or what you want them to sponsor (tickets or visits, demographics, audience analysis…) or what you wish to have sponsored (events, content…) emphasizing what makes you different from other options.
If you have data from similar actions in the past, you can include that as well. Additionally, you should clearly offer different benefits for the sponsor, the price of the sponsorship, what you will do to give visibility to your event or content, or what benefits you have to be chosen for sponsorship.
Contact in advance
Creating a sponsorship agreement does not happen overnight, so if you need a sponsor, contact your various options in advance to start having meetings or aligning positions as soon as possible.
Get to the point
Companies receive a large number of sponsorship proposals each year and only choose the ones that seem most attractive to them. Therefore, it is essential that you get to the point, that you address the right person, and that you do not waste anyone's time. Focus on engaging them from the first moment with what they want to hear and if you can create a personalized proposal in the first contact or message, even better. In any case, do not take a rejection personally; it is business, and companies can make decisions based on criteria you are unaware of.
As you can see, sponsorship can be very beneficial for companies that want to gain visibility and for content creators, media, or events that need income to finance their activities. Following the advice we have given in this post will help you achieve your objectives in this regard.
If you are interested in learning more about the topic, you can watch this episode of A vista de click:
