Promoting Products at Sporting Events
Sporting events are a perfect way to promote your product and get publicity. Just think of the thousands of people who visit sporting events around the country be it large or small. More than 80,000 people participated or watched the London Marathon in 2021, while hundreds of people turn up to watch unusual sporting events such as Gloucestershire’s annual cheese rolling involving teams of up to 40 people at a time.
Handing out promotional products designed to refresh or give extra energy to participants is common at such events. Welsh snacks manufacturer Trailhead Fine Foods is one such business. It has recently teamed up with a sporting events company to sponsor a series of running and cycling events such as the Welshpool 10K run. The company believed that such involvement was ideal since its Get Jerky snacks were perfect for anyone enjoying outdoor activities.
Why should you get involved with sporting events?
Getting involved with events of this kind ensures a product is associated with a healthy lifestyle, with activity, with sports. It ensures the product name is instantly visible to a vast array of sports people, participants, visitors and can even result in being named on pre or post event publicity. What could be better?
Maximising the impact from such involvement is essential. Businesses need to plan ahead, make it part of their marketing strategy and identify every means by which they can gain publicity. It means working with the organisers to ensure that the event runs successfully – after all, no one wants to attract negative publicity.
This means checking that all aspects of the event are structured, and no potential problems can occur. Among the organisational issues to be checked are practical matters such as car parking. No one wants to be stuck in long traffic jams trying to get into the car park, whether as a visitor, a participant or a sponsor. Making sure that there are adequate professional marshals and stewards at hand to ensure swift, safe car parking facilities and check in operation, including entrance points is crucial to the success of any event. Such professional staff can ensure that any potential problems that arise are dealt with swiftly such as when the weather turns nasty and there is a lot of mud, leading cars to get stuck.
Once inside the event, it is important to make sure that product placement is clearly visible at every point. Book sampling staff to come on site and hand out products and information – this will ensure that products are not left lying around and the staff have the opportunity to engage people in conversation, so as to promote the products.
Think too about the possibilities provided by the use of demonstrators who can show sporting products in action, or supervise people trying them out. Hands on, interactive activities are always a popular way of attracting visitors to a display stand. What about hiring some entertainers to attract crowds, or a character mascot to roam around the site?
Data Capture Staff
What about data capture staff collecting names & addresses of interested people – it can provide a vast array of potential sales targets to follow up. After all, some of those people attending or taking part may well have retail stores that might want to stock your product, or be involved in businesses that can use those products. Not having enough staff at hand to deal with queries of this kind, or take down details can be a big mistake.
Sporting events are definitely a massive sales opportunity – which is why companies need to plan, think and hire appropriate staff to cater for every eventuality. Enjoy the sport, enjoy the promotion of your product and above all develop future sales.
