Sponsorship is the indispensable factor for any entity in the sports ecosystem. It is the stimulus that helps teams, leagues, athletes and events focus on achieving their objectives and growth. However, finding and retaining sponsors as well as proving value for them is a major challenge faced by everyone on the sell-side of the sports ecosystem.
Finding the right sponsor has always been a formidable task, which involved a considerable amount of investment in time and resources. Team representatives used many different tools which only gave a part of the solution — they then had to be combined to arrive at a single decision. Once they did find a sponsor, further optimizing their campaigns and proving the value the team generated for that sponsor involved even more investment in multiple tools and resources.
Based on feedback and collaboration with representatives at multiple teams, leagues, and events, Hookit has developed Spontelligence, a single platform for every step in the sponsorship process. From researching and pitching new sponsors to optimizing and reporting on value generated for existing sponsors as well as helping with sponsorship renewal, Spontelligence enables rights holders to truly prove their worth and impact to their sponsors.
What does Spontelligence do for you?
- Research: It is important for a team to not just discover sponsors, but to find sponsors who match in ideals and objectives. Only then can the two sides achieve common goals and reach their intended audiences with a message that resonates. Teams searching for potential sponsors can use Spontelligence to identify sponsor brands, which sports or teams are they currently sponsoring, the brand’s social media trends and their audience on social media.
- Pitch: Once the research is complete and potential sponsors are identified, teams can then reach out to potential sponsors. With the help of relevant data gathered using Spontelligence, teams can appeal to sponsors with what the team can offer — the team’s relevance to the sponsor’s target audiences and also demonstrate their impact in the league by benchmarking against other teams and highlight the metrics in which the team excels.
- Optimize: Once the organization has secured the sponsorship, it can optimize it’s social media strategy with Spontelligence, to provide the biggest impact for its sponsors. Teams can leverage the real time data available from Hookit to track how well their campaigns are performing and quickly adjust campaigns that aren’t generating value for their partners. Further, rights holders can gather relevant sponsor insights and find inspiration from other teams and leagues who have the best campaigns on social media all within the Hookit Showcase, a new tool that features the most engaging, value driving campaigns across sports.
- Report: Once the campaigns are underway, teams can report on the agreed upon sponsorship metrics and goals, proving the impact the team has for the sponsor. Teams can also provide regular updates to sponsors with top posts and reports to show the value generated by the team for a sponsor in real time.
- Renew: When it comes time to renew, data can be pulled from the full season / timeframe of the agreement to prove the full value the organization generated for the sponsor. With dollar values in hand, renewing the contract has never been easier for both sides because the results are documented and visual.
Make sponsorship smarter
Until now, teams, leagues and events had to spend considerable effort in finding sponsors and then trying to prove their worth during renewal. Reports were not available in real time and the data generated had to be mined for any useful insights. Now, Spontelligence by Hookit helps teams, leagues, and events through the entire sponsorship lifecycle, aiding in easy discovery of potential sponsors, optimization of campaigns, and generation of meaningful insights and reports through a single platform, saving a team’s precious resources and time which can be used elsewhere.
This is Part 1 of a 4 part series, which helps rights-holders navigate the different stages of their sponsorship cycle.