America's #1 Balance Bike Destination

America's #1 Balance Bike Destination
America's #1 Balance Bike Destination

Friday, November 09, 2007

Sponsoring choices

Say you had a small business (micro, actually) and you allocated about $2000 for advertising, via sponsoring a race team.. I see three choices:
1. Sponsor your current team/club (and maybe compete with other bidders/previous sponsors for the same kit space?)
2. Sponsor 2-4 other teams/clubs and spread the money around a bit. (getting much smaller spaces on the kits, no doubt)
3. Sponsor yourself as title sponsor, (with required affiliation to another club, per USCF rules). Add more riders later on if practical.
What would you do? This all sounds like a big head ache to me. I'd hate to feel regretful later on about getting myself wrapped around this axle.. no matter which path I chose.

5 comments:

gewilli said...

take them money and invest in online advertising...

or spread it out and get sponsorship of every kids race next year...

when ya well established - then dole out some cash for a sponsorship spot...

Anonymous said...

murat, have you thought of putting some money into your current squad??? most teams have a member as one of the sponsors. my current squad has a bunch of guys with businnesses on the jersey.

IMA said...

Ge, using your logic, I'd be spending the same money twice? I've been dabbling with Adwords advertising.. do you want to sell me some space on your blog?

anonymous, of course I thought of it! Sponsoring my own team was the first thing I wanted to do. But unfortunately, I'm a self centered prick who wants title sponsorship, and I know I can't afford it unless I sell it to myself. I also don't want to be limited to using blue/yellow on my kits. I also want to be able to claim my own racing expenses as advertising costs. It's perfectly legitimate. Can't do that if I sponsor a team other than my own.

solobreak said...

I think being the title sponsor of a race offers a better value. You raced all year. Without looking at pictures, can you name all the associate sponsors on my team kit? Gewilli's? CCB's? I know that I can't...

IMA said...

No, I can't name many of them SB.. but that's besides the point. The tax benefits of sponsoring yourself far outweigh the gains of sponsoring someone else's team. It's all about me, self centered prick that I am.. Seriously though, if I could pick and choose a bunch of team mates, you'd be among them. To be realistic, I think the best way to give back to this sport is to recruit some juniors and build a junior team. Where are all the juniors? Masters racing is going to get a little bit lean in about 10-15 years, if you ask me..