Some brands just don’t spend on sports sponsorships. Never have…some say they never will. There are categories that we can usually count on to spend on sports sponsorships. Auto, Banks, Insurance, etc. Most of the time they are already spending there.
Conventional wisdom says go after the brands that have already invested in these partnerships. If you know they are spending there…you know that they most likely will be interested in the package that you offer.
But should we just write off the brands that have never invested in sports partnerships?
No. These are opportunities for new revenue at very little competition. We should always be looking for areas of growth in our industry.
The next question becomes, how can we convince them that investing in sports partnerships is worth their advertising dollars?
In this episode of The Inches Podcast, we dive into how you can convince a brand or company that has never spent a dime in sports partnerships to spend with your team.
You can listen to the whole episode HERE, but as always I dive into the key points below.
First, understand what they currently spend on
Before we look at what we pitch to brands, it is always important to understand what they currently spend on. This will let us know vital information before we go in.
First, where they spend their money tells us a lot about the mediums they are comfortable with. For example, if we see they are spending their advertising money on newspaper or radio ads…we can understand that our radio broadcast ads for game time will be a great fit for them.
If they spend on Facebook ads, we can know that they will want to see digital options like promoted Facebook posts.
If we can understand the medium in which they are most comfortable…we make it easier for them to say yes by adding assets that they have already said yes to on other mediums.
The second part of this research comes with looking at the content of the ads they produce. What is the messaging? What call to action do they make?
This step will help us understand their most important goals. Brands tell us what they are looking to achieve through the ads they run.
Maybe there is a bank that has never spent within sports sponsorships that are running radio ads with messaging around setting your kids up with a college savings account. This tells us that reaching families is important to them.
When we create our pitch, we should be adding options around how they can reach our fans that have kids.
What a brand is currently running tells us a lot about its goals & company. Once we have that foundation, we can start to look at ways we can offer a more effective option through our sports sponsorship assets.
Push the passion that fans have and how sports sponsorship assets grab that passion
Now that we know what a brand is spending on, we can start to weave in our superpowers in sports to start to convince them that our option is better.
The first superpower we have in sports is the passion we can leverage from our fans. We must ask our new potential sponsors what they are currently doing to tap into people’s passion.
You see, a newspaper ad is informative. A radio ad is the same way. Even digital ads make it hard to tap into a consumer’s passion.
But our assets bring exciting stories, nostalgia, and pull-out passion from our fans.
When we look to answer the question “why should I spend my dollars with your team”, fan passion should be the unique selling point we bring out.
You see, passion moves people to purchase. A win puts them into a passionate high of euphoria, which also leads to more sales.
Humans are driven by feelings. Emotions are what lead to sales and brand loyalty. The easiest way to tie your brand with these emotions is through advertising that drives passion.
Sports are the quickest way to drive into a passion.
Focusing on this and comparing it to the current ads they spend on, you will be able to show a more efficient and powerful tool they can invest in…your sports sponsorship assets.
Showcase the power live sports has on our attention
Once you’ve shown the passion, the next step is to dive into the power that live sports has on attention.
In today’s world, it is hard to capture attention. We see around 10,000 ads per day as humans. This causes us to tune most of them out, making most vessels of advertising ineffective.
Ineffective advertising leads to the need to spend more dollars with half the results. Brands go crazy trying to solve this problem.
This is where the power of live sports comes in. There are few areas today that capture human attention like live games.
For example, streaming and TV ads on non-sports programming today are easy to skip over or ignore. Some platforms even allow for adblocking.
But with sports, our audience is captivated. Few will change the channel, most are zoned into the game…not wanting to miss a second of the action.
Fans won’t change the channel for 3 hours in most cases.
But this isn’t just earmarked for streaming…most of the time on the radio when ads come on the user switches the channel. But for sports, they won’t. They’ll listen to every radio ad until the game is over.
This is powerful because it brings efficiency. The format of our live games holds attention longer than other ad platforms.
When getting a brand to spend on sports sponsorship for the first time…this will be a powerful point to touch on when convincing them to spend dollars with our team.
Dive into the power of fan loyalty in sports sponsorship
Last but not least, fans are loyal to the brands that sponsor their favorite sports team.
Sports fans are 80% more likely to buy brand products that sponsor their favorite sports teams.
Read that stat again. Fan passion is an insanely powerful tool to drive sales and loyalty. This is probably our biggest value add as a sports team.
What this statistic is really pushing is efficiency. As I spoke about before, brands are looking for the most efficient way to reach their consumers. They are looking for ways to drive sales and build loyalty in the most efficient way possible.
Our fan loyalty brings them that efficiency. This should be the icing on the cake when it comes to convincing brands who have never spent with sports partnerships to spend with your team.
Compare the above sports sponsorship attributes to the current advertising they spend on
The key to convincing anyone to switch what they have done comes with breaking a habit. Most of the time, brands get into a habit of spending on a certain advertising medium.
As I said above, we have to convince them that spending on our package will be better than what they have done for years.
When you do, focus on the efficiency that your packages bring to their brand compared to the past spending habits. The three items above are key in showing our efficiency.
Build outreach to new brands into your sales strategy
How much time and effort should you be spending on prospects that have never spent with sports teams?
It’s more than you think. Rich builds in about 20% of his new prospect efforts into these brands.
The biggest thing here comes with opportunity. Most teams will see them as prospects that aren’t worth their time. If they haven’t spent on sports sponsorships…why would they try now?
When most pass up the opportunity, we can benefit from it.
Should you be spending most of your time there for new business? No. As Rich says, why did the robber rob the bank? It’s because that’s where the money is.
But you also don’t want to just focus on the money everyone is going after either. If you do, you risk being the last dog at the food bowl.
Look for new opportunities and businesses to go after who have never spent on sports sponsorships. It may take a bit more convincing…but if you focus on the above tactics you should be able to get the meeting.
