5 Ways To Get A Car Sponsorship!
Are you looking to get sponsored?
In today’s Talking Mods we’re going to talk about ways you can potentially get sponsored by us (ModBargains) or other companies/brands. Here at ModBargains, I get a bunch of emails on a constant basis—about 3-5 a day regarding sponsorships. Let’s start off from a business perspective, the first thing we learn is most things aren’t free, there’s no such thing as a free lunch as it goes and as a retailer, at ModBargains it becomes very difficult for me to give something away because at the end of the day I’m not the manufacturer and I’m not producing these parts. This makes our margins different from what the manufacturers are because we’re not introducing a product.
Do these sponsorships ever happen? As the saying goes, anything is possible! They do indeed happen. Now let’s start off with one of the number one things NOT to do–NEVER reach out to a brand with a simple, “Hey let me be the ambassador for your brand/company….” It doesn’t work that way, we don’t know who you are, and let’s be honest, a lot of this comes from your own reputation and how you present the information of what you’re going to do and what’s going to be the ROI (Return On Investment) for us on the back end. As a retailer, we’re going to look at the ROI—let’s talk about it.
ROI (Return On Investment)
So, one thing you guys should do is be organized and have a plan, BE PREPARED! The first question is going to be “Who are you?” and “What makes you different than other people?”. Are you going to be attending car shows? Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you have a big (or small) Instagram following? What is it that you’re going to do and how are you going to promote it? A lot of these things need to be organized, the type of pictures you’re going to be taking, type of videos—you need to show examples. It’s never just, “HEY SPONSOR ME GIVE ME FREE STUFF!”.
An action plan is very necessary. What should be in that action plan? Well, it’s going to be statistics—numbers are very important. Going back to ROI (Return on Investment) and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) we’re going to look at your followers and your engagement on your social media channels. Those are the KPI’s. Every company has different metrics that they use in order to measure an influencer (we’ll call it an influencer for now) because you guys are influencing others to make those decisions. Every influencer is going to be different, perhaps, you could be a micro-influencer with a small group but you might have a great influence and you might actually reach out to those groups and that could be a small group within your community. An example would be local colleges. When you run a car club you have a rapport and everyone gets involved in certain things which makes you a micro-influencer. We notice those things and we do look for sponsoring those kinds of areas. Let’s say you’ve got a hundred thousand followers and more so you’re a different type of level of an influencer. You might be the first mover which essentially means you’re the first person to get a specific car and you’re the first person to modify that car. If you’re the first person on the block to have that car some of the manufacturers can’t get their hands on that car and if they need to do some testing to make sure that the wheel fitments are right or the suspension is going to work you can get sponsorship by the testing. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to get something for free right off the bat but it’s very few people and it’s usually going to be people you already know because they’ve already been in our circle and they let us know what vehicles they’re picking up and so on. We all know who the real guys who show up at the car shows and who are involved on Instagram or Facebook or on podcasts and so forth. It’s going to be about what YOU bring to the table.
Just Starting Out
What happens if you are just starting out? You can ask for partial discounts and you should definitely take advantage of engaging in the community. As a retailer, we’re still going to view all those things and perhaps you receive a small percentage discount it can still help you build relationships with certain brands, retailers, and companies. It’s also going to depend on what you’re currently doing. Something that can potentially work is reaching out and saying, “Hey I’m going to run this group buy, I know the community at my college or I know the community on these boards and so forth and I’m going to put together a group buy meaning that I’m going to get together and put 20 of these units sold, we’re going to be the first to get them on the market and these 20 guys are going to buy it and potentially we can get a little bit of a discount, maybe I can get that free one for organizing all 20 to be the first guys to get it”. Now you’re developing a reputation and now you’re developing some rapport with us and with that manufacturer. We don’t (at least for us) hide how we’re making a specific sale. We’re honest about it. So that’s one of the big ways to do it.
Guys, let me know if there’s maybe some other sponsorship things that I have forgotten to mention or that you have been successful in getting and please be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to our YouTube channel (Talking Mods) for more topics!
