Marketing Sponsorship Guide: What are Marketing Sponsorships?
With over $65 million spent on marketing every year worldwide, it’s no wonder that it has become such a diverse field. However, Marketing Sponsorships are easily one of the most popular ways that you can effectively market to a wide audience and are utilized the world over.
With this, you may be wondering what the benefits of marketing sponsorships are over other forms of marketing. Plus, getting started with them may seem like a daunting task for smaller businesses.
At Collabstr, we help brands deploy 7-figure budgets towards marketing sponsorships each month. That’s why in this article, we’re going to go over Marketing Sponsorships and how you can get started implementing them into your own business
What are Marketing Sponsorships?
Marketing sponsorships are when a company aligns itself with another company or organization to grow its brand. This is mostly seen in the events industry, but is used in a multitude of other public-facing sectors.
For example, every sports broadcast is filled with them. You’ll often hear that a broadcast is sponsored by a company. That company will have contributed some incentive to have their name or product advertised on the broadcast, and will sometimes pay millions of dollars for it.
Sponsorships are typically initiated by sending the other party a formal sponsorship proposal that outlines the goal of the sponsorship, and the financial structure if there is one.
There are three main methods of paying for marketing sponsorships —
-
Cash Sponsorships: The most common type of sponsorship, a cash sponsorship is simply paying someone in return for advertising their event/organization.
-
In-Kind Sponsorships: Rather than paying cash, these types of companies will pay for their sponsorship by giving goods or services.
-
Partnerships: Partners sponsor each other, essentially. They both create content to advertise the other, strengthening each other’s brand and helping them both grow.
The great thing about sponsorships is that you can sponsor no matter how big your company is. For instance, if you’re a smaller company, there are plenty of avenues that you can explore.
What Kinds of Marketing Sponsorships Are There?
Influencer Sponsorships
While less traditional than some of the other forms of sponsorship, brands have been partnering with influencers at an increasing rate over the past decade. Considering that 61% of consumers trust product recommendations from influencers, it’s easy to see why 93% of marketers have used influencer marketing in their overall strategies.
Influencer sponsorship is a common marketing strategy used by small and growing businesses. Collaborating with an influencer is often inexpensive, but can net you huge returns in regards to brand awareness and audience reach.
There is a wide range of influencer marketing tools that can assist you with finding the right influencers, coordinating sponsorships, and dealing with payments. While the pricing of such tools can be quite high, there are plenty of free influencer search tools that can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
Surfshark is a great example of a company that leverages influencer sponsorships to build its brand. Surfshark is a relatively new VPN service that was released back in 2018. Since then, it’s used an aggressive YouTube sponsorship campaign, collaborating with influencers on the platform to increase its brand awareness. Within four years, they’ve become a major competitor to the VPN industry heavyweights, like ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
If you’re looking to explore the benefits of influencer sponsorships, there’s no better place to look than Collabstr. Have a look through our extensive influencer library, to find an influencer in your niche!
Sports Sponsorships
Sponsorship is everywhere in sports. From jersey sponsors to stadium names, it’s impossible to miss corporate branding in your average ESPN broadcast.
With over $64.8 billion spent on sports marketing yearly, it’s easy to see that companies think that sports are often the best place for sponsorship. After all, the potential eyes on your brand are second to none.
Here are some examples of popular sports sponsorships:
-
Jersey Sponsorships: Incredibly common worldwide, jersey sponsorships are when a brand is displayed on a team’s apparel. For example, NBA teams such as the Lakers now have sponsor patches on their jerseys.
-
Stadium/Arena Sponsorships: Some sponsors will pay a large amount to be able to have their name on a stadium or arena. An example of this is New York’s Metlife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and New York Jets NFL teams.
-
Broadcast Sponsorship: This is where a brand will sponsor a sports broadcast or a segment of one. For example, StateFarm sponsors the analyst desk of the League of Legends NA Championship Series.
Events Sponsorships
Similar to sports sponsorships, event sponsorships are when a brand or a series of brand sponsors an event. Whether it be an awards ceremony, convention, festival, or any other type of event, the types of sponsorship you get are very similar.
-
Brand Exposure: The brand’s logo can be displayed around the event for promotional purposes, on both promotional material and other materials. It can even be displayed as part of the event name, such as the ‘Bank of America Chicago Marathon’.
-
Physical Promotion: A sponsor at an event can hand out branded gifts and other promotional material to attendees.
-
Broadcast Rights: For brands such as Red Bull, who both sponsor and broadcast events, their sponsorship allows them to display events to the wider world.
Media Sponsorships
Media sponsorships are incredibly common in the modern world. Companies sponsor specific television programs and events to have their brands displayed at the forefront.
For example, America’s Got Talent is sponsored by Sonic Drive-In and was previously sponsored by Dunkin Donuts. This simple brand exposure is worth it for Sonic, as America’s Got Talent puts lots of eyes on its brand.
The Benefits of Marketing Sponsorships
Advertise Your Brand
Of course, sponsorships advertise your brand. Getting more eyes in front of your brand means more customers and potential leads. Any form of marketing that does that is already a massive benefit to your brand.
Increases Brand Integrity and Position
By sponsoring effectively, your brand aligns itself with the sponsee. The same is true in reverse, and so ensuring to sponsor the best possible sponsees will help enhance your brand’s public image and reputation.
Low-Effort Marketing
When marketing, you’ll often have to spend money on materials and other marketing expenses. Sponsorships are much more simple, as they often just require your name and company identity to be effective.
Network and Build Effective Partnerships
By aligning yourself with a party, you create a partnership with them. By networking this way, you build your brand relationships and reputation.
The more positive connections your brand has, the better your brand will perform on average. Not only will the public like your brand more, but more companies, events and influencers will want to be sponsored by you if you’ve got a stellar reputation and had a partnership with them before.
Advertisements vs. Sponsorships
Advertisements and Sponsorships seem very similar but are drastically different as to where they position your brand.
An advertisement is simply displaying your product and is often displayed in correlation with other varieties of advertisements. Whereas a sponsorship is a partnership between two parties who align with each other.
By sponsoring someone, you can strengthen your position as a brand by making sure you’re aligned with respectable parties, which will increase brand integrity and recognition.
Tips for Getting Started With Marketing Sponsorships
Start Small
Rather than trying to compete for large sponsorship opportunities, start small. Find local opportunities and nurture your brand’s growth within your local community. Local sponsorships can be a great way to build your reputation on the grass-roots level and are usually much cheaper than other types of sponsorships.
A great way to get started is to sponsor local events and organizations, such as local sports teams or festivals that would love the extra funding.
The strength of influencer sponsorships shouldn’t be disregarded here either. Searching through influencer platforms like Collabstr can connect you with the best influencers in your niche, which will help you raise brand awareness for a fraction of the cost that traditional sponsorships would.
Plus, influencer marketing strategies are among the best ways to make a connection with Gen Z. 52% of them believe that influencer marketing is the most effective strategy.
Be Helpful and Generous
A lot of smaller organizations and events would be grateful for the help in paying for running costs and other operational expenses. Instead of trying to squeeze every dollar, show some goodwill and win those sponsees over to build long-lasting relationships.
For example, if a local festival is struggling to find the funds to pay for WiFi or other small expenses at their venue, you can easily step in and help them in return for a sponsorship. This will help foster a relationship between your brand and the event and it’s likely that you’ll be able to work with them again in the future.
Of course, don’t just give away money. You should make a deal that is beneficial to both parties. There’s no point in spending money if you’re going to see little in the way of returns.
Consider Your Niche
If your brand has a specific niche or audience you’re targeting, find opportunities within those niches. This will generate more genuine leads and help your brand grow relevance in a community that cares about it.
For example, Ultimate Guard specializes in making supplies for card games (such as Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering). Their general marketing strategy is to target card game players specifically. Because of this, they target very specific sponsorships, which can help them build a reputation amongst such a niche crowd.
To do so, they sponsored multiple Magic: The Gathering events worldwide (such as the Legacy European Tour and the Face to Face tour), allowing them to have a large reach in a relatively small niche.
By picking your niche carefully and ensuring to sponsor the most effective entities in that field, you can become a staple sponsor within your niche and position yourself as a key player in that industry.
Enrich Your Brand with Collabstr
Marketing Sponsorships are a key way to advertise your brand in the modern world. Instead of having to advertise yourself, building partnerships with other parties and using those relationships to grow your brand is a much more effective way to truly push your marketing to the next level.
If you’re looking for influencers and other online marketing opportunities, look no further than Collabstr! Our marketplace allows you to browse and find the perfect influencer for your needs, and directly communicate with them with ease.
Collabstr makes it simple for you to find influencers in your niche. From Fitness influencers to Beauty influencers and everything in between, Collabstr brings a wealth of creators to your fingertips. Finding the right creators to partner with has never been easier.
Ready to take the next step with Collabstr? Take a look through our library of influencers today! Alternatively, take a look at our pricing if you’d like to post your own marketing campaigns and have influencers come to you, instead of the other way around.
