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Improving Employee Relations Through Sponsorship
Employees seem to be an afterthought for most sponsors. Sure, they're peripheral stakeholders due to the fact that they are a smaller target audience for sponsorship than the universe of end-users of your products. But we need to remember that employees make the engine run. In many cases, they make and sell your products. In any case, happy employees are more productive and become better spokespeople for your company. There are numerous ways to motivate, energize, and instill pride in your employees by involving them in your sponsorships. Below are four components that should be part of any sponsor's activation plan for employee involvement:
Tickets: Almost all sponsors make tickets available to employees in some form, but some go further than others. At the most basic level, you can provide discounted tickets or release tickets to employees before they are made available to the general public. Although they are nice gestures, those perks don't really have much impact on employees. A more effective plan is to use tickets as incentives. How about providing tickets to employees who meet or exceed sales goals or receive accolades from your customers. Or maybe set up a program allowing employees to nominate colleagues who are great team workers to win tickets. In other words, receiving tickets should be something special for employees. Just make sure you don't honor your employees by providing them with seats in the nosebleed section! One word of caution on giving away tickets to employees: ducats above a certain face value are treated as taxable gifts in many countries, including the United States.
Volunteer Opportunities: When you associate your brand with a property or cause that instills pride in your employees, they want to take part in the sponsorship. So why not get them involved? Volunteerism makes such a profound impact on workers' feelings about their companies. Employees can man water stations at marathons, act as welcome ambassadors at venues you sponsor, and volunteer with causes and community programs your company jointly supports with teams it sponsors.
Worksite Visits and Athlete Interaction: Oftentimes employees feel that sponsorship doesn't touch them. They see senior executives sitting in the courtside seats and mingling with athletes and ask, "How do I benefit from this?" To change that sentiment, you must bring the sponsorship to employees. Bring athletes to your stores for employee parties and autograph sessions or have the athlete who endorses your products actually spend a few hours on the floor selling. Your corporate headquarters should experience your sponsorships as well, so bring show cars to your campus and have sports clinics for employees' children, led by some of the sponsored team's players.
Special Participative Experiences: Ticket incentives work wonders, but how about expanding rewards to truly memorable proportions? After a product development team comes up with a groundbreaking new product, arrange for them to play basketball in the arena of your sponsored team. Or how about giving an employee with a wonderful voice a chance to sing the national anthem at an event you sponsor? These experiences need not be expensive. Think creatively.
