If you were looking for a Dinghy Insurance quote, then all things being equal, you might be swayed to take out a policy with a company like insurance4dinghies – who support your sport through sponsorship.
Alternatively, you might just do what 80% of people do and type Dinghy insurance into Google or Bing.
The process of using sports sponsorship to influence buying behavior is changing and those who get the best results are the ones who integrate traditional PR and marketing communications with digital techniques like search engine optimisation.
Insurance4dinghies, is a main sponsor at this year’s RYA Scotland’s Champion of Champions dinghy sailing event taking place at Largs Sailing Club on 22 and 23 October 2011.
The deal means that the company gets to target around 400 sailors from 20 classes of dinghies indirectly through the lead up regattas to Scotland’s ultimate head-to-head dinghy ‘sail-off’. Sixty finalists will race for the Championship title in 34 dinghies ranging from classic designs to ultra modern skiffs.
Insurance4dinghies Managing Director, Nigel Mills says:
“Our philosophy is to support the communities we insure, so I’m delighted to be involved with this prestigious event for another year. The Championship is undoubtedly going from strength to strength and I wish all competitors the very best of luck.”
The strategy to sponsor dinghy events in the UK in order to target sailors looking for the best deal on dinghy insurance is sound, but more and more, sponsorship return on investment is linked closely with activation, both through experiential marketing and digital activation.
Even though insurance4dinghies has sponsored several regattas in the UK including; the RS Tera National Championships at Hayling Island Sailing Club, the Sigma 38 Class Association National Championships at the Weymouth & Portsmouth Sailing Academy, Bassenthwaite Sailing Club’s 2011 Regatta, the Port of Dartmouth Sailing Regatta and the Isle Of Wight F18 and Hurricane Nationals, the online presence of the brand is relatively small.
Through this activity insurance4dinghies might have reached a few thousand dinghy sailors. Some of those sailors might have been in the market for dinghy insurance, but for others, it might not have been the right time. On the other hand, according to Google, there are 27,000 searches for the phrase dinghy insurance every month in the UK.
While sailing regattas offer a fantastic platform to reach an interested, relevant market, sponsors and their PR companies are still not grasping the importance of what happens after the event has finished. There is still a huge opportunity for brands in all kinds of niches – even dinghy insurance – to leverage sponsorship to generate real, measurable ROI.
