Helping brands to partner with athletes in their influencer marketing and sponsorship marketing campaigns

4 reasons why Athletes are a good strategy when launching a new website

1. Putting an athlete image on the website above the fold / in the hero image can reduce bounce rates

Starting a new website/ brand can often be hard to do. Currently, there are so many fake or uncredited websites. When creating a new website, adding reasons and things to the page can help it feel like a real page. Athletes are great ways to add credibility to your website. Placing an image of the athletes above the fold/ in the hero image can help reduce bounce rates, especially working with an athlete to do a quick video endorsing the launch of your new site. Athletes are often most credible as they can be easily looked up or are often already heard of. The sports world is massive and there are so many great athletes out there that cannot wait to be a part of a brand or company that represents who they are as athletes and also personally. 

2. Athletes can help to promote the new website through social and push traffic to you

Social media is a main component of our generation today. It is almost essential for companies and brands to have social media accounts in order to be successful. Using a professional athlete to promote your website can be game changing. They can reach many different target audiences and also in large amounts. Professional athletes can post on their social media promoting the product, service, or website. Again, it gives a massive weight of credibility!

3. Athletes bring credibility - having an athlete testimonial page can help to drive conversion

Testimonials are very important on any website. This is a moment for future customers to be able to witness and see how a product or service has been successful and how it can be beneficial in their lives. For customers, to see a professional athlete give their account for how a product or service benefited them can ultimately lead to new sales and customers. Once someone hears that a credible person used the product or service, they are often more prone to purchase it. Fun fact: Sports fans are 164% more likely to buy a product after an athlete they love mentions it.

4. Athletes are relevant to a wide audience - male, female, young, and old.

Through OpenSponsorship, you can easily choose from our roster of athletes to appeal to your brand's target audience. As mentioned above, an athlete's following can be large and can reach many different target audiences. Depending on your brand you can find a specific athlete that can help promote and endorse your brand based on their audience. Athletes are also more reliable because their following is often verified and all considered to be “real” follows. For example, if you are interested in a demographic of young adults between the ages of 18-26, then you are able to see that through our statistics of their following on our page.

OpenSponsorship is the largest digital marketplace making it easy for brands to partner with athletes. As you go onto our platform, you will be able to filter through 12,000+ athletes across 160 sports (including over 50% of the NFL and NBA) to help you select a specific athlete to help your brand or company excel. We support clients like Walmart, Sperry, FanDuel, and ESPN. We recently closed a $4.5M growth round, and are backed by NBA team owners, athletes, notable VCs, and world class accelerators.

Social media has become an integral part of a professional athlete's career and female athletes seem to possess some of the larger followings, giving them strong influence. Not only can this help the individual athlete but it can be a powerful tool in highlighting women's sport, bringing more interest and additional coverage.  Female athletes can also evoke change in other ways by being an influencer, such as by using their own personal stories to inspire others. “The stakeholders on the commercial side of sports are constantly searching for the next frontier, the next growth play,” Dan Cohen, who leads sports marketing company Octagon’s media rights consulting division, said in an email. “It is clearly women’s sports.”

It has been reported that women's sport does not receive as much coverage and investment even though it has more room for growth than men's sport. In 2018 studies showed that only 0.4% of the total commercial investment (in sport) goes into women’s sport, despite a Nielsen report revealing that 84% of general sports fans have an interest in women’s sports. 51% of those surveyed were male, which means utilizing female athletes as a way to reach fans can be greatly beneficial. Deloitte projected that the rise of women’s sports in 2020 would dominate the sports industry and that “sponsors should consider getting involved now to capitalize on the new opportunities and avenues for engagement that this growth area may create.” The influence of social media has also grown since the Nielsen survey was taken, especially since digital activity has been vital to the survival of many industries and how many athletes and leagues interacted with their fans throughout the pandemic. Deloitte's survey found that millennials are 40 percent more likely than baby boomers to use social media to obtain information about their favorite teams and players. This behavioral trend emphasizes the importance of the digital connection athletes have with their fans and the power it wields. 

The pandemic was hard on the sport industry but women's sport continues to have strong growth and investment potential. NWGL's Packer said, "the amount of money that it takes for a company to meaningfully support a women’s league is so vastly different than what it takes to have the smallest piece of attachment for a men’s league.” A good example of this potential for growth is women's soccer in the U.S., which has seen an increase in interest that has translated into an increase in stadium attendance. In 2020 the NWSL was poised to have a record-breaking year after signing new broadcast deals, which resulted in a 22% increase in game attendance, according to Soccer Stadium Digest. In addition to this the women's NCAA tournament continues to prove that it can bring in viewers as it could fetch as much as $20 million a year as a stand-alone event on the open market. Now that things are getting back to normal women's sport will need to keep up the momentum.

CBD Overview:

CBD is the new big thing. But what is it and how is it effective in sports marketing?

CBD (Cannabidiol) has a number of different uses and can be applied in different ways.

A short list of the positive uses that CBD has for athletes are: it can relieve pain, reduce anxiety or depression, treat muscle spasms, reduce inflammation, and it is an alternative to Opioids or other addicting prescription pain relievers.

The main use among professional athletes is that it is a great and safe pain reliever.  This recent discovery by many professional athletes has led to an advocacy for CBD products and companies.  

Although CBD is still technically not allowed for use in some professional leagues such as the NBA, NFL, and NHL… it is allowed for consumption in the MLB, the UFC, professional golf, professional tennis, and is widely used among retired professional athletes from all sports.  

MLB & CBD:

It was just recently (December 2019) allowed for consumption in the MLB, which is a huge potential market to expose CBD products to in this upcoming year of 2020.  Professional baseball players can now advocate for this pain-relieving supplement without any repercussions.  This is going to allow CBD companies to now target some of the biggest athletes in the world to partner with them in marketing campaigns for their CBD products.

Retired Players & CBD:

Some examples of widely recognized retired professional athletes getting involved with CBD companies are Rob Gronkowski (NFL), Paul Pierce (NBA), Steve Smith (NFL), Tiki Barber (NFL), and Bubba Watson (Golf).

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Professional Tennis & CBD:

A few months ago the professional tennis duo and twin brothers, Mike and Bob Ryan, announced a new partnership with a CBD company called CBD BioCare. In addition to the professional duo, several other professional players recently inked CBD deals including American superstar John Isner.

UFC & CBD:

The UFC as an organization took a big step capitalizing on the new CBD wave and teamed up with Aurora Cannabis on a CBD study with their fighters.  This partnership between the league and Aurora will lead to effective CBD studies on treating aches and pains that professional athletes, especially UFC fighters, deal with daily.  This opens up fighters in the UFC to the benefits of CBD and makes them great targets for CBD companies for partnerships. World renowned professional UFC fighter Nate Diaz has spoken out about his affinity for CBD products and has partnered with at least one brand.

OpenSponsorship Athletes & CBD:

Here at OpenSponsorship we have already started to take advantage of marketing opportunities with CBD brands, pairing up with several different brands for various campaigns.  CBD brands see value partnering with professional athletes regardless of which sport they are involved in, because athletes everywhere truly enjoy the positive effects that CBD treatment has on their body.  Here are some examples of OpenSponsorship athletes pairing with CBD brands:

Sabrina Wieser (Running & Bodybuilding): 103k followers IG

Walker Ryan (Skateboarding): 73.3k followers IG

CBD & Sports Marketing:

Now that CBD has become widely accepted in society and in professional sports leagues, it is time to capitalize on the popularity by using influential professional athletes to promote the products to an even larger audience.  Since a ton of athletes are starting to use CBD products and see the positive effects it has on their bodies, it is a perfect time to team up with these athletes for marketing campaigns. Using athletes as influencers has proven to be extremely effective, it is time to take advantage of this opportunity and team up with athletes to create effective and meaningful partnerships.  

Influencer marketing is an affordable, effective way to build trust, increase brand awareness, and drive purchasing decisions.

At OpenSponsorship, through our innovative technology and extensive network of 5,500+ athletes, you can launch a successful influencer marketing campaign in 3 weeks or less.

Here's how to get started: 

Step 1: Actually choose your influencers. 

It sounds simple, yet for some reason it isn’t. Many other influencer marketing companies exist where you pay money, hand over some copy, and let your previous product go wherever the wind takes it. 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t typically yield valuable outcomes. Just like a business, every influencer has their own audience. Influencers attract an audience due to some overlapping interests with their audience - whether those interests are fitness, diet, beauty, etc.   

To run an influencer marketing campaign, you want to be able to vet a number of influencers to understand which one’s audience matches up with your target demographic to yield the best results. You also want to be able to work directly with the influencers, rather than letting a third-party handle that communication. 

Rather than spending hours searching through the internet for athletes with strong follower numbers and engaging content, use our platform of 5,500+ athletes to search and filter for athletes that perfectly align with your target demographic in just a few minutes.

Step 2: Set clear, achievable goals before each influencer marketing campaign.

You’d be surprised at how many brands are willing to just give companies their money without setting any achievable goals. (Or maybe, savvy marketer, you aren’t that surprised. Let’s all take a collective calming breath to try and forget the last time your boss demanded sales numbers from a campaign you told them was about awareness. Okay. Let’s continue.)

We realize that many companies don’t have budget that can be wasted, so before you launch a campaign, set some key goals with your team. This way, there are really trackable data points that your team can look back on to ensure that both you and your influencers are aligned on what’s considered a successful campaign. 

Generally, these goals fall into one of the following buckets:

• Brand Awareness: This goal is typically around how many impressions you can drive to increase awareness of your brand.
  
  
• Traffic: This goal is tied to an influencer driving a certain volume of traffic back to a particular site or landing page.
  
  
• Sales: Whether in leads or actual purchases, if you choose this goal you want to ensure your campaign is tied to some sort of cost-per-click. 
  
  
• Audience Growth: This is typically tied to a campaign where you’re looking to increase your social media following by having influencers recommend they follow your account. 

By leveraging our campaign templates for social media posts, long-term partnerships, and more, you can create an influencer marketing campaign in minutes. 

Step 3: Create an influencer campaign that’s mutually beneficial.

This may sound obvious, but oftentimes brands look at influencers for their audience without regard for what would benefit that influencer. Think about it this way: When hiring a sales rep, you want to ensure that rep is excited about your product because at the end of the day, they are the ones selling it. By hiring an influencer, you’re hiring someone to sell your brand, so you want them to be just as excited by the opportunity as you.   

For some influencers, just receiving free product is enough, while others may want a cash guarantee for their work. The better your offer is tailored towards each influencer, the better their content is going to be on your behalf. It’s worth it to put in the time to ensure that each influencer deal is going to be a positive experience for both parties.

Normally, negotiating terms and discussing a sponsorship opportunity with an athlete or their agent can take weeks. However, with OpenSponsorship, within 24 hours, athletes start applying directly to your campaign with pre-determined terms so you know who is interested based on the applications that come in.

Step 4: Track and measure your campaign.

The classic final step: Measuring your campaign. If you set a specific goal during step two, then you’re already in good shape. Now it’s just about ensuring you have the right tools to track and measure your influencer marketing campaign. 

Here’s a few ways to make it happen: 

1. Track with your own attribution.

The simplest and most overlooked step in tracking an influencer strategy is including tracking tokens in the links you have influencers share. Taking this additional step allows you to clearly see what traffic and conversions are actually being sent back your way from the influencers’ campaign. Here’s a guide to doing this correctly.   

2. Track with OpenSponsorship.

Our platform not only helps brands connect with athletes for their influencer marketing campaigns, but we also provide tracking to help you see which campaigns are creating the best value for you. This also helps you evaluate which athletes to work with over time to be able to look back and see which ones led to the greatest ROI for your goals.   

3. Track with a third-party tool.

While the above two should be enough, some companies opt to enlist tools specifically for tracking and measuring influencer marketing campaigns.  This post goes into six different influencer marketing tracking tools you can try.   

Follow these four steps, and we guarantee you’ll begin to see the light when it comes to an influencer marketing strategy within a few weeks. Just like any other marketing tactic that seems overhyped, it’s about executing correctly and matching your effort with what’s best for your brand. 

Having an ROI formula to understand and track the return on investment of any marketing spend is an absolute must for any marketing department.

For any agency, marketing tech startup, or even anyone selling marketing solutions ... being able to offer a ROI formula is an absolute necessity to survive. The better your clients can understand and track ROI through a data-driven approach, the more likely they will stay with you and spend more marketing dollars. 

Here at OpenSponsorship, we have completed thousands of deals to date, and therefore we created a ROI formula to help our brands and marketing managers understand and track their marketing results. We gave our engineers the challenge of building products, tools, and features that could be the first step to having the ultimate ROI calculator to show our brands a simple but effective ROI formula to calculate ROI on their sponsorship spending and influencer marketing spend through our platform.

Today, I'm pleased to share they lived up to the challenge! We are well on the way to the ROI calculator coming together through a ROI formula that comprises of understanding brand awareness uplift, social media uplift, and sales conversions.

Here are some of the elements that play into our ROI formula:

1. Tracking ROI through Google Analytics integration 

A big part of our ROI formula includes data from Google Analytics. Our integration allows marketers to easily and transparently understand the impact of an athlete's endorsement on website metrics using Google Analytics data. For example, when an athlete becomes a brand ambassador for a sponsor, every time they post on social media or attend an event, the ROI Google Analytics tool shows the uplift to company website traffic, to specific pages, or to any conversion goals that are set up in google analytics. 

2. Tracking ROI through Shopify integration

Another major part of our ROI formula comes from our integration with Shopify. If you are one of the 600,000+ businesses using Shopify, we are the best way to measure your influencer marketing impact on Shopify sales. We have written extensively on how to do sponsorship deals effectively, but now we can also work together to measure these deals effectively. Using coupon codes we can track exactly how many sales come from each athlete's post. Integrations for other e-commerce platforms are coming soon, if you do not use Shopify let us know so we can let you know when your technology's integration is coming soon. 

3. Using UTM tracking codes  

When building a campaign on OpenSponsorship, you can include the website link for where you want the influencer's post to direct their followers to. We turn that link into a UTM link, meaning a unique link that we can track. This means we can give 100% attribution of how much traffic an athlete sends to your website without any hard work from your side -- all we need is the Google Analytics integration that takes less than 30 seconds to do! 

4. Tracking Social Media metrics

Social media uplift is often the starting point for any influencer marketing campaign. We calculate a number of different factors:

• CPE (cost per engagement) on each social media post 
• New followers acquired for the brand  social media page 
• Increased activity created around the brand
• Demographic change for the  brand Instagram channel
  
  

We are very proud of the ROI formula that we have created to calculate, understand and track ROI on influencer marketing campaigns and sports sponsorship campaigns ran with athletes through OpenSponsorship. Let us give you a demonstration of our tools today so you can understand why a $1 spent on OpenSponsorship is a $1 well spent!

In this day and age, one of the most important decisions that any business owner can make for his business is for it to have a prominent online presence. If you’re in the business of catering to sporting needs, this is essential. Your loyal customers and any potential ones would be expecting you to be available and visible on the World Wide Web. The Internet is a vast ocean of market opportunities that you could be missing out on if you don’t take advantage of it in the right way. And the easiest thing to do to establish online presence – next to creating a website – is search engine optimization, or SEO.

What Is SEO?

You may have heard or read a lot about it from your fellow businessmen or from web
developers, but what is SEO? Simply put, SEO is a framework that you can follow to optimize your website so that it can be found through search engines like Google. The goal of SEO is to drive enough organic traffic to your company website; organic traffic refers to the flow of visitors that you get from a search engine. You might be asking yourself why should you care about this, especially when you've already paid for ads and sports influencers and your website is doing well by word of mouth. Well, the essential things about organic traffic are, one, you don’t pay for it and, two, your website’s visitors are interested in what you’re offering because they used Google to look for your website. This means that they already have the intent to do business with you; they just don’t know where to go or which one to go for. This is where SEO does its work.

Why Is SEO Crucial to You?

#1: It Gives You Visibility
Creating a company website doesn’t mean immediate visibility. Let’s say that you’re in the business of selling golf clubs. How can a customer who’s looking to purchase some golf clubs possibly find your website among other sporting goods stores that also sell golf clubs? You need SEO to make sure that your site appears as high in the search engine results page as possible. Now, that same customer appears to be looking for a specific golf club that your store happens to carry. So, he then decides to search for that particular golf club on Google by using the model as his keyword. If your website shows up again on his results and if it continually shows up in any of his other searches, it’s most likely that this customer would eventually click on your website and purchase the item from your business.

#2: It Brings You Traffic

As mentioned earlier, one of the goals of SEO is to drive traffic to your company website and the good thing about traffic that comes from search engines is that the visitors are usually qualified leads. You might argue that this cannot be guaranteed, and you’re right. However, try to imagine opening a scuba diving shop someplace landlocked. You probably need to trade an arm and a leg just to convince the few customers that venture inside your store that they need a wetsuit. SEO, however, would take your shop somewhere in the tropics, where there are significantly more chances of people walking by your store to come in and buy scuba diving gear.

#3: It Gives Your Brand Credibility
For some unexplained reason, consumers seem to trust the websites that appear at the top of the results page. In their minds, these sites must be trustworthy if Google or whatever search engine they’re using keeps suggesting it. Look at it this way: wouldn’t you prefer to seek help from an athletic trainer that keeps coming up in every conversation that you have with other athletes than from someone you’ve never heard of? Proper SEO would ensure that your website is relevant to
any and most keyword searches that customers may use to find the services that you offer.

#4: It Allows for Accurate and Detailed Market Research
There are online tools available that can provide you with data about the traffic that your website is getting. These tools can help you get to know your customers by identifying and analyzing metrics that would be valuable to your business plan: how they’re searching, their general location, what device they’re using, and many more. This information would be critical to how you run your sports-themed business and what strategies you should put in place to generate more profit.

A sports-themed business can be a profitable venture given that a lot of people today, especially millennials, are into sports and other physical activities. Fitness today is like fashion; it is on trend! Maximize the power of your sports-themed website by implementing SEO strategies so you can reap the benefits stated above.

The idea of your company adding sports sponsorships is finally a doable one. We allow companies of any size to connect with professional athletes and create sponsorship deals. Sponsorships were once reserved for the biggest companies and the biggest athletes ... but now, the barriers have been broken down. 

So if you're asking, "Why sponsorships? Why should I direct my marketing budgets towards sponsorships when I already have influencer marketing running?"

We're glad you're here. Here are five powerful reasons why. 

Reason #1: Fans have emotional connections to athletes.

Perhaps the biggest thing that sets athletes apart from influencers is the emotional connection people have to them. Whether it's the athlete themselves or the city they represent, people have deep emotional connections to sports, their athletes, and teams. This is in direct contrast to influencers, who live painfully curated lives in order to sell products on social media. They are aspirational, sure, but they aren't relatable. Athletes are professionals in their craft, yet they generally lead lives that fans can relate to. At the end of the day, athletes represent powerful things - hometown pride, hard work, dreams coming true. These are all things that people associate with athletes, and the brands who sponsor them.

Reason #2: Athletes provide testimonial traction.

Who would you trust more when making a workout-related decision: Kerri W., an Instagram influencer, or Kerri W., a three-time Olympic gold medalist? No offense to the influencer Kerri, but our money's on the Olympic gold medalist Kerri. The point is, athletes and their associations carry a lot of brand equity that's transferred to your brand! These associations make a lasting impression and its benefits last way longer than just a social post. Influencers' testimonials, on the other hand, have a comparably low impact. Since their feeds are cluttered with testimonials, brands end up getting lost in the crowd. And, to the original point, Kerri W. the Instagram influencer is only relevant on the channels where she has a following. Whereas athletes are personalities that live on- and offline.

Reason #3: Athletes have trustworthy motivations.

Since athletes have paychecks coming in from their teams, they don't really need to do any further promotions. Fans know this. So when they see an athlete backing a product or service, it has more meaning than an influencer doing so. Anyone who watches The Bachelor knows that as soon as the season ends, the contestants will start peddling any wares that land them a nice check. This makes their messaging less powerful since the motivations behind their promotions are purely monetary. In turn, this makes an athletes' message even more powerful since fans know they don't need this money, so their endorsement is more genuine.

Reason #4: Athletes allow for regional marketing.

If you're not in New York or LA, it can be hard - if not impossible - to find influencers that make sense for your brand. However, even fans from small cities follow and identify with their state's sports teams and athletes. That's why utilizing athletes is especially helpful for brands and events looking to make connections regionally. On average, 40% of our athletes' followings are fans from the cities they play in. This alone makes athletes a much better fit than influencers for brands serving regional messaging.

Reason #5: Athletes have a wider reach.

Athletes have a much larger reach than bloggers and influencers. While influencers usually have one main demographic and focus (women who travel, for example), athletes typically have followings that reaches across demographic lines. Even a rookie athlete has collegiate- and city-centric followings that cross stereotypical demographic borders. This is far more spanning than an influencer who only has one focus. Fans of athletes are sports fans - but they're also travellers, healthy eaters, moviegoers, college kids ... you get the point.

Ever wondered what goals you should set for an influencer marketing campaign? While goals are different for every company, there are a few popular ones. Of course, there are the obvious ones like increasing sales. But here, we've decided to focus on some non-obvious ones that our brands use to determine what success is for their campaigns. So sit back, relax, and see which goals you should be setting for your next campaign!

Increase App Downloads

You probably saw this one coming. But for a good reason! Increasing app downloads is the most popular goal for many of our gaming brands, like DraftKings and Tunity. A lot of brands wonder what an achievable, but still ambitious, goal is when it comes to increasing app downloads. A good rule of thumb is to take a look at historical data first. Have you ever done a marketing campaign before that's comparable? If so, use those increases as benchmarks. If not, you'll have to do a little bit of math... But don't worry, it's easy! Simply take whatever you're spending on the campaign and figure out how many app downloads you'll need to make back your spend. If you spend $500 and each new user is worth $1.00, then you know how many new users you need to have a positive ROI.

Convert Existing Website Traffic

A lot of our brands that use testimonials to drive sales use their sponsorship deals to convert existing traffic. You can do this by adding a page dedicated to the athlete's review, content, and testimonial. Some have also added the athletes' 5-star reviews on their Purchase page to drive sales. If this goal is right for your brand, make sure that you have historical data to compare with. Set up a page dedicated to customers' reviews, also post these to the Purchase page. Then you'll have that baseline data to compare to your athletes' data.

Help Fundraising Efforts

There's no better way to instantly increase a brand's credibility than to associate it with a well-known athlete. This is one of those "intangible" goals to set - so make sure your boss knows that it'll be hard to track. However, you can certainly look at how long it took your company to fundraise without an athlete versus with an athlete. Though it'll likely be anecdotal evidence, most brands report higher interest when they have a recognizable athlete on board.

Boost Brand Credibility

In tandem with helping fundraising efforts, sponsorship deals also helps boost brand credibility. Nowadays, people like associations - it makes things easier. When brands partner with athletes, they're linking their brand to the athlete's brand. It's like a shortcut to broadcasting your message to the right audience. Again, this is another intangible goal - it's hard to measure exactly how much your credibility increased. But anecdotally, you can gauge the difference in reactions when you mention your brand versus when you mention your brand + the athlete.

Educate People About a New Product

People may not listen to you, as-yet-unknown brand. But they'll certainly listen to three-time NBA champ Steph Curry. Using sponsorships to educate people about a new product is another popular goal that a lot of our brands set. Not only does the athlete produce the content, but they also lend their own credibility to your brand. It's a win-win! To measure this goal, set specific goals for page views, video views, time on page, and other educational measures.

Expand In-Person Event Attendance

How do you get people to attend an in-person event? If you're using OpenSponsorship, the answer is easy. A lot of brands use OpenSponsorship to help drive up numbers for in-person events. It's the perfect way to attract your target audience using the athletes' extended reach. Plus, the content from the events can be reused for months to come. To track the success of this goal, take a look at past events. You'll be able to easily see if your sponsorship deal helped drive more traffic!

Ready to start making your own goals (and crush them)? Join OpenSponsorship today for FREE!

Okay, it finally happened! You've just signed up for OpenSponsorship.

Now what?

Adding athletes - or any influencer - to your marketing plan is an exciting step forward, but it comes with some questions. We're here to answer them. We've taken a look at all of our clients' questions, comments, and advice ... and put them here to share the wealth. Read on to see our guide to best practices when it comes to adding sponsorships to your marketing plan.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Are you looking to sign on an athlete to increase sales or to increase awareness? How will you measure if that's happening successfully?

Once you make those determinations, jot down a formal summary of your goals. Take them to your team or manager to ensure you're all on the same page about what success is. Setting goals is essential before starting a campaign. It provides a written record of what you did, what you wanted to happen, and, after the campaign, what actually happened. This makes it so much easier to adjust strategies and give it another go if need be!

Step 2: Do Your Research

What's right for someone else may not be right for your brand. At OpenSponsorship, we make it easy to research athletes' social accounts, proposal acceptance rates, lifestyle associations, audience reach, and other pertinent details.

Once you've thoroughly assessed your options, make a shortlist of athletes you'd be happy to work with. Compare their profiles to the goals you set for the campaign. Are any athletes an especially good match with your goals?

For example, if a goal was to raise awareness of your product to women ages 25 - 40, an athlete with a large, engaged following in that demographic is likely to help you reach your goals.

Step 3: Clearly Communicate Your Goals

Now that you've set your goals and done your research, it's time to communicate those goals. On OpenSponsorship, the athlete that you choose is your partner. They want to help you meet your goals just as much as you do - if their campaign fulfills your goals, you're more likely to work with them again.

To ensure that your campaign reaches its full potential, be extremely specific about what you'd like the athlete to do, where you'd like them to do it, and what makes a successful campaign. Once they're on the same page as you, they can take action if the campaign isn't on track to meet its goals. Maintain an open line of communication throughout the campaign and work together to make it the best it can be!

Step 4: Review Your Results

And after reviewing those results, ask yourself: What could I have done better?

Even if you met your goals, there's always room for improvement. This is where the goals that you (hopefully) wrote down before you even launched your campaign will come in handy. Compare your results to your initial goals. If you didn't achieve your goals, it's helpful to ask these questions:

• Why didn't I reach my goals?
• Was it possible to reach my goals?
• What can I do better next time?
• Who is responsible for me not meeting my goals?

Depending on your answers, you can make a decision about whether or not to try your campaign again... With a bit of rewiring, of course!