You have joined SNAP Sponsorship, and we’re delighted. We’re confident that you’ll enjoy our system and find it a big improvement in the way you manage and drive your sponsorship portfolio forward. Sponsorship is a big game, but it is one that is changing and evolving constantly – and at SNAP, we want you to stay ahead of the current, while making the simple things easier for you.
Securing funding is a never-ending battle, no matter the size of your company or organisation, the industry you operate in, or the size of your goals. In order to grow and achieve your aims, a secure funding stream is imperative. This is where having a good sponsorship network comes into play.
A lot of small businesses, events and individuals have trouble finding sponsorship. It is a time-consuming business, and when you combine those duties with having a full-time job elsewhere, it can seem like too much hassle for one person to undertake. This is often the case with people seeking sponsorship for amateur or semi-professional institutes, and not only that, but spending the time to build up the necessary partnerships with the right people sometimes isn’t really an option due to time constraints. So too, are the nuts and bolts of securing a sponsorship agreement – the emails, conversations, and documents that have a habit of going missing at the worst possible time. Do not fear, however, as SNAP is on hand to make your life a lot easier when it comes to negotiating, and concluding, sponsorship deals.
The platform at SNAP allows you to run an entire sponsorship portfolio under one roof. It helps you to source, negotiate and secure partners, as well as being a help with managing contacts and finances. In short, the platform does all the hard work for you. One of the best assets that we can offer is the opportunity to search and connect with a wide range of clubs and sponsors, as well as an extensive asset catalogue, a contract builder, and expiration scheduler.
At SNAP, we wanted to give you a tool that can showcase all of your assets and opportunities, which will allow potential sponsors to see everything about you on one screen. This was brought in following an extensive design process and was spurred on by our clients telling us how challenging managing sponsorship deals can be from a logistics and organisation point of view. This is why your dashboard contains every possible bit of information about you that may be of interest to a sponsor – it’s your chance to really stand out, and you should put just as much thought into this as you do to your campaigns.
Your company or individual profile area of the portal is your chance to really stand out and plenty of thought and time should be devoted to making sure it has information that is relevant, current, and precise. The more information you supply, the easier it will be for sponsors to find you and the opportunities you have available.
To get you going, we have put together a few tips to help you get the most out of your portal. Once you are up and running, you’ll get the hang of it very quickly. From there, shape your portal, and your future, how you wish.
A guide to your SNAP profile
Your profile is the place in your account where all the focus will be and where sponsors will really zoom in on. Sponsors will be searching for people on the strength of the information that they provide, and you’ll never get a second chance to make a good first impression. It’s vital that you get it right first time. Your personal statement needs to be spell checked, and have watertight content, and grammar.
There are several sections to fill in and these have been grouped into 4 areas:
- Main information
- Legal
- Social Media
- Marketing
Main
This is where the name and address are stored along with important contact information, images, an 'About us' section, and directions to the club. Think of the ‘About us’ section as your opportunity to pitch, rather like a personal statement. Make sure that what you enter shows your club in the best possible light and is free of spelling and grammatical errors.
Legal
This section will not be visible to sponsors and is used to hold information which will be included in any contracts that you enter into with a sponsor.
Social Media
This section allows you to enter details of your Facebook page, YouTube channel, and so on.
Marketing
This section allows you to upload videos and photos, as well as detailing the profiles of your club’s members (important demographic data to help a sponsor target the right clubs for their brand).
The importance of a complete profile
During the introductory period of SNAP sponsorship, to publish your profile, you will need us at SNAP to review it and then decide if it is the best that it can be. If we feel that it is good to go, we will publish your profile, alternatively if we feel that it needs a little more work we will respond with some suggestions for improvement. Longer term, we will make the approval process automatic and we will detail in this guide exactly what needs to be included before a profile can be published.
When you’re using SNAP you will find lots of help and advice in our Knowledge Base which we will be continuously enhancing as a result of feedback from our users. We will also be producing simple video tutorials, again all available via our Knowledge Base.
Taking the time to make sure that every single page on your platform is completed properly is really worth it. Sponsors have the chance to search for asset holders via a number of different criteria, and if you have omitted an important piece of data, it could mean that a potential investor doesn’t find your club. So, make sure that your details are tailored to the sponsors you want to attract.
It’s also important that you populate your platform with as accurate and up-to-date information as possible and update your dashboard every time something might change in your personal circumstances, or those of your organisation.
Building your assets and opportunities
Once you have finished your profile you need to enter details of your assets and the opportunities for sponsorship which are available on those assets. Again you will find the tools and help to do this in the SNAP portal along with extensive resources in the Knowledge Base, and if you need further help you will be able to log a support ticket and we will get back to you as fast as we can.
Using the right language
Getting noticed is the endgame, and completing your profile with the correct information, as well as tone and style, is the way to achieve that endgame.
If your ambition is to raise a large amount of money, the likelihood is that the companies you will seek to target will be capable of investing large sums at once. If this is the case, then you will be dealing with businesses that have large marketing budgets, as well as knowledgeable, well-versed sponsorship managers. This makes the language you use even more important and you should be including industry specific information so that you make the best possible first impression.
The point of contact at these sorts of companies will be looking for savvy partners, so doing your research and making sure you are on the same wavelength is worth spending time over.
Similarly, if you are looking at the owner-managed business-end of the market, then you should be appreciative of the fact that small enterprises may not have the resources that the bigger players do. Your profile should be more informal, and softer in tone as the nature of your investment, most likely, will be in the grass-roots arena of your sector.
Be prompt
Everyone appreciates a prompt reply – whether they expect a phone call, an email or even some form of social media interaction. The longer you go without replying to a correspondent, the more you kill your chances of landing a sponsorship and bringing in the revenue that you need to grow your brand.
People and businesses sign up to SNAP for one reason: to build their sponsorship portfolios. Every single profile that you see on the site will be for a company or person that is ready, willing and able to do business with someone – and if someone engages with you, not replying to them will kill the deal before it has even got off the ground.
Another point to consider, the longer you leave messages and potential offers, the more opportunity you are giving your rivals to capitalise. Make sure that you do not give your rival the chance to swoop in and steal your sponsor.
Always look ahead
Short term investment is great, but the thing that really brings home the bacon is sustained, long-term investment. A lot of people fall into the trap of selling themselves extravagantly, simply to chase short-term investment – we strongly advise against that.
This method of securing sponsorship puts you at risk of losing investment quickly, due to making promises that you cannot keep and then under-delivering. This is something that is common in the world of sponsorship but working to a long-term plan that involves growing relationships is far better than immediate – but one off – success. Having strong relationships will pay dividends in the long run and will bring intangible and tangible assets to the business.
Planning in advance is encouraged, and the contract functionality gives you daily updates as to how long each of your existing contracts has to run and, as a rule-of-thumb, you should be looking to open negotiations on a deal at least 90 days before it’s due to expire.
If you know that a deal will not be renewed, then you should start research within the same time period to look for alternative partners. This achieves two things: not only does this allow you to plan your cash flow, but also it reduces impact on your day-to-day running.
Having no income where there has been previously, can severely impact on your operations and if you are a small outfit, or not-for-profit, then it's vital you’re looking at the bigger picture.
Conclusion
All in all, build your SNAP profile to present the best face of your club to the outside world as quickly as possible. Nobody is going to invest their money with someone who cannot be bothered to enter sufficient detail or use good grammar and punctuation – and so it is vital that you do so.
Conducting yourself like you would in a face-to-face business meeting is important as well, and following a few basics like replying on time, looking nine months into the future, and using the correct language can really pay dividends.
SNAP is here to help you find sponsorship to grow your club, but first you must help yourself a little too.
