As a way to draw increased awareness and attention to some of the standup sponsorship opportunities on our site, we’ve set apart one blog per month to put the “Spotlight on Sponsorship”! If you have a premium level listing on SponsorPark, and would like to have your event featured, please contact Stephanie.Lochmiller@SponsorPark.com to submit your event, as we are currently looking to fill our 2012 Spotlight calendar. This month our spotlight shines on the “New York SPORTIMES, World TeamTennis PRO League.”

What is the New York SPORTIMES, World TeamTennis PRO League all about?

World TeamTennis (WTT) offers tennis like you’ve never seen it!  WTT is played in a co-ed team format, with post match autograph sessions for all kids, contests and promotions between sets, free racquets to kids under 12 and an on court DJ to boost interaction and fun.  Some of the stars who have made an appearance in the last season of WTT are John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Martina Hingis and Serena Williams.  SPORTIME Stadium, on Randall’s Island in New York features an intimate setting with each and every seat less than 200 feet away from the court.

What Makes this Opportunity Unique?

Every single partnership has the opportunity to be customized and the intimate and interactive setting that the stadium creates gives potential sponsors an amazing opportunity to fully engage their target audience.  With participants on the court and in the stands, stadium goers really feel like they are a part of the action. Potential partners can also integrate the 12 SPORTIME club locations, with more than 25,000 members, brining sponsors year-round exposure.  This event also features a sponsor pavilion that allows sponsors to engage with fans face to face. 
Surviving Sponsorship in a Heated Economy
According to event organizers they’ve really become creative with package customization and have found this to be a unique way to cater to their sponsors.  In addition, they’ve forged a relationship with SponsorPark in order to reach out to a new audience.  While they are a sports related opportunity, they’ve been able to expand their reach to potential entertainment sponsors easily and affordably.

Preferred Partners?

While there are numerous sponsor categories that could benefit from such a unique sponsorship opportunity, once unique partnership event organizers say they look to partner with are “timepieces.”  Time plays such an important role in this venue, from match times, to court times, to lesson times; therefore an on-court clock has become a staple all matches and event organizers see this as a great opportunity for the right sponsor!  To learn more about this opportunity or to contact event organizers visit their SponsorPark listing.

Selling sponsorship can be tough. Like the 1978 voiceover intro on ESPN’s predecessor, ABC’s Wide World of Sports, used to say about sports, selling involves both “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

 On particularly down days, it’s easy to feel powerless, as if you have very little control over the fates of your sales. But if you put yourself in the shoes of a buyer – through your imagination or the actual pathways of your career – you’ll quickly reconsider that notion.

 Early in my career in corporate sponsorship, mostly on the selling side, I had the opportunity to represent a major consumer product, a beverage and at the time, believe it or not, a new category – bottled water. (Yes, there was a time when we just drank the stuff right out of the tap, from a glass.)

 A company I worked with was engaged to secure outdoor event sponsorship opportunities for a major bottled water brand. To me it was a dream job. I couldn’t believe someone was going to pay me to sit at the other side of the table.

 I imagined that I’d easily identify a bunch of events that met the criteria we’d established with the brand, give ‘em a call, and hook things up.

 I was completely delusional!

 In reality it was one of the toughest, most frustrating projects I ever worked on. And one of the most educational.

 Why? At least half of my calls went unreturned. When I actually spoke with people on the phone, few:

• could clearly articulate the value of their sponsorship programs,
• could describe how the brand I represented might be involved, and
• got back to me with compelling ideas and proposals.

More than once I recall hanging up the phone from another of these conversations, wondering if I were in some parallel universe. I had cash, and I was ready to spend it. Why didn’t these events have an operation and staff ready to sell to me?

 And that’s where the learning came in. As the seller and the representative to the corporate sector of your event or festival, you have an important job. You are the guide, trusted advisor, confidante, and liaison to your corporate client. Your role, from the first time you meet through the years of your partnership and collaboration, is to assist your partner in achieving success in their sponsorship of your event.

 They don’t know how things work, who your audiences are, what all the opportunities are, what would be the best fit given their goals. They need your assistance.

 Sponsors don’t exist just to write checks to your organization. They have outcomes to achieve, benchmarks to hit, brand images to uphold, bosses and stakeholders to please, etc. Similarly you don’t have time to waste. You have opportunities to be sold and, let’s face it, thrilling victories to be celebrated.

 While you cannot control the sales situation 100 percent, here are five areas you can control.

1. Be professional. Be prepared for meetings and calls. Be responsive. Communicate proactively. Comport yourself professionally.
2. Have an operation to support sponsorship. The culture in your organization must revolve, to a certain degree, around serving corporate clients. Saying you want corporate partners and then snickering behind closed doors at how much money you’re going to get from them (aka “The Ask”) doesn’t exactly demonstrate exemplary partner behavior. Neither does the harangue of production staff for sponsor swag. Have enough staff, good policies and procedures, and an excellent strategy for all aspects of your operation, including the relationship you aim to have with sponsors.
3. Articulate the value of your sponsorship opportunity. It all starts here. If you don’t know the value of your sponsorship program, how can you expect your sponsor to know? If you wonder why corporations have constructed electronic fencing, in the form of online applications, it’s because countless sponsorship sellers cannot describe the value of their programs and fail to research.
4. Ask good questions. Be curious about your sponsor’s goals, interests, strategies, and product line. Invest the time at the beginning of your relationship to learn everything you can. Don’t stop asking questions throughout your relationship so you’re current.
5. Be trustworthy and deliver. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t lie about who comes to your event, what you know or don’t know about your audiences. Don’t cover up landmines. Sponsors will find out, and it will be uglier and more damaging to your credibility – as a professional and an organization. Do what you say you’re going to do – all the time. Have your clients’ best interests at heart. Don’t gossip. Maintain confidentiality about your sponsors’ business details.

May these 5 suggestions minimize agonizing defeats and increase your victories.

© 2011 Gail S. Bower All rights reserved.

Author of How to Jump-start Your Sponsorship Strategy in Tough Times,Gail Bower is President of Bower & Co. Consulting LLC, a firm helps that nonprofit organizations, destinations, and businesses dramatically improve their visibility, revenue, and impact. She’s a professional consultant, writer, and speaker, with nearly 25 years of experience managing some of the country’s most important events, festivals, and sponsorships and implementing marketing programs for clients She blogs about sponsorship at SponsorshipStrategist.com, and her web site is GailBower.com.

When discussing our brand’s quarterly results, my old boss used to always ask: what behavior did you promote that drove this result?  I was expected to be able to intelligently speak, not only to what kind of numbers we were seeing, where our successes and opportunities were, but what behavior drove such a result and how did I promote the behavior.  If any one of us managers were unable to speak to the behavior we were focusing on, she would then ask: “so, are you talented or are you lucky?”  This was one instance you never wanted to be “lucky.”  And rightly so, because luck tends to be rather inconsistent and undependable!

In the context of sponsorship partners, you HAVE to be a purposeful partner if you want to drive behaviors that get results.  A few questions I think are really important to ask are:

Is there agreement in the message you’re going to send as partners?  As a brand, what message do you want your audience to receive?  Are your creative efforts in alignment with the message your partner is willing for their audience to receive?  It can be easy to come up with a great message that casts you in a great light without considering whether or not it’s still an attractive message for your partner. And if it is attractive, is it in line with their other marketing efforts?  Both sides need to be able to leverage this strategy in a way that touches their organization as a whole, and if there are too many messages, they land on deaf ears.  It can be a little trickier to actually come up with a theme or message that complements both party’s interests – but it can be done – intentionally. 

I read a new paper posted on IEG’s website which you can download for free; and I highly recommend it. There’s a section where they are comparing a sponsorship buyer to a partnership investor, and they point out a couple of comparisons that caught my eye:

• A sponsorship buyer treats partner like vendors, whereas partnership investors establishes link to partners’ brand values.
• A sponsorship buyer separates sponsorships from other activity, whereas partnership investors integrate with core creative ideas.

The first of these pointers I love because it shows the importance of a smart partnership where messages match.  The mission of the two parties should be a seamless match, a complementary relationship, and coming together makes their messages explosive.  The second point excites me because it underscores the fact that sponsorship isn’t a little pet you mind from time to time; it should touch and integrate with all aspects of your business when effectively implemented.  These are two brilliant distinguishers that are clear examples of intentional partnerships.

What experiences are these audience members engaging for?  Are you tapping into the opportunity to really impact this experience and leave an impression that can’t be forgotten?  If something your audience appreciates is a casual, laid back experience with a taste of culture and sophistication, you’re not going to plaster your brand in an obnoxious way across the culture that they love; you just become annoying. Consider the issue that television advertisements are facing – now that DVR exists, people can bypass the commercials that are making them wait for the climax – they’re interruptions in the enjoyment an audience is experiencing in entertainment.  Sponsors should not be the equivalent frustration. 

Word to the wise – if a sponsor asks you about your target audience, and you can’t speak clearly about who they are, or what they want, don’t be surprised when they run the other way from your partnership request.  How are they going promote a behavior when they don’t even know who they’re marketing to? 

I know there are about a million other ways you can be an intentional partner – feel free to offer your insights to our readers!