The Sponsorship Marketing Model: Advertising with Purpose
By: Rockridge Venture Law
Tags: Sponsorship, Marketing, Impact, B Corp, Corporate Culture

Marketing for Good

When you picture a typical law firm advertisement, you undoubtedly think of 1–800 numbers, “Injured? Call now!” rhetoric and local TV ads. That may work for some lawyers, but RVL wanted to try something new and different — and let’s be honest, something less cringeworthy.

Instead of pushing the red tie and combover or developing a slick, modern advertising campaign, we at RVL launched with a Sponsorship Marketing Model over the traditional approach to growth. This means that we prioritize monetarily supporting events and nonprofits that align with our mission and values as a company. In doing so, we’re able to use our “marketing” budget for good — there is no deadweight loss. Even if our sponsorship doesn’t generate a business lead, we still help make a meaningful event happen, formulate positive relations with fellow sponsors and create brand awareness in the process. Win-win-win.

We have a few pointers about this model that we hope you can use to generate new leads for your business in a way that reaches your target customer, resonates with your team and benefits your community.

1. Strategically Choose Who You Sponsor

It’s important that you support events and organizations that align with your business mission. This ensures that your investment supports a worthy cause that you and your team can get behind, and it is more likely to reach the audience that you’re looking to attract to your business. For instance, over the past two years we’ve sponsored Mayhem for Mustard Seed, a fundraising competition launched by CrossFit guru Rich Froning that attracts a global pool of professional athletes to Cookeville, Tennessee. All proceeds from the event benefit Mustard Seed Ranch, a rural Tennessee organization that works to place children with troubled pasts in homes with loving families.

Competitors arrive at the Mayhem for Mustard Seed event, which Ridgeline Venture Law helps sponsor. (Photo by Mark Hollenbeck)

This is a perfect sponsorship opportunity for RVL because it helps Mustard Seed better the lives of children in one of our practice communities while also promoting health, fitness and active lifestyles. Additionally, we get to interact with people and other businesses involved in the fitness world, one of our corporate and intellectual property service growth areas. These elements resonate with our team and align with RVL’s community engagement initiatives, making it a great annual sponsorship match.

Sometimes in strategizing about your company’s philanthropic goals you may find that one particular organization in a supported space is more programmatically aligned or presents better branding opportunities than others. In its first two years RVL was a corporate sponsor of the Access Fund, a nonprofit that promotes rock climbing access on public lands, safety, and a no-trace-left-behind ethos. Founder Kevin Christopher was a law student volunteer for Access Fund and often credits exposure to rock climbing during a tumultuous time in his life to steering him in a positive direction.

Alison Criscitiello, a 2017 American Alpine Club grant recipient, used the funding to study Arctic climate and environmental contaminants in the ice core. Ridgeline Venture Law is a sponsor of the American Alpine Club grant program.

In 2019, we chose to invest our “climbing” sponsorship dollars with the American Alpine Club (AAC) over Access Fund. The AAC has established a research grant program funding studies concerning biodiversity among and climate change impacts upon mountain habitats. In the demise of federal funding of ecological research, we felt particularly inspired to support AAC’s grant-making program this year. It helped that AAC does a fantastic job of storytelling and promoting this program, extending credibility and awareness to our firm. We still love the Access Fund and will likely sponsor it in the future, but strategically speaking our 2019 AAC sponsorship aligns more precisely with a core concern and provides a better recognition platform that allows us to continue our commitment to sponsorships over marketing.

You can’t exactly track ROI through this model like you can in digital ad placement, but we can confidently assert that our sponsorships provide RVL with new clients and that ensuing services of those clients exponentially surpass underlying sponsorship investments. For instance, in our first year we sponsored a Habitat for Humanity community fundraiser. During the groundbreaking of a new home the fundraiser supported, one of our attorneys met an investor of a well-known company. That investor later championed our firm to his company, which later that year became a client.

2. Create a Company Culture Around Sponsorship

One of the best ways to engage with your team is to use your business to support community events and organizations that they believe in; it shows them that their hard work is creating positive changes in the community through the success of your business. Better yet, have members of your team directly involved in sponsorship events or nonprofit partnerships. Compensate them for volunteer days, recognize them on social media, let them plan events.

Kevin Christopher and his son after RVL’s inaugural river cleanup in December.

This creates a positive culture of engagement and coordination among team members while also providing collateral and brand awareness for your business. For example, RVL adopted a mile of the Calfkiller River in Sparta, Tennessee, through Living Lands and Waters and the Keep the TN River Beautiful organizations, with support from a local kayak outfitter and brewery. The RVL team now embarks on quarterly “river cleanups” with kayaks and picks up any trash in and around the river, including crowbars, 40s and tires.

Holding a community event (like a cleanup) can have a positive impact on multiple levels in your business, from recruiting other businesses to your cause, to promoting team building, to (most importantly) leaving the river better off and more beautiful than it was before, aka your missional cause. (You also get to wow your CPA when you boldly proclaim that purchasing kayaks for your firm is absolutely a deductible expense.)

3. Prioritize Authenticity

After you’ve chosen the right kinds of events/organizations to support and you’ve created a company culture behind them, the last important consideration is to remain authentic in your mission and messaging. The sponsorship model won’t work if you simply throw money out there. Success is contingent upon how you truly feel about the cause that you’re supporting, demonstrated by your own involvement, and how you message your commitment. Your target customers are good BS detectors … they’ll know if you or your business is being insincere or unauthentic. It’s best to take an active role in the event and to believe in its mission. Sincerity will come across, and those attending the event are more likely to remember your involvement.

Power of Positive Perception

Overall, the Sponsorship Marketing Model, if done correctly, is an effective way to promote your business and live by your values. This model enables you to harness the power of positive perception through brand messaging, community engagement and mission-driven online presence.

Looking ahead, 75 percent of the workforce will be comprised of millennials by 2025. And, importantly, 76 percent of the millennial generation considers a company’s social and environmental commitments before deciding where to work. So the sponsorship model could become more than a foundation for marketing — it could also be your avenue to attract and retain talent.