How to Write a Winning Event Sponsorship Proposal

Assignment Task

Welcome back to background to sponsorship sales, which is the third mini lecture presentation in the series of topic six. And in this section we're going to consider the art of sponsorship sales. We'll start this section firstly by considering what motivates businesses to sponsor and which types of sponsorship assets or REITs, as they're sometimes called. I've used to deliver a return on investment against sponsor objectives. Well then identify how sellers can best prepare themselves to strategically approach the sales process to make it both efficient and critically effective. We will do this by reviewing the framework of a sponsorship strategy, which is a document that all sponsorship sales people should produce prior to embarking on the sales process. The strategy acts as a commercial blueprint and is often reviewed and agreed by more than just the business development sales teams, as some of the considerations within the strategy impact on other core departments, for example marketing or finance. We will think about revenue projections and forecasts as well as the time requirements for an effective sales cycle.

At the end of this topic, you should feel confident in being able to identify a commercial sponsorship opportunity, and to work through a strategic plan to realise commercial partners. Businesses sponsor for a multitude of different reasons and one of the challenges for any effective salesperson is to ascertain to the fullest extent possible, what the objectives and priorities are for the prospective sponsor partner. The depth and detail that can be extracted by the seller helps them to then tailor and optimise the right or the asset that the sponsor will access by the partnership. In the MKT frontier report that forms part essential reading, we determined that the average sponsor will have up to five different objects It's connected to the proposed partnership. Within that, there will be higher priority areas. And this is what the seller should focus on, given that we're selling in a climate where activation budgets are under considerable scrutiny. What we've got on this side slide is a list of some of the more common objectives that motivate people, businesses to sponsor platforms, events and opportunities. And this is useful for you to sell to keep front of mind when you're approaching the sales process, because it helps you to start to think about which assets will have the greatest value for your potential sponsor partner.

For some businesses sponsorship is around enhancing brand values to the association. And note there that we do consider this to be very different to raising or increasing simple brand awareness, which has been something that sponsorship has done effectively in the past, but there's a definite moment Question two sponsors being able to borrow the brand values of their sponsor partner and by doing so, improve or change or shift perceptions of their own brand. Similarly, sponsorship connect with people in their emotional passion points. So, a good sponsorship programme can build a long lasting memorable emotional link with a specific audience that could be an employee, it could be as possible external customer potential consumer, the media or another key stakeholder group. Good sponsorship obviously does help to increase or build brand awareness and also brand attribute sponsored can demonstrate the personality of a brand, the desired personality of brand or the actual and that perhaps explains why we see large investment number and level by businesses that in Include, say, the energy sector, who might be seeking to build more personality to their brands, which could be viewed as relatively steady while in the broadest context of brand businesses across the globe. Good sponsorship can help to change perceptions of the brands either from middle of the road to luxury from affordable to premium or vice versa.

Good sports it helps to establish a relevant and creative dialogue with the consumer. And that perhaps helps us to understand this growing appeal of content. Sponsorship can help to develop acceptance, consideration and preference to particularly weak audience segments that sponsoring business may have and it creates business opportunities be that data lead sales and retail customer retention or employee engagement. We do see some sponsors motivated by the opportunity to improve Politically or otherwise hard to reach stakeholders. This is a delicate objective that is usually managed very carefully by the rights holder, but nevertheless, is definitely could count amongst one of the primary reasons and primary objectives that we often see within a common sponsorship agreement. Let's think a bit more about the value of passion platforms, which I think we can all agree most sponsorship is whether that's a fan going to a football match, at music level going to a Festival Theatre, it's easy as going to a play. In the first section of this topic, we saw that sponsorship had continued to grow in industry size.

Despite tragic economic conditions have been just reviewed common sponsor objectives, we can now build a picture of why sponsorship As a marketing tool has enjoyed in terms of popularity, this provides a useful backdrop and framework for the development of a sponsorship sales strategy. So, why sponsor? Well, consumers and customers are harder to reach than ever before. Connecting with a target market via that passion point, establishes brand relevance an attractive marketplace, there's more airtime there's more opportunity to resonate and get cut through. advertising is not as powerful as it once was, or arguably as cost effective. Sponsorship can provide an alternative mechanism to reach and influence micro communities and to provide unique experiences that live long after the event itself. brands and organisations have increasingly complex objectives beyond just increasing sales or generating awareness. Sponsorship offers a broad environment in which many many objectives can be achieved simultaneously. The consumer experience is becoming more and more important. We saw in the mktg report people that value experiences over things. Sponsorship can provide unique experience premium, rewarding environments where consumers can realise rewards and incentives and really connect more deeply with sponsoring businesses. Really good sponsorship can provide a meaningful interchange between the company and the customer. Engagement can start around common areas of interest and facilitate a two way exchange. We must note of course, though, the challenge there for all sponsors and rights holders, is ensuring that that interchange is authentic and believable. Good sponsorship lives long. And perhaps one question for you. All to think about as you're going through this is to reflect on your own favourite sponsors. When I asked this question in courses and lectures, I'm always aware that the answers that I get are not a sponsorship that happened yesterday or last week. If you ask people what their favourite sponsorship was, it often dates back to 10 years, demonstrating the longevity and the long lasting affinity that sponsorship can create when it's done well.

And I think Finally, sponsorship can deliver really well on a number of internal as well as external marketing goals. And increasingly, that's significant and important to businesses as they look to engage and sustain a workforce to retain talent and to appeal to the broadest demographic group. And in doing so, to commandeer and enjoy the benefits of attracting unique talent into the business. It's fair to say that sometimes sponsorship is about competition. And where a business has made incredible strides or benefits through sponsorship, you can see their competition, looking at platforms and initiatives and thinking about how they can galvanise it to competitive sectors as a whole excellent ground for sponsorship sellers, because competition breeds need for sponsorship. And businesses that need sponsorship are possibly the best prospects to be going after. Let's think about what are the key questions we need to ask before approaching the sales process. Before undertaking the exercise of generating a sponsorship sales strategy, there are some essential checks that all sellers should make to determine that the proposed sponsor offer or the platform presents a

viable commercial opportunity to a third party. Not all in vironment are fit for sponsorship for variety of reasons. It's important that all sellers undertake their own commercial audit with rigour and objectivity to establish its credibility in a busy and active marketplace. So, what are the essential commercial questions a salesperson should ask themselves before approaching the sales process. The first question is, does the platform event opportunity or initiative have an established track record in managing effective sponsorship partners? Basically, have you got a sponsorship history? Secondly, does the platform or event has an established following or fan base an audience with an attractive demographic attribute that sponsors would wish to engage or connect with someone sponsorship platforms have access to a large volume of people that are not bound by similar demographic information.

Alternatively, Some project platforms offer less volume, but more different demographic intelligence and different ways to target micro communities through a granular marketing approach. The best sponsorship platforms offer a good volume of fans and audience an excellent routes to engage with them via specific and targeted messages. If you're representing an opportunity that has a low volume of fans, an audience and limited demographic intelligence on that group, then it's unlikely to be robust enough proposition to secure high level sponsorship. The third question sellers need to ask themselves are there any risks for sponsors when aligning with the event? political, social, ethical market is can be very risk averse and sponsorship has some high profile examples where it has quotes gone wrong. So it is a sensible question to Ask yourself whether the experience could potentially deliver reputational damage to your sponsor partner. There are some high risk platforms that have been prolifically sponsored and successfully. So, arguably, you could say Formula One is a good example of that. Equally though, there are risky environments, which haven't been so successful in sponsorship, and air shows, by contrast, generally speaking, haven't been prolifically sponsored, possibly because of the potential risk evolved involved in the association. And finally, critically, does the platform or event offer interesting and affordable activation opportunities? sponsors want to know that they are going to be able to activate affordably and effectively. They're drawn to what the campaign could be and how they Brand will fit within your portfolio or platform.

So, if you can't identify what that activation programme could be, then perhaps it's time to reevaluate your platform or initiative and identify where could the sponsor be built in and included in the event so that they can resonate and engage with the target audience. These four questions are things that the seller should ask themselves because there are four key questions that buyers ask. They want to know about the audience and the demographic. They want to know about the leech and the track record. They want to know whether something is risky or and whether it has good activation potential. So thinking like a buyer here will really deliver value to you as a seller. So let's just summarise that thinking that we done in this first segment of learning around the sales cycle, and key sales considerations. spreadsheet seller should adopt a range of processes internal processes, which ensure that securing the commercial partnership is a positive and beneficial step. This should be completed prior to embarking on a sponsored search. The better prepared the rights holder, the more likely they are to succeed in securing a successful and rewarding sponsorship partnership. rights holders must be as professional as sponsors in terms of their planning process, and sponsors are rigorous around planning. The rights holder needs to answer some key questions before even embarking on the process which will ensure a focused and realistic sponsorship search. answering these questions creates a sponsorship strategy which can be articulated to the sales team and communicated organisation wide. It gets everybody fit for sponsorship and ready for what partnership will mean to the organisation overall. This is embedded just some early thinking and key considerations for you if you want to embark on a career intrapreneurship sales. What we'll do next is move into a second interlinked set of slides around developing an effective sponsorship strategy.

I think you'll find that gives you a framework then or a blueprint from which you can develop a commercial strategy, either in the role that you're in now, or for a role in the future. I hope you've enjoyed this segment and look forward to being able to share more information with you in the next presentation in respect to what you should include in that sponsorship strategy. And why each part is important in terms of honing and defining your sales strategy going forward.

Topic summary

Now that you have listened to the lectures and completed the activities, take a little while to reflect on the key learning points and actions which you will take from this topic. We have looked in-depth at two quite different aspects of the marketing mix – price and promotion.

We began by looking at methods of pricing, particularly market-orientated pricing, which is highly relevant to sports.

Then we moved on to dynamic pricing which, with improved technology and data, is enticing but comes with risks as well as benefits. Students should now be able to evaluate these different methods of pricing, explain how they are relevant to sports marketers and determine where they may be applicable to their own organisations.

In the second lecture, we explored promotion and, specifically, the promotional mix. Students should now have an understanding of the aspects of this promotional mix and an appreciation of the ways in which different elements are relevant to different marketing circumstances. Importantly, you should also be aware of the interplay between different aspects of the promotional mix and the benefits of integrated marketing communications.

We have touched briefly on some of the trends in marketing communications. It is easy to characterise these as a shift from ‘traditional’ and ‘mass’ channels to ‘digital’ and ‘personalised’ but the reality is more complex. The social media landscape is a good example of this. It is evolving and will no doubt have changed again a little between me recording this and you listening. That said, Kaplan and Haenlein’s frameworks are over a decade old but still provide a useful starting point when determining how to use this part of the promotional mix.

The promotional mix can be an interesting area to delve deeper into during your studies. Spending time considering the promotional activities of the teams, athlete and brands that you admire can be a really insightful supplementary learning experience. At the end of this topic, take some time to complete the final reflections and then we will move on to the next topic.

Questions

1. Why did FIBA introduce 3x3 to its calendar of events?

2. What challenges were faced when planning and implementing 3x3

3. Would you say there has been a positive impact on basketball from 3x3?

4. Has 3x3 had an impact on the rest of basketball?

5. What is your advice to other sports looking to implement new formats to grow audiences?

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