#115 Using the 4 fundamentals for successful sponsorship activations

There are many factors that Sports organizations should bear in mind and consider when approaching potential sponsors. Acquiring sponsors is not just about negotiating sponsorship agreements of higher value but also about activation and promotion, understanding your audience and reach, and being able to measure and evaluate the success of the partnership, amongst many other factors. In today’s episode, we will discuss how the four fundamentals can help sports organizations achieve all of these key factors when it comes to their sponsorship agreements. Moreover, we will have a look at three success cases of organisations that successfully used the four fundamentals to achieve success in their sponsorship agreements. 

Before we go into how the four fundamentals work, let’s quickly refresh our memory on what the four fundamentals are. The four fundamentals are a groundbreaking process innovation and transformative approach that empowers sports organizations of all sizes, across seasons and regions, to harness the power of their data. By seamlessly integrating all supporter data into one place, the result is not just increased sustained revenue streams, but a genuine commitment to placing fans and supporters at the heart and centre of every initiative. These four fundamentals are: 

Grow your contact database, continuously

Collect supporter data with contact information and merge it with your other data

Find out which supporter segments you should target with your campaigns

Send relevant offers to those segments in a way that your supporters will appreciate

The 4 fundamentals help sports organisations:

1. Understand their audience’s behavior
2. Know which supporters are most likely to engage with their sponsors’ activations based on their previous purchase, viewership, consumption, and overall engagement behaviour
3. Target the right supporters with the right activations that are relevant to them and match their spending levels. E.g. Sending a champagne activation from your official drinks sponsors to your high-spenders/VIP and family car activations to your supporters who usually buy family tickets. 
4. Evaluate the performance of sponsorship activations and respond appropriately such as triggered actions depending on the actions that the supporters take.

Let’s look at some of these use cases using real-life examples of sports organisations that used the 4 fundamentals to take their sponsorship agreements to the next level.

One club wanted to Introduce an Advent Calendar to engage with supporters and connect them with sponsor offers during the Christmas holidays. They created Advent calendar with one main sponsor impersonating Santa. They had 24 sponsors for the calendar (one for each day). Their total reach was over 500k people on digital platforms while achieving great sponsorship revenue and better relationships with sponsors. This activation also resulted in Continuous database growth and engagement from supporters on a daily basis and the club continued Presenting relevant audiences to the daily sponsors afterward (connecting B2B and B2C).

Another club wanted to connect supporters to their sponsor so they created segments to target their most loyal and active supporters. They Sent emails with a message that connects supporters to the club sponsor. This resulted in an Open rate of 55.94%, click-to-open rate of 20.18% (and CTR of 11.29%) with More than 2300 supporters getting in touch with sponsors.

Another club managed to successfully build a loyal community using triggered actions while also increasing engagement with sponsors.  used Triggered Actions, a feature in the Data Talks´ sports platform, allows sports organisations to send automated emails and SMS messages to their supporters based on the supporters’ actions and behaviour. The club started a membership sales campaign. Whenever someone became a member, they received a series of emails in the following days and weeks. First, they would receive a welcome message that thanked them for joining and provided them with basic material and information for members. Thereafter, the members would receive something special—an exclusive discount code to purchase the team’s jersey at a reduced price. In the third communication, the supporters received a message that involved the sponsors, highlighting the perks and discounts that the members could get from the club’s partners and affiliates, such as vouchers and coupons. This personalised approach strengthened the club´s connection and communication with the fans but also increased commercial returns through merchandise sales and enhanced sponsorship engagement. 

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