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With the right sponsorship partners, there are countless opportunities to creatively reach new customer segments and enhance your brand’s positioning. Sponsorship promotional marketing opportunities are only as good as you make them. For example, a travel industry company I represented launched a sponsorship of a theme park by developing a multi-channel promotional marketing campaign. The national advertising campaign featured a tiered sweepstakes featuring theme park trips and logo’d promotional items as prizes; each party developed coupon offers to distribute within their direct consumer channels, and discounted vacation packages were created for sale by the travel trade. No stone was left unturned as we expanded the basic sponsorship package to explore every channel. The result was a symbiotic sponsorship program that catapulted both brands to new levels of awareness and sales.
Tap Into Heats and Minds
Exponentially increase brand awareness by accessing the hearts and minds of a much larger audience through your sponsorship promotional marketing process.
Consider, for example, a sports sponsorship. Sports fans are passionate about their sport and team. Harnessing the pride and the passion generated by the sports organization within your sponsorship relationship, is the challenge.
The right sponsorship opens the door to new opportunities, markets and customer segments by enhancing the emotional connection of your brand message.
Be Objective and Use Emotional Intelligent
The value of a sponsorship lies in passion and engagement. Depending on your brand’s positioning, there may be an opportunity to sponsor an event, activity, person or organization that will achieve each partner’s business objectives, and drive measurable value for both. Sponsorships should connect on an emotional level and go beyond a brand’s features and benefits. Promotional marketing should engage people and motive them to action.
For example, one of the nationally branded credit cards I use sends me discount opportunities to attend exclusive events due to their status as official sponsor. This is an example of expanding the value of sponsorship promotion marketing to drive incremental revenue and build brand loyalty.
Some top sponsorship promotion marketing objectives are: to associate with a property that has a following similar to your customer profile; create a unique combined positioning to reach new segments; and differentiate your brand from competitors. Once the objectives are determined, explore properties or causes where you can combine your brand position with the property being sponsored, to engage hearts and minds.
Many organizations wait for sponsor opportunities to come to them and decide if it is a good fit. Being proactive in determining your market segments and the types of causes, organizations or events that will emotionally touch the customer, sets a benchmark for you to evaluate and reject sponsorship opportunities. Ideally, the sponsorship should create a new energy that will impact: your customers, the property’s fan base, and stimulates interest among new market segments.
Determine the right sponsorship opportunities
Begin with a basic list of sponsor benefits and work together to customize the relationship to meet each partner’s specific objectives. Start by identifying every customer segment; sales channel; and sales/employee incentive program to develop a positioning strategy for each. If a property lacks the flexibility to understand and meet the need to customize the relationship, it may be best to move on to another opportunity. Ultimately, the true value of a sponsorship is in the engagement of people through the passion created by the association of two brands