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

For many local brands finding a way to do marketing at All Star Weekend and similar high profile sports events is important and valuable. It can be a fairly inexpensive way to: 

• Get your brand into the heart of a major event
• Treat your local customers to the highlight of the year 
• Interact with the major athletes that are coming into town from all over the country or world to compete   

Here at OpenSponsorship, we are all about finding cost effective and efficient ways to help brands do sports marketing and right now our focus is helping brands with their marketing at All Star Weekend. 

Looking for some inspiration? Here are our three ideas for what you can do for marketing at All Star Weekend -- all of which are possible by working with us. 

Idea 1: Sponsor an event.

Sponsor an event similar to the Baron Davis All-Star BIG event. You can even take a look at the sponsorship deck for free here.   

What are the benefits of hosting an event like this? Some benefits include:

• Having your CEO or another leader being able to be on a panel and positioned as a thought leader
• Getting access to the event and its high profile guests
• Being able to produce awesome content with Baron Davis himself 
  
  

Idea 2: Partner with a player.

Partner with someone playing in the All Star Weekend such as Blake Griffin. Benefits of marketing at All Star Weekend using an active athlete that is playing includes …

• Tickets to the game
• Opportunity to run a contest for fans to do a Meet+Greet with the athlete
• Having the athlete create content around the actual weekend (such as during training or in the locker room).

Other NBA All star athlete options available on our platform include Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, LaMarcus Alridge.

Idea 3: Partner with one of the mission-oriented events. 

Partner with one of the mission-oriented events around All Star Weekend, or those that have a charitable angle. One great example is this event that has Ayesha Curry speaking with Jada Pinkett Smith on the Evolution of Women in Business. You can see more details here. 

Benefits of sponsoring an event like this include:

• The corporate social responsibility side to the sponsorship
• Access, content and brand or logo visibility
  
  

As the company disrupting the sports marketing space, we felt it only right to give our summary of the #1 thing that people talk about on the Monday after Super Bowl weekend --- our top Super Bowl ads!

The #1 Spot for our Top Super Bowl Ads goes to:

THE NFL. WHAAAT. Where did this come from? To see all these greats war it out over a dinner party. Was amazing. And with 50K retweets on Twitter already (link), it seems many people agree with us! Some of the greats are also on OpenSponsorship including Saquon Barkley  and Todd Gurley.

Tom Brady in our pick for the top super bowl ads

The #2 Spot for our Top Super Bowl Ads goes to:

BUMBLE. As a female CEO in Sports, I had goosebumps. Well done Bumble.com creative team and Serena Williams. What a great ad. We especially loved the line "the ball is in your court". We also loved how this ad recognized the MILLIONS of females that watch the Super Bowl. Quick hint to any other female focused brands thinking about football - consider working with Eric Decker, he has the most female followers of any football player sitting pretty at 80%. Check out his profile for more details - link

Serena Williams in our 2nd pick for top super bowl ad by dating app Bumble

The #3 Spot for our Top Super Bowl Ads goes to:

GOOGLE. With a couple of contenders in the running, we picked the #googletranslate ad as our top Super Bowl ad from Google. What a beautiful message. And like our sisters in Bumble recognizing the female audience, it was great to see Google to recognize the diversity of the NFL fans. Pretty amazing also is that Soccer star Didier Drogba in 2017 posted about #googletranslate and shouted out to 2019 --> maybe he has some psychic powers we didn't know about! Check it out - Twitter LINK

An image wouldn't do this ad justice. Instead, just check it out on YouTube here.

I hope you agree with our picks for top Super Bowl Ads. We at OpenSponsorship bring creativity, data, athlete reach and heart to the table to help brands take advantage of sports marketing. Check us out today and let's create some magic together whether through our football roster or any of the other 50 sports that we represent.

It’s no secret that the Super Bowl has been a center-stage for brands to debut entertaining commercials spotlighting new and old products alike. The latest cost to run one of these 30-second ads? Five million dollars.

Of course, any cost can be justified when the ROI is clear. Problem is, when digging into the ROI of these ads … things get a little murky. Different agencies have tried to explore the ROI, and the best metric one can even come by is “brand lift” - in other words, how likely is it that someone would recognize your brand’s name post-game. We get nowhere near answering questions such as:

• Did it resonate with viewers positively or negatively?
• How likely were viewers to buy your product?
• Did you pick the right influencers to be featured?

It’s a simple game of will they know you exist in the world.

For many household names, this brand lift isn’t even the goal, so instead it’s a viral marketing opportunity to make a statement or drive engagement on social media. And that type of investment for pure entertainment value is simply not enough for most businesses on a budget.

So instead, we decided to look at all the different ways you could spend your sports marketing budget without dropping $5 million on a single Super Bowl - not including the cost of production! In fact we found five smarter ways to spend $150,000 (just 3% of what it costs to run one Super Bowl commercial).

These aren’t just made up figures, either. At Open Sponsorship, these are the types of sports marketing campaigns we help you run by connecting brands with the right athletes for your influencer strategy.

And unlike a Super Bowl ad, we’ll get you the ROI you need. We work to ensure:

• You can quickly and easily access athletes with over 4,000 in our database.
• We’ll experiment to find which athlete’s audience is best to optimize for your sales.
• You actually know how your campaigns impact your bottom line.

Sound too good to be true? Click here to sign up and start seeing for yourself.

So you just had an athlete post about your brand on social media. Woohoo!! But after about 48 hours, the likes & comments on the post, website traffic and excitement from your internal team all slow down. Now what? Check out our 5 best tips to repurpose that content to maximize ROI below!

1. Re-post on your own social media channels to increase engagement

This should be an easy one. If you have an athlete post about your product on their social media channels, chances are you have social media channels of your own. The whole idea of having an athlete talk about your product on his/her social media channels is to reach a new audience. But what about engaging the audience you already have? Our studies have shown that posts on social media that include athlete content receive up to 7x more engagement (likes + comments) than standard branded content. This is a great way to get people who have thought about buying your product before but never pulled the trigger, to finally convert - as well as excite your current customer base even more for using your product. I mean, who wouldn't brag about driving a Kia after hearing LeBron James drives one too?

2. Use in your next digital ad campaign to increase click-through rate

My personal favorite. Like we just discussed above, using athlete's content drives more engagement. Period. So why not try to drive as much engagement as possible on all those digital ads you are running? It's 2019, so chances are your business' main revenue source is e-commerce. The best way to sell online (in most cases) is running digital ads - but creating content for those ads can get difficult (not knowing what content is engaging) and expensive (all those photo shoots and marketing agency bills add up). So why not turn to content that others make for you? It's cheap because you don't have to pay for production, and more engaging because it's an athlete telling your story for you, rather than you doing it yourself. I mean, would you rather buy a generic pain relief gel you know nothing about and have never seen before other than on a Facebook ad, or one that has a relationship with a professional athlete that you know, recognize, and inherently trust? I bet most would pick Icy Hot in that example.

3. Use in email marketing to increase open rate

If the athlete is sharing his/her thoughts about your brand on social media, we have to make sure that they're actually using the product and have authentic beliefs about it. When they tell you what they like/dislike about your product (you should ALWAYS get this from an athlete), using that testimonial can be incredibly beneficial.

A lot like posting content on your own social media handles, email marketing is mostly used to engage your current audience (people who have signed up to receive emails from you) and get them to:

- Buy your product for the first time
- Buy your product for the second, third, fourth (and so on) time
- Buy a new version of your product
- Take advantage of a sale you are running
- Announce exciting happenings within your company, that your customers would care about

With ALL of those bullet points above, you need one important thing to happen. That your prospective reader actually OPENS THE EMAIL. How can we do that? Yes, a witty subject line can help. But, who wouldn't open an email titled, "Top NFL athlete Tom Brady shares his secrets on grooming" or "Draymond Green's favorite pregame ritual is..."?

4. Use on your website to increase purchase rate

Most brands spend a ton of money advertising online, with the hope of driving more website traffic. But what happens when you drive prospective customers to your website, but they don't end up actually buying your product? We've all been there, intrigued by an idea but not 100% convinced to spend our money on it. So, let's insert your newest athlete ambassador into the fold!

One reason why testimonials are so hugely important to brands today is to not only drive trust in these prospective customers but to also tell stories of how they can improve their lives using your product. If you don't know how the product is going to help you in some way shape or form, why buy it in the first place? Now, everyone has seen those testimonials from "Robert B from New York" or "Jessica W, 25", but you always have to wonder are those actual people writing those reviews? One way to build trust with people who visit your website is using the user-generated content you derived from your athlete up front on your website! Having someone people recognize ("NBA All-Star, NFL Pro Bowler, 3x USA Gold Medalist, etc) sharing their story on WHY they use your product and the authentic results they had from using your product will help you start converting this website traffic into higher purchase rates.

5. Write a blog post to increase SEO

Educating your prospective consumer base on why they should buy your product is every marketer's biggest challenge. Why buy your product over your competitors? Why do I actually need your product right now?

Testimonials, case studies, and reviews are crucial to driving purchases of your product - but how can you get people to read these reviews if they're not on your website already? Writing blogs is a great way to improve your SEO ranking and drive new eyeballs to your website. Including athletes in these blogs is a great way to increase awareness even more - not just because people are already googling athletes for their accomplishments on the field, but also because athletes are celebrities. They are literally ALWAYS in the news (good and bad) for what they do on and off the field, so why not use that to your advantage when partnering with an athlete? Having content you write about a deal you closed with an athlete get picked up by a news site is another cheap way to take advantage of the one off deal you closed!

We at OpenSponsorship are all about technology-enabled efficiency, and that relates to the process for how to do sponsorship deals. Traditionally with sports sponsorship, spending less time negotiating and getting the best price usually don't go hand-in-hand. But we see things differently, and have built OpenSponsorship so that you can find the help you need to get sponsorship deals done quickly, simply, and at the best price. 

To most people's surprise, we suggest if you’re trying to learn how to do sponsorship deals, then don't pick up the phone! After sitting on 100+ calls between brands and athletes and learning from the thousands of sponsorship deals run on our platform, we’ve learned the best ways to facilitate sponsorship deals. Here’s how. 

Tip 1: Be clear with what you are looking to offer the athlete and what you want in return. 

Our campaign builder helps to guide a brand through the most important points of a deal that the athletes/agents need to know before closing a sponsorship deal. These elements include: 

• cash/product value being offered
• deliverables requested
• terms of deal
• criteria for athlete you are searching for
  
  

Tip 2: Think about the kinds of questions you are going to have for the interested athletes. 

Within a campaign we encourage brands to ask up to five questions of every athlete/agent who applies. This saves a lot of the back and forth time usually involved. Athletes will also have questions, so you want to be prepared. 

If you’re using OpenSponsorship, athletes can include their questions directly when they apply. In fact, if we spot the same questions being asked repeatedly, we encourage the brand to edit the campaign description to reflect these answers to save time.   

Tip 3: Compare the applications based on the important criteria to make the final selection.   

Each brand cares about different things, so it’s important to judge each athlete against those criteria when making a decision with who to move forward with. Criteria that we have noticed matter include:

• the athlete's pitch
• the answers to
• the questions
• the social following
• the social engagement
• the quality of content posted on social media and location   

Tip 4: Negotiate by sending a proposal.

If the price is right, send a proposal. If the price isn't right send a proposal. We find the best way to make deals happen is by sending a proposal no matter what, and using that as a basis for negotiating. This lets the athlete know the brand is serious about getting the deal done. In fact, many athletes/agent accept lower than asking price just to close the deal quickly.   

Tip 5: Use messaging to iron out details.

If there are details that definitely need to be discussed before sending a proposal, using automated email reminders to athletes/agents for unanswered messages can help keep a deal moving. (Of course, with OpenSponsorship, you can use the messaging system with features such as “nudges.”)

If there are details that need to discussed that can wait until after the proposal is sent, we highly recommend waiting on those because there is always a) a chance the proposal is declined unfortunately, or b) our system will collect those details automatically as part of the deal process - such as addresses and phone numbers. 

Tip 6: Avoid the phone early on. 

This is the one form of contact we have found least helpful when considering how to do sponsorship deals. It sounds surprising considering how efficient a quick phone call can be, but here’s what we discovered: 

In only 10% of the cases did a phone call result in the deal moving forward because 50% of the time agents try to upsell brands to bigger athletes, longer commitment deals, and 50% both parties get lost in the details that don't actually help to close a sponsorship deal.   

Since 70% of the deals on OpenSponsorship are simple deals that are either ran as a one off or as a test before turning into a long-term engagement, we find that the phone call upfront is unnecessary and is best reserved when deals cross the $25K value range.  

When we think of professional athletes, the first things to pop in mind are likely to be: training, dedication, nutrition. However, rest and recovery are as important as the above mentioned! Without a good recovery, all the past training and nutritional plans won't blossom as well. Recovery techniques and technologies have largely evolved thus, improving athlete recovery. In this article we will talk about the brands great products for athlete recovery

U-Gym

U-GYM deep muscle massage device

Massages' impact on athletic performances has been proven a long time ago. U-Gym pushed the concept further. As professional athletes, often you have access to a professional to take care of your body. But, what if you could get recovery massages at anytime, anywhere?

Let's say you want to grind on the beach. You can now get your massage in straight after your workout to relax and lighten your legs for stretching and the drive home!

PicklePower

Pickle Power, reduces muscle cramp

Cramps suck, I think everybody can agree on this one. Picklepower is a cramp's worst ennemy! Fuel your muscles with electrolytes and say goodbye to your cramps for good. On top of that, this picklejuice is healthy.

Tranzlabs Multivitamins + Hydration + Immune system and mental boost

Tranzfuze, mental and immunity system boost, multivitamin beverage

The mental aspect in training shouldn't be overlooked. It takes a lot of will to push your body and mind to the limit on a regular basis. Tranzlabs' multivitamin beverage is perfect for hydration, helps your immune system and also gives a boost to the mental! Produced in FDA certified facilities. If you don't feel like 100% mentally and physically, Tranzfuse is the answer!

Eight sleep's mattresses

Eight sleep's smart mattress tracks quality of sleep

Sleep is one of the most important part of recovery. This is when all the micro tears and broken muscle fibers are rebuilding. Great sleep is key for mental and physical well-being! Eight's make it possible to track your quality of sleep. Therefore, it is possible to detect what factors may be impacting your sleep negatively and positively!

Brazyn

Brazyn Morph: collapsible foam roller

Brazyn's foam rollers are great to take your recovery to the next level! Foam rollers are great to get your muscle ready for exercise, but also to get into the stretching session following your training. The usual problem with these are the amount of space it takes to carry.  Brazyn's rollers can be folded to a flat position. Making it easy to carry in bags!

Escrow in sports sponsorship allows a third party to manage payments between two entities that are involved in monetary transactions with each other. The system acts as a medium where money can be kept safely while an agreement is being fulfilled, and only once the full terms of the agreement are met, will the money be delivered. Here at OpenSponsorship, we are the first business in sport sponsorship to employ this system, and have witnessed vast success through it.

Escrow is a system used internationally by many large organisations. Not only does escrow in sports sponsorship allow a transaction to go through smoothly, but it also gives both parties a piece of mind that their end of a deal will be fulfilled. The size of the system has seen a rapid growth with more and more organisations realising the effectiveness of it. Here at OpenSponsorship, we use an escrow service called Stripe. Stripe is a globally trusted platform, which processes billions of dollars worth of payment each year, from thousands of companies. Furthermore there are also many web and mobile businesses that trust stripe to process their payments, such as Twitter, Lyft and Shopify to name a few.

One recent example of the success we have seen through Escrow in sports sponsorship was just last month when Chasella held a charity event at Madison Square Garden. They requested the appearance of an NBA player at the event, which did indeed come to fruition. Although the athlete was slightly late to the event, through using escrow, we were able to ensure that the athlete got his full payment, while also providing tickets for the up and coming NBA season to make up for any lost time at the event. Escrow in sports sponsorship is unique, in that it does not only deal with monetary rewards. On many occasions, deals involve rewarding athletes with a certain amount of product from the company they are in collaboration with.

Escrow is typically used by companies involved in real estate due to the large amounts of money involved in the transactions, whereby down payments and closing fees will go through the service. Here at OpenSponsorship, we are taking this concept and applying it to the world of sports sponsorship.

New sports technology

Most aspects of our lives are now linked to the internet and electronics. Food delivery, social networks, shopping, entertainment, communication.. You name it. Sports are no exception to the rule. In fact, new sports technology might just be one of the most dynamic market as possibilities are pushed further everyday by both developers and athletes.

Our OpenSponsorship team is made of athletes as well as huge sports fans. Which is one of the reasons we love those new sports technology products so much. These products make athletes safer, help them reach their peak and improve competitiveness levels in every sports. We love being the connecting point between these great products/brands and our awesome OpenSponsorship athletes!

SportTechie has been an invaluable source of information for this article.

4 brands caught our eye through their amazing new sports technology:

I/ AfterDark Technologies: LED jerseys and ball for flag football

LED Flag football jersey and ball by AfterDarkTechnologies

These awesome jerseys and balls are definitely going to revolutionize flag football. Indeed, these kits will allow us to enjoy our favorite sport at any time of the day. No more cancelling a game because of the hour! Not only do these amazing kits let you play in the dark, these also include some useful features such as alternating colors on the QB's jersey, representing the rush count down. Also, its optic fiber flags to never miss your "tackle"!

Our idea for a campaign is to have a major league player from the NFL, NBA or NHL, to take a video playing some flag football with their friends, family, teammates or have kids play at one of their football camps! The NFL player could be Michael Vick who is now playing in the AFFL: American Flag Football League or Eric Berry (ballhawk safety and 2016 all-pro). Another idea could be finding an athlete from a Niche sport like Rowing, Skiing or Triathlon, who loves football, to test the product out, thus showing the appeal of the fastest growing sport to athletes (in college) to all.

II/ Mobile Virtual Player (MVP)

Mobile Virtual Player Drive

The MVP is the future of american football and rugby training. Dummies have been used for decades in contact sports training as it reduces unnecessary injuries during practice. However, a moving target makes training more realistic, thus prepares athletes better to in-game action. This is one of the reasons MVP has been developed! The MVP also has been tested for tactical training: now preparing shooters better than ever! Our idea for MVP is to make a campaign is to have a player with a reputation for his tackling such as Clay Matthews (NFL linebacker) or Fulgence Ouedraogo (Flanker, France national team 7s and Union), record and post a 30 seconds video trying the dummy out in different game like settings.

III/ CTRL Eyewear: Tint changing glasses 

CTRL Eyewear's tint changing glasses

Vision is key to any sport, it is even more important for activities during which you are highly exposed to environment changes and sunlight such as cycling. CTRL Eyewear released a pair of glasses changing tint within 0.1sec depending on your environment's light. Finally, people are safer during situations such as: being exposed suddenly to very bright light. Or on the contrary, riding through a dark zone right after having the sun in your face.

Our idea for a campaign is for a skier/snowboarder or a cyclist such as Travis Rice or Cam Zink to record a close angle video while riding down a mountain to show how quickly and accurately the glasses change tint (from the sunny top to a dark valley for example).

IV/ FlyPro Drones

New sports technology :Fly Pro's XEagle Sport smartwatch controlled drone

FlyPro revolutionizes the drone industry for athletes and sports enthusiasts with its smartwatch controlled drones. No more worrying about your filming: just focus on your activity! This is like having a photographer following you around. It makes it easier than ever to record your best feats no matter where you are and if you are alone! This helps you keeping your followers up to date and content going at all times.
Our idea for a campaign is to have one or more snow or water sports athletes such as Gus Kenworthy or Kelia Moniz taking the drone for a ride and post curated highlights of it on their social media!

If you are a brand sign up for free here to access our roster of 2600+ athletes, teams and events.

If you are an athlete then sign up for a free account here and start applying to some of the awesome campaigns posted by our brands 

Social media serves as a platform for athletes to have honest and authentic communication with their fans. It is the best way for an athlete to leave a lasting impression on his or her fans. Fans love connecting with their heroes, and social media is a great way for your presence, as an athlete, to be felt in the world.

Posting on social media with your personality apparent in the posts can humanize you as an athlete. In turn, that can make your fans even more devoted! The almost friend-like relationships athletes can create with their fans is incredible. 

As an athlete posting on social media, you control what information goes out about you by having control over your brand and the image that is perceived from the media and fans. Basically, you are marketing yourself.

Why should they create close connections to their fans? 

By posting on social media, you, as an athlete, can strengthen your relationship with you fans. And the connections you make can last a long time. Even to when you're retired.

Look at Shaquille O’Neal. He’s been retired for almost 10 years and has 14.3 million followers on Twitter and 5.4 followers on Instagram. He posts daily (sometimes even multiple times a day). Everyone knows who he is. Shaq is staying relevant to a group of people who weren’t even alive during his glory days. This is huge!

He even announced his retirement on social media on Twitter with a video. That was the bow on his social media present. That connection he created with his followers cannot be faked. He is genuine with his fans and you can tell how much they appreciate it because he is constantly conveying his larger than life personality over social media.

People are sick of unauthentic celebrity-fan relationships and prefer sincere relationships. That is why Shaq is so popular, amongst other athletes. Especially in influencer marketing.

A study by TapInfluence and Nielsen Catalina Solutions in 2016 found that influence marketing has an 11 percent higher ROI than more traditional forms of brand marketing.

Staying Relevant 

The loyal connections an athlete can make with fans and followers cannot be replicated. Companies and brands notice that and see an athlete’s fan base as a potential new market. An athlete has the ability to introduce an amazing brand to his or her devoted fanbase.

This connection can lead to Sponsorship deals for athletes.

Lastly, social media can take you places. With a loyal following, there are so many opportunities that become available to you, as an athlete. For example, Golfer, Sharmila Nicollet is able to participate in ShopRite's LPGA Classic after her fans secured her a spot. This year, the tournament organizers decided to open one more spot to an athlete with a loyal social media following. They created a Twitter poll asking which pro golfer should be invited to their tournament, and Nicollet won! The relationship she created with her followers was the only reason she was invited to the LPGA Classic. 

Build an organic relationship with your followers and you never know where they will take you.