17th March 2014

Sponsorship Marketing: A Powerful Way To Connect With Your Audience

Sponsorship marketing has been around for a long time yet it’s not something that finds a place in most marketing plans. In fact, the common understanding of sponsorship marketing is limited to having a company logo visible at a sporting or charitable event and a few ringside seat tickets. However, sponsorship marketing is one of the fastest growing forms of marketing and when done right can offer huge benefits to your brand

So what is sponsorship marketing and how can your brand or business benefit from it? Sponsorship Marketing is an investment by a company in an activity or event in exchange
for having its brand or business promoted through the event. It is promotion by association

When done right, sponsorship can offer you multiple benefits. It allows you to reach a very specific target audience without waste and can have a significant influence on customer relations. When complemented by other marketing programs, a sponsorship can be leveraged and amplified to reach a far wider audience than just those present at the venue.

Here are some of the other key benefits of sponsorship marketing:

It differentiates you from your competitors

The moment you decide to invest in an event or activity you create a point of difference with your competitors. That’s why it’s critical you pick your sponsorship partners with care. The more exclusive and significant the event, the more your company has the opportunity to stand out from competitors. This is particularly helpful if your ad budget isn’t as large as your competitors. Sponsorship can allow you to compete with much larger players in your industry and your target audience will often perceive sponsorship in a positive light.

A sales driver

The ultimate aim of any marketing initiative is to drive sales and a sponsorship can go a long way in pushing sales. A sponsorship can allow you to showcase your product or service and even help in the launch of a new offering. Food and beverage brands often use sponsorships to encourage samplings and sales.

You can enhance your image and shape consumer attitudes

Picking a sponsorship event that appeals to your target audience is a great way to shape buying attitudes and help generate a positive reaction. Showing you care enough to support an event or activity that resonates with your target audience is a great way to influence their opinion and keep your business top of mind.

Heightened visibility and publicity

Sponsoring an event is a great way to generate positive publicity for your business and helps create heightened visibility of your products or services. Media coverage of events often includes sponsors names and/or photos and this kind of coverage is often unaffordable if you were to think of purchasing it. That’s why it’s crucial to leverage your sponsorship and amplify it through other marketing channels so you can take your message to a much wider audience than just those present at the event. To maximize this, ensure you have a comprehensive media campaign to augment the regular media coverage promoted by the organizers.

Improves your corporate profile

Finally one of the big benefits of sponsorships is that your company is seen as an active contributor to the local community’s growth and welfare. To be seen supporting the community and contributing to its economic development is an extremely powerful way to create enormous goodwill.

Sponsorship marketing is a great way to achieve multiple objectives on a limited budget. In short, it’s an extremely important and powerful tool in any marketing strategy and taking the time to do it right will be well worth the effort.

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