Chelsea:
Today we're gonna cover just all of the tips that we have for utilizing sponsorships. So before we begin, I do just want to go through what exactly a sponsorship is really quick.
I am sure you guys know what it is, but I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. So a sponsorship is a partnership between businesses to promote a product, service, brand, or event. Nowadays, when you say sponsorships, I'm pretty sure the first thing you're thinking of is an influencer being sponsored by brands, selling those products or services. And that definitely is a sponsorship and we're going to touch on it, but really for small businesses we want to focus on sponsorships in your local community because again as a small business owner you should really be focusing on your local community.
Vivian:
The key for sponsorships is for one: picking the right sponsorships and then also being sure that the sponsorship is going to give you access to the target audience who eventually will want to buy your product and service, right? But this really is such a great way to promote a small business. And y 'all, you know I'm about to say something that's gonna be music to your ears. Sponsorships for the most part are very cost effective, meaning you don't have to have a big budget. If you have maybe $100, sometimes $250, you can do sponsorships. There are a lot of sponsorships out there and they range, okay? There are also sponsorships out there that are like $5 ,000, okay? You just need to find the best sponsorship for your small business.
Chelsea:
Vivian, I want to start off by giving examples. Okay. I have an example of a sponsorship that I feel like...I'm not going to say it was a bad sponsorship, but I think maybe we should start with a good example. So if you could give an example of a good sponsorship and it working well, please.
Vivian:
Let's say that you are an insurance company, right? So you work for State Farm and you sell auto, life insurance, all of those things. One of the good sponsorships that you could participate in to really get yourself entrenched in the community is if your community loves football. Around here in South Carolina, we love us some football. OK, go Gamecocks, but look at the local high schools.
So here in Summerville, South Carolina, we have a huge community that loves high school football and our high school football team is pretty good every year. And so they had, they just recently had redone their scoreboard and on that scoreboard, they had panels. AThey would reach out to you or you could reach out to them and say, How much is that panel? Now that's an example of one that's gonna be a little more on the higher end cost -wise. So I believe it was around $10 ,000, maybe $5 ,000, but you could get your panel, dedicated panel, and it's like a mini ad. You could put your logo, your name, your phone number, life, auto, car, or well no, car and auto are the same, life, auto, whatever, other insurance type.
Every single Friday when they turn those lights on in the stadium and they pack that stadium full of parents who are out there supporting their children playing on the football field. They're seeing your name up there because they're looking at the scoreboard constantly.
So that's a really great way to stay top of mind and to really entrench yourself. Now, on the lower end, I'll give you another example that's similar, but it probably cost around $150, $200. So in Summerville, South Carolina, there is a community park. That community park, they actually have a field, like a little baseball field, and on there, you can pay like $250 and get a banner on the chain link fence. That banner stays there year round or during baseball season, however long they commit to. But I don't want to discourage any of you if you're thinking, I don't have a big budget. There are some that even do it for $75 or $100. They'll do it for less. You just have to go out there and maybe find those.
Chelsea:
Yeah, yeah, those were great examples. I
Vivian:
So now you're going to give us an example of a not so good one.
Chelsea:
It's not necessarily not a good one. Let me explain. This is gonna be an example of nuance and a business, an allergy business.
Here in the Lowcountry, we have the Festival of Lights during the holiday season. So the Festival of Lights, it's a light show, right? So you drive through all the pretty lights in James Island. You go through a county park. They have a bunch of lights set up. You can sponsor a specific set of lights, right? Like a display, a specific light display. And a bunch of businesses do it. It's a great way to get in front of people. A lot of people go to the Festival of Lights. Tim's family goes every year. Tim and his brother and his dad against their will. But Tim's mom and I love...
Vivian:
You guys kidnap them, put them in the car and drive them out there?
Chelsea:
Absolutely. Yes. So his mom and I, we love going every year and we forced everyone else to go. It's very nice. Here's my thing. Those lights, those displays, a sponsorship is a little expensive, right? Because it's a big deal in South Carolina, in the low country. It's a big deal. So they're pricier.
So the allergy place every year they sponsor a light display. It is a very small light display and it's very expensive. I'm not told the price, I'm just told that it is expensive. That's fine. So I say why don't we do a different kind of sponsorship? Why don't we do one that's more nuanced, more specific on our target audience so that we can get more bang for our buck? Well, no, we don't want to do that because the Festival of Lights is a really big deal here in the Lowcountry. So it's the best thing that we can do.
It is a good sponsorship. I'm not saying it's not. I'm saying that you are spending a big chunk of your budget on a sponsorship that is not as narrowed down, not as niche as it could be, it might not be the best sponsorship for you to be doing.
Vivian:
Yeah, and to speak to that, this is what I think having spent a lot of time in this industry now, from a marketing perspective. In my head, this is what I always think about. think if you're gonna do something, you're always gonna have a little bit of waste involved, but your job as a small business owner is to try to select the marketing things, initiatives that have the least amount of wastage. And that's what you're speaking to because the thing is, let's add a little more detail to that. For this particular business, they only had two or three locations. Are any of those locations near where that event was taking place?
Chelsea:
Not really.
Vivian:
Okay, and not that that matters because I will say that event pulls in families from all over the low country, right? So potentially they are correct that they are reaching a group of people that could potentially go and patron and walk in and schedule an appointment with one of their locations. I understand that. But like you're saying, if you're spending, let's just put a number on it. Let's say you're spending $20 ,000 on it, and you think about, well, I would take that $20 ,000 and instead do smaller sponsorships that are more focused in the community where my office is. And so that way the people are more prone to walking into our offices because it is their backyard. Then that's something to consider. Additionally, what would be even better is if you could target the people who typically are in need of those allergy services, right? And find the events that you could do that speak to those people. And so that's, yeah, you're right. I agree with you. I wouldn't, I would have been like, hey, there's probably, could work this a different way. You can spend the same amount of money, but let's just stretch it throughout the year as opposed to doing one big event at the end of the year.
Chelsea:
Well, exactly, that was part of the problem. I wasn't able to do other sponsorships because, no, we need to save the money for this specific sponsorship. Okay, but this sponsorship is with the American Lung Association in North Charleston. Like that is niche down, that is exactly our target audience, but we weren't able to do it because we were saving money for the Festival of Lights.
Vivian:
Yeah, so these are all very good questions to ask yourself if you're a small business. The one thing that's always I think we always talk about shiny things around here and I get it. There's something satisfying about seeing your business name in a really big event or at a big event, right?
But just think about these other things because if you're able to entrench yourself in with like what Chelsea said, okay, American Lung Association, the people that are interacting with that particular association are typically people that do have allergies, right? Or asthma. But you know what I mean? You're narrowing down the audience to where your probability of hitting someone or speaking to someone that does have a problem that these allergists can help with would be much, much greater at a smaller price point. And so that does, that should play a part in everything that you're thinking. Now, Chelsea, what other areas or what other places can they look for sponsorships? We already mentioned any type of athletic program that's in your community. Y 'all, that could be through your local YMCA, that could be through your actual town or city. So for example, here in South Carolina: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina is a town. Their town government actually coordinates the sponsorships for the little leagues in that area for those programs. So your town's another good place to look for them. What else?
Chelsea:
Local events, if you have an event in the area that is put on annually, so every year that is a great place to start. So, you know about the time they're going to be start looking for sponsorships. Perfect. But really any type of event, if you go onto their website, there is going to be a place where you can become a sponsor. Like they want sponsors, of course.
Vivian:
Yeah, schools too are also really great. I know a lot of the schools, so let me just tell y 'all, they have now, because the schools, all of these organizations that we're talking about that often put these events or these sponsorship opportunities together are either nonprofits that are trying to raise money to really spread the word about what their nonprofit does or they're also just trying to raise money for their own programs.
So for example, schools in the last 15 years have changed the way that they are allowing businesses to partner with them. Back in the day, you could go to kind of almost any elementary school and what they used to have was this like a board, you know, when they come to drop kids off in the car line, there was a board that said like business partners and you could get your name on the board for like $250, I think was their price point. $250, you could get your name on there as a business partner. Now, and I just signed off on a couple of these recently in very specific communities where we were trying to grow -but they actually partner with companies now where the kids that have homework folders, you can actually sponsor to have your name in their homework folder. You can actually sponsor to have your name in the car tag, the vehicle tag that they give to parents for the car line. Because now when you drop off kids, apparently there's like a number system. So like to make sure that the child matches. Yeah. Chelsea and I do not have children, so we don't know a whole lot about this.
Chelsea:
Okay. Yeah. I'm very confused. Like, they do what? My day and age, they just kicked you out of the car and get out. Okay.
Vivian:
Yeah, so elementary school. they expected that you were going to get to and from the elementary school on your own, No, not now, which is good. Now they have this thing where the teachers will make sure that the child has the appropriate number and it matches the vehicle so that they're getting into the right car so that you don't have kids getting like, snatched up or anything. So, you could get your business name or logo on that.
Chelsea:
Okay. Back in my day, real quick, back in my day, because I was in band. Well, you were also in marching band. We were both in marching band. And we had specific practice shirts that we had to wear. And on the back of the shirts was a bunch of sponsored businesses.
Vivian:
We didn't have that when I was going to band. So see the band program figured out how to raise money by doing that. Another one that I really liked too, I just had it, sorry. I was hoping my brain would catch up by the time I finished that and I didn't, hold on. There was another one I was gonna bring up. What was it Vivian, what was it? It wasn't schools.
Chelsea:
Another one. I'm just thinking of this. Actually, you know what? I don't know. Do they still do this? Well, I should probably say what it is before I ask you if they still do this. Back in the day, when you go grocery shopping and you're pushing carts, they would have like signage of a bunch of businesses on the groceries carts.
Vivian:
They do. And I can tell that you don't listen to Karen Romano, you don't watch her stories because she just posted something the other day where one of her friends, her dad has a real estate company and as she's pushing the cart through Harris Teeter, their faces were right there on the ad. So yes, Chelsea, that's another really great one.
Chelsea:
So I just want to say in my defense, when we go grocery shopping, I'm not allowed to touch anything because I am an impulse buyer. So I will go to the grocery store and be like, that sounds delicious. Let's buy it. And Tim, who is the one who cooks is like, no, we don't need that. Put it back. Stop touching things. Just walk with me.
Vivian:
He's like, we don't need spam. I'm not making you fried spam, Chelsea. Which by the way, I'm not putting spam down. I actually probably would really enjoy fried spam. I've never tried it.
Chelsea:
It hurts my tummy. I tried it in Hawaii. I had to try it, I'm in Hawaii, but very upset stomach after that. So yeah, that was a no -go for me.
Vivian:
All right. So similar to the grocery carts are pharmacy bags. Y 'all know, whenever you go to the pharmacy to pick up your prescription, there are businesses that can actually do a sponsorship for a particular bag and they switch those out. So typically, the pharmacy will outsource that to a company. This company reaches out to the businesses. But if you guys are interested in doing any of these, Harris Teeter isn't going to be doing that on their own. Their grocery stores are not going to be coordinating that. But if you're interested in doing that, go to the manager and ask them and say, do you happen to know which company does this for you? Because I'm interested in putting my ad there or sponsoring this and they'll give you the contact information. And then, like I said, most of the contracts can be up to a year. Sometimes they could be six months. So whatever budget you have to work with, just look at what options you have.
Chelsea:
I love that. So real quick, because we're mentioning budget, I do want to say when you're thinking about "is this price point reasonable?", "Can I reasonably afford it?", I do want to point out that sponsorships are not necessarily about making sales, right? This is a different marketing initiative, a different kind of goal. Sponsorships are about getting your name out there in your local community.
This is a different marketing initiative for a different kind of goal. Sponsorships are about getting your name out there in your local community. So when you are deciding if this is reasonably priced, is this affordable? I want to say sponsorships are a great tool. If you have a very limited budget, think about are there other initiatives that would work better that would actually make me money?
Vivian:
Yeah, and it depends on what it is. Let's take the example of you want to sponsor the vehicle tags for the elementary schools when the kids get picked up, right? Because you're like, great, I want my logo to be in every car for that elementary school and the parents are going to pick them up.
The thing is, like Chelsea said, the space on there is so limited, you're not gonna be able to put an ad on there. So really what you would primarily put is like your logo, nice and big, and then like a phone number, or maybe like a tagline, or maybe your website or something like that. So you're gonna have to play around with it, but I'm glad you threw that in there.
Let's say you sponsor a banner on the Little Lake field. It's not going to be like a full blown ad, right? You have limited space. Therefore, if you want your logo to be prominent, you know, I was just out at that park this last weekend, seeing a friend and all that was on these banners was literally just people's logos. They didn't even put phone numbers. They didn't put websites.
Just know it's a little more of the brand awareness part of it, but it's not going to be the hard pitch sell, like here's a list of all the services we do. That's not it. That's going to be more of an ad as opposed to the sponsorship. I'm so glad you mentioned.
Chelsea:
I do want to say, just because we have limited space, that does not mean that you don't have to track how well your sponsorship is working. If you have enough space to put a phone number, get a specific phone number that is only for that sponsorship, that banner, because that way you can track how many calls you get from that banner.
Vivian:
Yeah, absolutely. And I do think that there are other ways to kind of, we always talk about that oomph, right? How can you turn any initiative, how can you give it a little extra oomph?
Let's say I sponsor the Mount Pleasant Little League, the soccer team. Now I'm guaranteed with my sponsorship that I'm going to get my logo on the back of 500 shirts. OK, what I can do to give it a little oomph too is to reach out again to the coordinator and say, "Are there any opportunities to put me in front of the families, you know, on any particular date or time?" And what you can ask them is, do you allow us as sponsors to come in and maybe provide snacks? Do you allow us to come in? Because what that then does is let's say I've sponsored this soccer team.
I come in there. They say, "yes, absolutely, Vivian. This is how many kids you would have to provide snacks for." I go, I set up a table that I put a tablecloth on it that has my logo. I have little juice boxes. I have little goldfish, whatever the snack is for their after game. And basically I put my brochures in the center of that. And as they come to grab them, I just tell the parents hey, let me introduce yourself.
That's a way to get a little more out of something you've already paid for.
Chelsea:
Yes, and I love that. That is genius. I want to say please, please, please ask for permission before you do this. Don't just go because if you just go, you're going to be the creep who's watching a little league soccer game. You need permission to do this first, please.
Vivian:
Yeah, well, and also because it does require a little planning. It is my understanding that they rotate parents as far as who's providing the afterschool snack. And so you are helping to eliminate or to minimize that, right? So by you taking over one snack session, that keeps from another family member having to come out of pocket for it. But all of that has to be coordinated because these teams are very well -oiled machines, y 'all. And so asking that can be very helpful.
And we don't ever want you to be creepy. We want you to sell stuff. We don't want you to be creepy. We want you to promote your business just in a non-creepy way. Chelsea's like, don't be putting ideas in people's head, Vivian.
Chelsea:
So I want to go back and let's revisit all the questions you need to ask yourself while deciding whether you want to participate in a sponsorship or not. Again, we just talked about budget. Can I reasonably afford this? Do I want to do one big sponsorship or maybe use my budget to do a bunch of little ones throughout the year? Think about that.
Does the business, the event, does it have any relevance to what you are selling? Does it have relevance to your business? If it's an event hosted by a nonprofit, think about, do their ideals align with my small business? When you're doing sponsorships, don't just do random sponsorships because, you don't want to be supporting something that you didn't do the research on and you look back and you're like, that's actually not what I believe in. So be smart about picking your sponsorships.
Vivian:
Yeah, I would think I would add in there too that asking what costs are associated with that sponsorship. So for example, when we sponsor a tennis club in one of our markets, they provide with the sponsorship, they will actually go get the banner made. We provide them the logo, the information we want on it. They use their preferred vendor to get those made. So we're not coming out of pocket more. Some may not do that. So some of them may say, no, you provide the banner to us. So that means if you don't have a banner made, you're going to have to get one made, right? And you have to know the size and whether you want grommets and all that stuff. So just be sure that you're asking those questions up front and saying what's included in the sponsorship. And if you have questions, just be sure you clear them up before you commit to it.
I would say also another question that you need to know is the deadline. Because a lot of these sponsorships, if you're sponsoring teams or events, they have a hard launch date. Okay. And so you can't be, if you want to get in, if it's for a nonprofit, like Chelsea said with the American Lung Association, if you're sponsoring an event that they're putting on, well, they have to get programs made in advance which means getting it to the printer by a certain date Which means if you want your logo in there you have to sign off and get everything to them by that date So always just keep in mind that you don't want to put them behind schedule.
Chelsea:
Yeah, I love that.
So Vivian, we've been talking about how to get a sponsorship, how to be a sponsor, right? How would a small business or a nonprofit go about asking for sponsors?
Vivian:
Yeah, so that's a whole different ball game. For one, you would want to be very clear and organized about whether you're finding sponsorships for an event and or for a program.
Okay, and in there you want to be able to succinctly tell people who that program or event is geared towards. Then my recommendation would be that you put together a sponsorship packet or just a one pager that explains the different levels of sponsorship you have and then what's included in those sponsorships and just bullet point it underneath it.
Do you wanna be a gold sponsor for $1 ,000? Under that package, you get your name here, here, and here, and you get opportunity to talk here, and then you get your logo here, okay? Or do you wanna do a silver sponsorship at $500, and here are the opportunities that you have there. What does it come with? You also want a sponsorship form for somebody to fill out. So you want to have the business name, the contact information, what level they sign off on, you want them to sign it. Additionally, you want to be sure that you have a W9 available for your business or organization because a lot of accountants for businesses will ask for a W9 to have on file so that they know and can allocate where the funds went to for that sponsorship.
And then you also want to be sure that on your paperwork, you make it clear to who the check needs to be payable to. All right. It's a fairly easy. The hardest part is going to be putting together the material and thinking through the levels of sponsorship, if you have any of those.
I'll tell you, I just got one recently for a pickleball tournament that people are gonna be having, which is great for, let's say, a physical therapist who's looking for a active demographic of people who might be a little older, who also might get hurt every once in a while, you know what I mean? So that's, I think it worked really well. They just sent over a Word document.
Chelsea:
Yeah, there you go. Like go ahead and reach out to businesses that you think would benefit. Cause remember it's supposed to be a mutually beneficial sponsorship, partnership, right? So look for businesses who would look at what you're offering and say, hmm, that's a great idea. I should do that, you know?
So lastly, I want to talk about influencer sponsorships. You can absolutely do one as a small business. I just want to say, let's be reasonable about what we can afford. I'm not trying to call y 'all out, but if you're a small business, you're probably not going to get Kim Kardashian to sponsor and to do reels and TikToks about your makeup brands. Like, I'm sorry, it's just probably not what's going to happen. But that doesn't mean you can't do influencer marketing and influencer sponsorships. Finding a local micro influencer for your local community. Huge. Especially, I want to say for restaurants, this is a big thing, right? Because there's so many foodie influencers out there. Like here in Charleston, it's insane.
Vivian:
So the beauty of where we're at in social media is that it can be just as effective to get someone that only has like 2000 followers or 1000 followers to do that. If you guys want to throw free food our way, we'll gladly be. I'll be an influencer for you tacos all day long, but it can be just as effective and I think their price points are probably way more reasonable, especially if you're a small business. What I would say is if you're thinking about going that route and you're looking at a micro influencer, I don't know, don't start the conversation with throwing money at them first. What I would do is just say like, hey, this is my business. This is what I'm about. I'm looking to partner with people. Would you be willing to partner with us? There might be a small chance that because you may have a small following as well, that it's a way for me to get my name out there to an audience base that I don't have. And so they may be willing to just do a partnership together without an exchange of money.
Now, if they're serious about doing influencer marketing and that's just their thing, they may have price points already set. And so if they come back and say, hey, yeah, I could definitely do some type of partnership, but it's going to cost 200 bucks or 500 bucks. Whatever that is at least then the conversation has started, right?
Chelsea:
I also want to say you still need to ask yourself the same questions, like will this get me in front of my target audience? Does this pairing make sense? Can I afford this?
Pick the right influencer. OK, there are a lot of people out there who are trying to be influencers. If there's someone who only has like a thousand followers and they tell you, for me to promote your business, it's going to cost you like $2 ,000. Like that's not reasonable.
Vivian:
I mean, maybe if they have a very hyper -targeted audience base that you really want, that your business is very much geared for. I mean, what I'm thinking is maybe let's say you sell cycling helmets and this person is a cyclist influencer that their entire niche market is about cycling safety.
So something like that, right? It's how much are you willing to pay for it? $2 ,000 may be really steep for your business at this time. And so maybe you're like, I'm gonna have to work towards that. So I can't do that now.
If it is something that you almost feel certain like, I'm certain that if I get a shout out or a partnership with them on their page that I could probably make one sale. And if one sale in cycling world equates to, I don't know how much their helmets are, but maybe they're $2 ,500, well, then you have recouped your money at that point. I think, just know your numbers, do the math.
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