How Can I Know What Digital Assets My Sponsors Will Be Interested In?

One of my favorite sayings as told to me by Rich Franklin at the Winterhawks:

Why did the guy rob the bank of all places?

Well, it’s where the money is.

A beautiful, simple way to say if you want something, the best way is to go to the source.

As we gear up for the digital shift in advertising for sports sponsorship, you may be asking “How do I know which assets to build up?”

Well, I found this graph and it’s a beauty.

This is based on responses from marketers at major brands when asked: “What digital platforms do you invest in the most with your efforts.”

Welcome to the bank.

Facebook is the top dog, 94% of efforts are placed on Facebook.

Wow.

I’m sure this is because of the return.

Facebook has some of the most profitable returns on efforts of all the social media platforms. Not only that, the age range on it is great. You can hit so many different ages on it as it is a mature social platform.

TODAY…Your best bet is to build Facebook assets.

When looking at the sponsor-able digital content you are making, I would optimize most for Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Why? Well, that is where the brand effort and money is.

Sometimes you have to rob the bank that no one thought to rob.

Some may see the fact that Snapchat is only 6% and Tik Tok is not even on here as an option means we shouldn’t build assets there.

But.. the maturation of platforms is a key thing to understand in social.

Remember when Facebook was only college kids? Remember when Twitter was mainly tech business people? Remember when Instagram was only pictures from photographers?

All of these platforms matured, meaning they broke out of their use and age niche to go mainstream.

Snapchat and Tik Tok are still in the early stage. They are still GREAT bets for maturing.

What worries me is a lot of people don’t even give them one-minute of attention. By the time they mature, it will be too late for you to build a presence here.

Sports organizations are already grabbing attention real estate on Tik Tok. And while it doesn’t mean a ton to sponsors yet…it very much will in 1–2 years.

When I see only 6% of brands put effort there currently on Snapchat, it excites me.

Mainly because when this thing matures they will be scrambling to get a piece…and your digital content will be THE answer to their worries.

For the teams that start building a foothold here..they will be the winners.

Making it easier to hit all of these platforms and building your assets.

I’m stealing from Gary Vaynerchuk here… but it’s because it works. So don’t hit me with the credit, Gary is the genius here.

You may be thinking “How the F*!&K do I build assets across all those mediums? I don’t have time.”

This is where Gary’s long-form content model comes into play.

What Gary does is pretty genius here. He will film a long-form piece of content, let’s say a talk he gave at a conference, and that is his core piece of content.

From there he cuts that 1 hour long content into micro pieces of content. Let’s say a 1-minute section on how to sell. With that 1-minute piece, he then can have a brand new piece of content that he can post onto different platforms.

In sports, we can do this with say our news conferences or practices.

The news conference is 1 hour long, you can then take the key points and cut them into minute sections.

The hour-long, of course, is perfect for Youtube and Facebook, but that content won’t play on Twitter, Instagram, Snap, etc. where it is

That’s where the minute-long snippets are perfect for. With a simple video editor, you can make up to 60 of those from one press conference and re-post on multiple platforms.

With this, your aggregate reach from a scale of content will be huge, and sponsors will love that. More eyeballs and influence for your clients.

You will look like a media machine and have almost an infinite of prime attention real estate to sell to your partners. All while doing almost no work.

Making it easier for sponsors & brands to create content

When you really think about it, the assets you build here are just exciting pieces of content.

So why do brands sponsor it?

It saves them time.

Any social media department for a brand will tell you coming up with engaging content at scale is really tough. With your assets you are filling the content they have to create and cut the time they have to work on it by half.

Remember this when you talk to your brands as a benefit. The attention it grabs from your fans and potential customers is big, but the icing on the cake is it will take them no time to post on their feeds.

Overall, make a ton of content and assets for both the current trends and the future.

The name of the game is scale. The teams who have the MOST digital assets in the next 5 years will win. Those that don’t will lose.

You can easily create content that spreads across the social channels with the Gary Vaynerchuk content model. It is super easy to do, it’s just most don’t do it.

Once you can create that content at scale, you can sell those assets that are hot right now like Facebook and Instagram to brands today for a high price.

But also don’t forget that you can set your organization for the next 10 years if you start to build a foothold in the “New” platforms like Snapchat and Tik Tok.

When you are the only kid on the block with a large following here you will be able to win deals at high prices from teams who may be bigger than you.

The best part, it will take almost no time as you cut up current content and post.

The next arms race in sports & event sponsorship is digital assets. Some teams are already arming themselves and winning.

Don’t be the team who didn’t.