Motorsport Sponsorship Strategy

Collecting Data and Presenting Yourself for Motorsport Sponsorship Strategy Success

Those of you that read our last Motorsport Sponsorship posts, looking at sponsorship activation, will know about the uphill battle driver’s face these days when it comes to moving up through racing series and securing their future with sponsorship deals. A detailed, well planned motorsport sponsorship strategy is essential for success off the track. The key to a successful Motorsport sponsorship proposal is preparation, presentation and strategy. Take a hypothetical scenario, you are winning races in your first season of Formula Ford, before that you won every karting championship you entered and now you are looking to step up into the European F3 championship. The only issue is the cost hike from £150,000 a year to £600,000 a year. The only way you are going to secure those funds is through sponsorship. There are 5 key points to the motorsport sponsorship strategy required to secure sponsorship.

Define:

Outline the goals you plan to achieve throughout the season, past achievements and figures. If a sponsor can see that their company will reach thousands or even millions of people, and you are doing well in the sport, they are more likely to pay attention and show interest. You need a clear goal, if you are not sure on what you want to achieve then people won’t have the same level of confidence in your ability as they would if you prepare beforehand.

Collate:

Nothing sells sponsorship better than cold, hard facts and figures. You need to show a racing sponsor the kind of audience they are going to reach if they do back you and how this is going to be of benefit to them. If you can show where your fan base is located, the age group and your most popular topics of conversation you can target the right sponsors and you can market yourself and their brand much more effectively. Online traffic figures are half of the pull as they will have a larger audience to reach out too, but the key part of online interaction is effectively targeting your demographic. Randomly stating you will promote your sponsor on your website and on social media will not add value to your pitch. What are the traffic figures for your site? How do you engage on social media and what stats do you have to prove it? It is unlikely a sponsor will get involved purely on these figures alone, but they will certainly help. For more information on our new app 3Dom SponsorDash and how it can help you, why not give our Sponsorship App a go If you understand this side of things you can interact in a way that brings increased exposure and appeals much more to that group of people. Once you know your media value you can price it correctly for sponsors and dedicate time to just boosting their brand so there is clearly a positive ROI.

Present Motorsport Sponsorship Strategy:

Even if you do the first two points really well it needs to be presented in a professional format that is clear and points directly to what is required and the final outcome. A lot of drivers these days don’t do this correctly and put together very poor presentations. We have developed tools to now help drivers and teams with this, 3D Sponsorship App You have to remember that the layout and quality of your presentation reflects on you as a person. If it is very bland and boring the sponsor will have doubts as to how engaging you are and if they will see any ROI. If it is professionally put together, featuring exciting content and features like 3D models and video examples, you will immediately get their attention. For 3D visuals, you can use our new 3D App, take a look

Activate:

The key to seeing a ROI is correctly and effectively activating Motorsport sponsorship. The best way to do this is to create exciting and unique content that will engage the public and create quite a buzz around your profile. We have used him before as a great example, but Ken Block sponsorship activation is second to none. His gymkhana video series on YouTube incorporate DC shoes and Monster Energy brilliantly, all of his apparel, the car livery and even the title slides use those sponsors so they get a lot of exposure. It is one of Motorsport sponsorship’s most effective campaigns. Interaction with the public and with the sponsors themselves is vital, you need to strengthen the association between yourself and the sponsors products so you become key to their marketing campaign. If you mention them in tweets, on Facebook pages and websites, post vlogs, blogs and photos, feature them on your car and race suit and attend sponsor events. The value of their investment is worth much more and you become a much more attractive choice as there is a clear financial benefit for them.

Evaluate:

Once you have presented a clear aim for the season along with the results and figures a sponsor can expect, it is then key you keep monitoring this throughout your time as partners. Our SponsorDash allows you to monitor all of your social media & digital marketing feeds and also allows a sponsor to see the value of their investment as you progress. It will also allow you, providing you are doing things correctly, to keep promoting yourself and your sponsors, to give a strong case as to why a sponsor should stay with you or why new sponsors should invest in you. Be sure to take a look at our other blog posts about Motorsport Sponsorship strategy Activation, like our one on Gustavo Menezes