How Sponsored Events Lead to PR Wins for Local Companies
Sponsored events are a great way for local businesses to develop strong relationships in their communities. By partnering with local organizations, schools, and sports teams, businesses make themselves visible and set themselves apart from the competition. Here are three ways event sponsorship can lead to public relations wins for your company.
Build Relationships with the Press
We say it all the time. PR is built on personal relationships. Luckily, sponsored events provide a perfect opportunity to interact with local and industry reporters and build those relationships, which are key to public relations success. If successful, your company will have more leverage with the press during a crisis, when your organization is hiring or expanding, or when a journalist is looking for comments on a story involving your industry.
By sponsoring events and attracting media coverage, you maximize the opportunities for business leaders and PR teams to interact with journalists and build relationships, which is the backbone of any public relations strategy.
Local Sports Sponsorships Benefit Everyone
“Sponsorships can be a great part of any business’s full brand awareness effort,” Barry Armbruster, owner and partner of Nichols Brand Stories, recently told the Journal Gazette. “Fort Wayne’s sports teams are growing, and businesses are happy to show their community support.”
Sponsoring local sports teams, and having a visible presence at games, can be beneficial to local PR and marketing efforts. Not only do sponsorships remind fans of the solutions your company provides, but sponsorships also empower the teams to create better experiences for fans, which keeps them coming back to games, boosts the local economy, and makes your company a more desirable place to work.
Barry followed up with the Journal Gazette, adding, “There’s a symbiotic relationship at play when businesses support teams and programs that increase the community’s standard of living that in turn helps to attract and maintain good employees. When it fits the budget, it’s a win-win.”
Build Strong Brand Ambassadors
PR plays a major role in marketing your brand. In fact, better than just earning customers or donors at a sponsored event is earning customers or donors who are willing to go the extra mile to promote your business or service for free. Sponsoring events, especially charitable events with causes everyone agrees on (like cancer walks or winter coat drives) provides the chance to develop local brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors are those that gladly share your content on social media, sport your swag, and will refer anyone and everyone they know to your business or service. When you sponsor a charitable event, your company is telling the community that they care and are willing to work to improve the shared community.
Sponsored events often have an emcee, which can serve as brand ambassadors before, during, and after the event. Recently, Nichols Brand Stories worked with Linda Jackson, a well-known Northeast Indiana evening news anchor to sponsor an annual fundraiser for the Pat Dyer Memorial Fund, a local nonprofit that helps cancer patients get to and from their cancer treatments. The event was a huge success, thanks in part to the organization utilizing a strong brand ambassador to spread the word about the event.
Start Sponsoring Events Today
Sponsored events provide PR benefits beyond photo ops in the community. A strategically sponsored event creates opportunities to engage with reporters, earn media attention, communicate with customers, and empower brand ambassadors.
If you’d like to supercharge your PR efforts and sponsor an event in your community, send me an email anytime at MBakle@WeTellYourStory.com to get a conversation started.