Being an active member in your community can help small businesses build stronger connections with their target audience, and community sponsorships are a great way to build that connection.
This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing community sponsorships, and how they can help small businesses enhance visibility, build community relationships, and improve brand reputation. We also talk about how sponsorships can be tailored to fit various budgets, making them accessible for all businesses.
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to our Marketing Cult! Please Leave Us a Review
02:50 Understanding Sponsorships
05:34 The Importance of Communication in Sponsorships
09:01 Community Engagement through Sponsorships
10:10 Budget Friendly Sponsorships
15:34 Volunteering as a Form of Sponsorship
22:02 Reputation and Brand Image
31:42 TLDL; Summary of Community Sponsorships
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Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Vivian: Welcome back to another episode of the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business), y'all know we would not call you names. I don't know if you heard me finger snapping there, Marketing podcast.
I'm here with my beautiful little baby sister, Chelsea. She ain't such a baby, y'all. I know I introduce her like that, but she's actually in her 20 somethings, okay?
Chelsea: I'm in my 20 somethings, yes.
Vivian: Yeah, that is correct. Really quickly, before we hop into our exciting topic that we're just chomping at the bit to talk about today. Friendly reminder to subscribe if you haven't already. You guys, have over 120 podcast episodes for you to binge and watch right now. So go do that if you're new around here. The other part too is I just want to remind you guys we added something really cool on our sobmarketing.com website, which is you can send us a voice note. We want to hear your voices. Please, if you have a marketing question, a statement, you just want to say hello to us, go ahead and go to the contact us section on that website, sobmarketing.com and you can record straight from your phone, straight from your laptop, wherever you're logging in. So we'd love to hear from you guys.
Chelsea: Friendly reminder, guys, we do a TLDL section for every episode.
Vivian: Too long didn't listen!
Chelsea: Yes. Too long didn't listen. So if you are strapped for time and you just want a quick synopsis of what we talked about today, I got you. Go over to the TLDL chapter and I will give you that quick summary of what we talked about, but make sure you come back and listen to the full conversation later on.
Okay Vivian, today we are talking about sponsorships.
Vivian: Yes. I feel like they are super underrated. Can I just start by saying that?
Chelsea: Absolutely. One: they're super underrated and two, I feel like this is a timely conversation because I personally feel like sponsorships become a really big deal during like August and September. Hmm. I wonder why.
Vivian: Yeah. Back to school maybe? Sports starting back up.
Chelsea: All of the programs are trying to get sponsors and look man, if that's your target audience, sponsorships are definitely slept on.
Chelsea: If you're listening to this and you're like, man, I missed the deadlines for like academic sports sponsorships, like getting my logo on a band or whatever that looks like. Don't fret, because you guys, the holiday season's right around the corner. If you don't know, lots of nonprofits and lots of organizations put on a ton of events and they have sponsorships available for these events. So this conversation is going to be applicable to you no matter where we are in the season. Just good information for you to keep in your back pocket.
Chelsea: Absolutely. That's very true. There are a lot of sponsorships out there and they're definitely offered year round. I just feel like it's more noticeable. All the parents are out like, hey, you want to sponsor my child's little league...
Vivian: Yes, for sure.
Chelsea: What is that, baseball? I don't know.
Vivian: Chelsea does not know anything about the sports except for Gamecock football. Go cocks.
Chelsea: That's true. This is the only football I'm going to be watching. Okay, Vivian, I want to start this conversation by reading the definition of a sponsorship. I feel like we're all on the same page, but let's just define it, right? So according to Google, it is "a mutually beneficial agreement where one party, the sponsor, provides monetary support or another agreed upon form of support to the sponsored in exchange for promotional benefits".
Vivian: Can we address this upfront because I'm going to say something that is, I don't know, maybe going to rock the boat a little bit.
Chelsea: Oh, she's being spicy today. Okay, let's hear it.
Vivian: If you are a small business owner, your intent in using or signing up for a sponsorship is to get promotional benefit as the definition states. You receiving that promotional benefit is only as good as you staying on top of it and ensuring that you receive it. Do not make the mistake of assuming that the organization is going to contact you, tell you exactly how you're going to go about receiving this. I say this because I have a lot of experience in this area where we will promote all kinds of events or sponsorships, teams, and they're all run by very different people who have very different personalities. Some of them are more organized than others. So sometimes where you think, this is just the status quo, usually they'll reach out to me, ask me for my logo to put on the banner. Well, just ask them upfront. Cover your bases when you are signing up for this stuff to ensure that you are receiving the benefits that this sponsorship gives you.
Chelsea: Yeah, Vivian, can I take it one step further and say, if you're going to do a sponsorship, I suggest that you inform everyone that's involved in your small business, right? So all of your employees, your staff, let them know that you're doing the sponsorship because sponsorships are fun.
Vivian: They are. It definitely gets people excited and especially if as an employer, as a small business owner, you are sponsoring one of your team members child's sports programs or something in the community that people are extremely proud of. Part of the reason also, I would say as a small business owner, it'd be a good idea to do this is: if you just let your team know, by the way, this year we're going to sponsor so and so little league. If you guys are at the ballpark one day, be sure that you take a picture, a selfie with your family in front of our banner that has our logo on it. Then you have stuff that you can throw up on social media just to remind people, hey, we support the community. So it's little things like this where you can actually get involvement from your team that's going to make that sponsorship go a long way.
Chelsea: Exactly. That's something Vivian, that I want to focus on in this conversation, is community and how it's going to help you embed yourself in your community story. Y'all, people like supporting their local communities. People like being a part of something and knowing that you as a small business are a part of it, people are more willing to spend some cash with you.
Vivian: Yeah, I think it shows them your intention and your heart as a small business. I think that it's funny to say that the small business would have a heart, but it's true. If you're trying to show people, I often think of businesses as relationships, the same way I do relationships. If you and I have a, you know we have a sisterly bond, we have a relationship. Our bond is only going to be-
Chelsea: I'm so sorry. Could you imagine if we like hated each other? I mean, for one, we wouldn't work together.
Vivian: That would be very uncomfortable, I think. But that's whole thing is, our sisterly bond, our relationship is only as good as it grows over the years. It's only as good as I show up for you over the years. You show up for me over the years. It's less about just saying, hey, I really like you as my sister. I love you. Well, great. But if your actions don't align with that, that's not going to prove that or show me that. Same thing with your small business. If you guys are saying, Hey, we're a small business that loves our community and we're involved. Okay. Well then how are you showing your patrons or potential customers how you're involved in the community? Is it through sponsorships. This is a great way to solidify that. Is it through you guys hosting things or participation and stuff? These are the practical ways you're going to show people that you're committed.
Chelsea: Yes, I love that. I have two things. First thing, this is really hard to fake. Okay, you can't fake a relationship. I mean, you can try to fake a relationship. I don't think it'll go very well. I want to go back to you saying small businesses have heart. I think it's much easier for small businesses to demonstrate the relationships that they take seriously. So this is perfect for you guys. This is where you're going to stand out against a big brand because you can tell when they fake it.
Vivian: Well, and sometimes I love that you brought this up though. For one, I do want to just remind you guys - If you have a small budget, sponsorships align with that. I don't want you to think that because you don't have $500 to spend on getting your logo on a banner or something that you can't participate. Many of these sponsorships, whether it be for an event or whether it be for a team or something that's going on, they have different levels. Those levels start, you know, at different monetary places, or I guess points. It could be something as simple as like...
Chelsea: Tiers. Sorry.
Vivian: Thank you. I was like, what is the word I'm looking for? It could be something as low as $100. Right. It could go all the way up to like $2, $5. Some of them start at $250. But it's for a season or a particular time. The key, what you are looking for as a small business owner is one, it taps into your target audience, your potential customers, the people that are going to patronize your small business and also the budget and the benefits that come with those tiers. Yes. All right. Because that's the one thing I'll tell you when I'm debating, if we're looking to tap into this particular market, how much or at what level should we sponsor this particular event in this region?
Okay, well, what do I get with the $500 sponsorship and what do I get with the $1 and is it worth that extra $500 we're paying? Is the exposure we're getting that much more that it's worth the extra $500 at the $1 level?
Chelsea: Can I say something controversial, Vivian?
Vivian: Well, you're going to say it anyways, even if I say no.
Chelsea: That's true. I think sponsorships are one of the very few places where, do I think you should absolutely focus on your target audience? Yes. If you are passionate about something, about a specific charity or specific...
Vivian: Cause.
Chelsea: I was looking for the word cause. Yes. If you're passionate about that and it aligns with your business's key values, core values, it's okay if you want to do that sponsorship. I mean, obviously, it's okay. You are the small business owner. You do whatever you think is best. But I want to make sure that you know, aligning with your values when it comes to marketing can be as important as reaching your target audience. Now, you have to be comfortable knowing that you might not reap what you've spent. You might not get that return on investment because you're not focusing on your target audience. But if it's something you're passionate about, go for it.
Vivian: Absolutely. Well, there are so many different ways that you can leverage these sponsorships. Chelsea, I know you had wanted to bring up the fact that it's a great way to be able to do a little bit of storytelling. How does that fit in?
Chelsea: Yes, for one, let's go back to embedding yourself into your community's history. There's, for example...now I'm going to sound like I don't know my community because I was going to say, oh, it's like the 150th year of, I don't actually know. I don't think that's true. Don't quote me on anything. Let me rephrase all of this. If there's an event celebrating the 100th, 150th year celebration of something in your community and you get to sponsor that. That's something that's ingrained in history. That's huge.
Vivian: Yeah, I think about how here what was kind of interesting for Summerville, the community that we live in in particular, is we we wanted to be put on the map for something and somebody figured out that we were actually one of the first people to what, brew tea?
Chelsea: We are coined the first, the birthplace of sweet tea. Vivian, can I ask you a question? Do you think that's true?
Vivian: I mean, listen, I don't think you have people all over the United States and can specifically say that we are the very first to do it. But, one of the rules, it's not a rule. One of the things that people tell you in marketing is, if you could be the first to do anything...
Chelsea: If you can be the birthplace.
Vivian: Yes, you get to stake your claim on that and it's a brilliant marketing strategy. Okay. So Summerville leaned fully into it and we became the birthplace of sweet tea. Okay. Then there was this whole thing where for a matter of years and even still to this day, we do an event that's centered around sweet tea, like a celebration.
Chelsea: It's the sweet tea festival. That's what it's called. It's actually coming up. It's in September.
Vivian: There you go. I remember we had the first one because I volunteered to actually be there. So that's another thing that we can bring up is, sometimes the sponsorship isn't necessarily a matter of money, but it can be a matter of contribution.
You'll find this a lot with the Chamber of Commerce. If you are a Chamber of Commerce member, one of the things you can do is you could say, hey, I'm interested in supporting a Business After Hours. Do you guys charge anything for us to do that? The answer may be yes. A further investigation, or I guess thing you can bring up, investigation, listen to me.
A further conversation you can have with them is let's say you're short on cash funds, but you say, I have a great location. I won't be able to contribute at the $500 level. Would you guys be willing to in lieu of those $500, I can host the event, right? So you have a place to have the get together. These are negotiating points. Sometimes a sponsorship can come about if you say, I have team members that can work that event. Would you be willing to put me down at the $250 sponsorship level if we contribute staff? There are tons of ways you could get creative about these sponsorships.
The key is communication. Yes. Be very clear and upfront about what you're going to be exchanging because you never want an organization to think they're going to be receiving a monetary fund if that's not where you're going with this. Okay. So I just want to say that is your responsibility to be clear in your communication.
Chelsea: Love that. I know we're talking about sponsorships and we're going to continue to talk about sponsorships, but I just want to, since we're talking about...
Vivian: It sounds like she's doing a little detour, you guys. Pitstop.
Chelsea: I am doing a little, we're taking a pit stop because I do want to say, okay, let's say you are very, very strapped for cash, can't do any level of sponsorship, you don't have a location to do that with, you could just volunteer. Now here's the thing, you're not going to get the benefits of a sponsorship, like they're not going to put your business name on a board or anything like that, but you could get branded t-shirts and get all of your employees, all of your staff to come out there with you. So it's still a great way to one, support your community. You're out there doing volunteer work. Two, you're still getting that brand awareness and increased visibility because you're showing up saying, this is my business. This is who we are, what we believe in, and we do volunteer work.
Vivian: I'll give you a perfect example of that. Going back to the Sweet Tea Festival, the very first one that we had here in Summerville, the organization that I was working with...
Chelsea: Can I ask you a question? Was that when they broke the world record?
Vivian: Yes. Because that was, I have a picture, I was a volunteer serving out the tea. They did a...
Chelsea: They served the tea from that?
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: God. A little background. They also, for the Sweet Tea Festival, the first one, they also broke the world record of the most gallons of tea...
Vivian: Handed out.
Chelsea: Was it handed out? I thought it was brewed.
Vivian: It might've been brewed, but we handed it out. So we had commemorative glasses and what our organization did is, we had a ton of offices in the Summerville community. This was a big deal and they made a big to do about it. So we wanted to be involved instead of us paying for involvement, what we did is we got a group of volunteers together and our role was literally to be at the sweet tea station, filling up these glasses, handing it out to people. When I tell you guys, was manic, it was insane. Okay, I have a picture of me with two things trying to give people sweet tea.
Chelsea: I think for the promo of this episode, we should share these pictures.
Vivian: It was very, very busy. To your point, even though we didn't have a monetary sponsorship, we got a group of employees together and we were the ones manning that sweet tea booth, tent. Another way to do this, if it's not with the branded T-shirt, you could also... cause we did have T-shirts. I just can't remember if they gave them to us or if we came up with our own. The other thing is you could just have a sign that has your company logo that just says this booth sponsored by or something like that because your team's working it. There are a ton of ways you could get creative.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Can I just say really quick Vivian? I'm not going to lie this entire time I thought there was still tea in that thing.
Vivian: In the thing? No.
Chelsea: I thought they just left it there. I didn't think about it.
Vivian: Why would they leave it in there?
Chelsea: I don't know why.
Vivian: You'd get rats and flies in there.
Chelsea: Why would you, if you see this thing, I'm not drinking tea out of it.
Vivian: Well, what she's talking about is they have this huge like mason jar-looking thing that has tea in it.
Chelsea: Well, it doesn't have tea in it, what you're saying.
Vivian: Yes, no, it does not.
Chelsea: Yeah. My bad.
Vivian: It's a prop.
Chelsea: Vivian's being really judgy right now we're going to move on. okay I don't understand where...
Vivian: I mean this was years ago you guys. How could they leave sweet tea in there for years and years and years.
Chelsea: Well, I obviously didn't think it through.
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Chelsea: Can we also talk Vivian, about how sponsorships are going to help with your reputation and your brand image? Because going back to what we talked about earlier, this is not something you can fake, right? So if you're showing up with, however you want to support your community, whether that's a monetary value or whether you're volunteering, et cetera, you are showing up doing the work. You know what I saw the other day on social media and I thought this was very important. I wanted to share it. Yes, the phrase is it takes a village, but you have to be a part of that village. Right. So you only get what you give.
If you want your village to help you in your time of need, you need to show up for other people. I think that is also something that we should consider as small business owners.
Vivian: As human beings too.
Chelsea: As human beings too, yes.
Vivian: Well, it's definitely a two way street. I'll tell you, I've made it a personal thing that I kind of navigate through where, I do things out of the kindness of my heart just because I want to do it and not because I expect something in return because I feel like that also is a slippery slope when you're like, let me go ahead and support my community. Then my expectations when I'm in need, they support me. I probably wouldn't do that. But I agree with you where it's like...
Chelsea: You can't expect someone to give you something when you are not being helpful in any way though.
Vivian: Right. Yeah. I think it's just good standard practice. The angle I would take is if you do this, just like any of the other marketing initiatives that we recommend, doing this strategically can get you really, really far in promoting your small business with a limited budget. So you're not going to have to dish out a ton of money. What I mean by that is let's say that you're a pizza place. You are targeting families because obviously you want parents to bring in their kids and their friends and you know enjoy the pizza. That's your target audience. It would make sense that you align yourself with organizations that help children.
If you want to support a gala event that's going on for a children's advocacy group or something like that, that makes sense. Then when you're sharing that stuff, whether through a press release, whether on your social media, over time people start to affiliate, like you said, your brand image and reputation then starts to get linked to good will done towards children, right? Obviously you're caring for them. You are invested in making sure that the children in your community are taken care of through whatever mechanism. I know here we have a low country orphanage relief. They're always taking donations, right? Partnering with an organization like that, sponsoring some of their stuff. Or even sponsoring, I know we've talked about sponsorships from the perspective of it's exchanging for promotional benefit, but think of it this way too. You could also sponsor a drive, a food drive. You can sponsor a clothing drive. These are things that you don't have to dish money out for, but you're helping and aligning yourself with another organization. The exchange is still going to be promotional benefit because they're going to want to make sure that drive for clothing is going to be as successful as anyone else would want it to be. So they're going to be promoting you and telling people, hey, go to this business, drop this stuff off, while you're there eat a piece of pizza, whatever, right?
Chelsea: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of, what is it? The Book It Club, Pizza Hut? Is that what it's called?
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: It wasn't a thing when I was growing up. I missed that mark.
Vivian: You guys tell us in the comments because that will give us a good indication of the age range of people listening to this podcast. If you remember the Book It Club, leave us like, you know, little thumbs up or something in the comments. But for those of you that aren't aware, I think maybe what you're in bringing it up, what you're tying it to is the fact that Pizza Hut had this whole promotion for children to encourage children to read. What they would do is give you this big old pin that you could put stars on. Every time that you read a book, you would get a star on your pin. Once the pin was filled, you could go to Pizza Hut and get your own personal pan pizza as a kid.
Chelsea: I have a better example, okay, because that one's not necessarily that was Pizza Hut doing it on its own.
Vivian: Well, it was, but what I'm saying is I don't know and I'd be curious. I'm going to go look it up after this episode. I'd be curious to know if they actually aligned with an organization that was a reading advocacy organization, because that would make sense to me.
Chelsea: It would. The better example that's along the same lines. When I was growing up, we didn't have Pizza Hut, but we had Chick-fil-A, but it was through the school. Okay. So the school would track how many books you read, and then when you got to a certain amount, you got a free Chick-fil-A sandwich. I'm going to have to ask Mom. I think that's true. I don't actually remember. I remember this, but I'm like, well, am I remembering this wrong?
Vivian: Maybe it was just something mom did for you.
Chelsea: No, because I remember you would get a little laminated card that you would take to Chick-fil-A.
Vivian: Well, and so that's case in point. That's another way for an organization to creatively get involved and sponsor something. Right. Teaming up with the local school districts. Now, granted, I don't know how much money over time they spent because giving away little chicky sandwiches to kids that, you know, probably were not reading their books. I'm joking. Kids that were lying, saying they read books. But obviously that's a cost they incur, right? Main point though, I think the main takeaway that we want you guys to just understand is sponsorships are a really good investment, if you go about it strategically and if you sit down and think about how you can better align your brand with what you want your potential customers to know about your business. I know somebody here, you hate that I bring up insurance agency every...
Chelsea: I was waiting for Vivian to bring up, I thought you were going to bring up insurance when you were talking about pizza, but you didn't and I was like, whew. We made it through the episode. No go ahead, talk about insurance.
Vivian: There's someone here locally that does and has done a very spectacular job of this now. Granted, his business has grown and the more he grows, the more sponsorships he does of local organizations and teams and all of that. I think it's just really good because now his name has become synonymous with somebody who is heavily involved in the community. Probably to his detriment sometimes because I think he gets selected to handle things. He's probably like, I don't got any more time to do this, but it's great because it does create that visibility. I think maybe we are so obsessed with the social media aspect of marketing right now as small business owners because we're like, it's free. It's something I could do quickly. Log into my phone, post something, promote my business, my product. Yes. Lovely. We love social media. However, do not forget about some of these old school ways that you can go out there and promote your business. I mean, you're going to get a rush whenever you see those little baseball boys, you know, little kids out there running and...
Chelsea: Please a word this better. You're going to love it when you see your logo on t-shirts.
Vivian: But it's better than what I was actually going to say. I was going to say these baseball booties.
Chelsea: I need you to think about your words.
Vivian: What I mean is, like Chelsea said you're going to love seeing your logo on the back of these baseball jerseys. As a small business owner, you go in and you're like, let me leverage this even more. Let me be sure that I'm sharing with people that I am involved and I am sponsoring this stuff.
Chelsea: This was a good conversation. It went off the rails a little bit at times, but no, it was the both of us. So it's fun.
Okay, y'all, so it is time for the TLDL section. Too long didn't listen. So I'm going to give you a quick summary of what we talked about today. Sponsorships. Sponsorships are great for small business owners. It helps you build a great story. So great for storytelling, increased visibility and awareness. It helps you with your reputation and brand image. It's also great for customer loyalty. Sponsorships come in a range and variety so you can find one within your budget. Okay, because they can go anywhere from $100 to off the charts. Some key notes. Keep your target audience in mind if you are trying to get return on investment from your sponsorship, but you can also just focus on your core values and sponsoring things that you believe in, organizations you believe in.
So friendly reminder, everyone, we are building a marketing cult here. So if you are not following or subscribed, make sure you do that. Also, pretty please leave us a five star review. It helps us get in front of other small business owners. We're just trying to share as much marketing information and tips and tools and everything to as many small business owners as possible. Also, reminder, once again, if you have a topic or want to tell us something, whatever it may be, go to the website.
Vivian: If you want, curse us out.
Chelsea: I mean, you can, I'll play it. I don't care. I'll call you out too. This person decided to curse at us. Here's the audio. But we can now take audio messages on the website. So www.sobmarketing.com.
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