The Ultimate Race Sponsorship Guide
Taking charge of your race sponsorship program isn’t easy. But selecting, pitching and retaining race sponsors is a vital to maintaining and growing your race.
With so many races for sponsors to choose from, how can you make your event stand out? How can you pitch a sponsorship package that wows new sponsors, and follow-up with existing sponsors after the race to prove impact?
Download the ultimate race sponsorship guide to learn how to:
- Find potential sponsors and craft a great pitch
- Align your participant demographics with sponsors’ target audiences
- Follow up with a post-race report that keeps sponsors coming back each year
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It takes creativity and time to come up with a unique and valuable sponsorship opportunity for potential partners. But it’s well worth the energy upfront, because once their sponsorship is over, they’re much more likely to sign on for future events when you can show them the value they received.
1. Know your audience.
Before approaching sponsors for your event, be sure that you understand the people your event is likely to draw in. This information is critical to present to potential sponsors that will evaluate whether or not your event can help them reach their own target audience and unique marketing goals. The more you know about your participants the better.
Specifically, you’ll want to know:
• Age, gender, and family status
• Education level and employment
• Average household income and spending habits
• Lifestyle and behavior
• Product and brand preferences
Think beyond your participants. Consider the number of other people your event will draw, such as spectators, vendors, and volunteers. You’ll want to have this information available for sponsors who may be interested in gaining broader exposure to the local community, or looking to introduce their product or services to vendors and businesses involved with your event.
Gather basic info on your participants. You can start collecting information about your participants during the registration process. Online registration services like Eventbrite give you the flexibility to select from a standard set of questions or create your own to include in the registration form. Keep in mind that adding too many questions during the registration process can create a cumbersome experience for your registrants, so you should limit questions to important topics that will help you provide a better event experience.
Go deeper with surveys. One of the best ways to gather detailed information about your participants is through a survey. Free online survey tools, such as SurveyMonkey, let you create and send surveys to your participants after your event. With Eventbrite’s SurveyMonkey integration, event organizers simply need to create survey questions, easily pull in event participants from their Eventbrite account, hit send, and wait for responses to pour in.
Listen in via social channels. Social platforms like Facebook and Twitter offer social analytics and tools to see the demographics, locations, and interests of your followers. You can also read on social forums and get a deeper understanding about who your fans are, and what they care about.
2. Evaluate all of your event’s assets to help tailor your opportunities and meet sponsor goals.
Fewer sponsors these days are looking for simple logo placement on your podium or t-shirt. From your participant’s email addresses to your event’s PR and brand value, knowing which assets matter to your sponsors and understanding their market value is key in creating and pricing your various sponsorship opportunities.
For many companies, there’s no substitute for live events that provide them with the opportunity to have participants and spectators experience their product directly. At endurance events, many sports beverage, clothing, and equipment sponsors look to have participants try out their products before, during, or after the event to gain greater brand awareness, and even make a sale.
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