Tapping the strategic role of sponsorship

Words: Niamh Smith

In a competitive market, financial firms can leverage sponsorship opportunities in a bid to boost brand visibility and credibility.

Services marketing needs to overcome the unique challenge of promoting something intangible, which makes it difficult for customers to assess and evaluate its quality and characteristics.

How do potential customers connect with a service if they can’t see, touch, taste, or feel it?

Financial services marketers must tackle this challenge as well as promote their products and solutions in a highly competitive market – which often has the added element of suspicion and public distrust.

Some 76% of consumers are more likely to trust financial advice from friends and family than from professional services, according to PA Consulting.

As a result, more marketing teams are looking into how sponsorship can help them achieve their objectives.

What does it do?

Sponsorship marketing seeks to raise visibility for a brand as it increases exposure through channels such as billboards, digital ads, event banners or social media platforms.

This plays an important role in expanding brand awareness among a wide audience, including potential customers who may not have previously heard of it.

Sponsorship also can also act as an effective tool to enhance the brand image of a financial institution. For example, sponsoring successful sporting teams aims to associate the brand with qualities such as strength and achievement, compensating for the lack of tangible elements.

As a newcomer in the financial services industry, PensionBee sponsored Brentford FC with the aim to establish trust and attract customers to use its pension consolidation service.

Does it work?

Speaking at Financial Promoter Live! in March, Jasper Martens, chief marketing officer at PensionBee, said: “A distinctive brand that’s advertised on TV or on a billboard equally contributes to trust and helps bring a financial product to life. Once you’re on TV, you’re not being seen as a one-day-fly, you’re a brand that is here to stay.”

Brentford’s promotion to the Premier League in 2021 solidified the club’s status as this new rival that was here to stay, aligning with PensionBee’s ethos perfectly, he added.

Aside from sports, financial institutions can sponsor a variety events, such as music and arts festivals, conferences, and charity campaigns. Each form of sponsorship can hold unique benefits that could align with an organisation’s specific objectives.

Have you recently run a successful sponsorship campaign? Enter the Financial Promoter Awards for Sponsorship Initiative of the Year or the several other categories.