You may be thinking, sponsorship isn’t really that big of a weapon. Yeah, tell that to Subway who for years has been beating us over the head with the story of Jared. Jared is a guy that reportedly lost a ton of weight by walking to a local subway and eating one of their sandwiches every day. Now he’s basically the face of Subway. Sponsorship can help you communicate to your intended audience in ways that other marketing tools can’t. It’s a great way to clearly tell everyone what your brand stands for.
My dad, who is a 3 year prostate cancer survivor, decided to stay in shape so that he could limit his chances of a recurrence, and began running in 5K races. Every race, he wears a sign on his shirt that displays the logos of all the businesses and non-profits that have helped him in his fight against cancer. One of those businesses, USMD Prostate Cancer Center, thought that it was such a good idea that they started sponsoring his runs. By sponsoring my dad, he is able to run in more races, and thus promote these organizations more effectively. He’s become a vocal spokesperson for USMD’s services (which did indeed save his life), and gets the message out in a very low cost way. By the way, you can check out my dad’s latest racing exploits on his blog here.
You don’t necessarily have to sponsor a person to get your point across. Sponsoring an event, or a cause of some kind also has the same effect. It gets your brand name out to people that are interested in what you do, and goes a long way in describing the intangibles of your company. What do you stand for (besides making money), and why should your target audience care? Speaking of targets, like all good and effective marketing, sponsorships should be targeted. You want to make sure that whoever, or whatever you are sponsoring has some interest to your target audience. Otherwise, what’s the point.
Anyone else have anything to add?
