Spothlete will be a boon for sports influencer and brands alike…
We have all heard, talked and even wondered about India’s failure at Olympics and various other international meets. The reasons range from a dearth of sports culture, infrastructure, and importance in academics amongst some of the major ones. However, the biggest problem is the lack of financial influx and sustainability. As of 2019-20 budget, the government disbursed only ₹ 2216.92 crores for sports, forming roughly 0.001% of the total budget.
Nonetheless, in a developing country like India, with over 20% population under the poverty line, one cannot expect much from the government.
Marketing through sports can be one of the solutions to boost the inflow of corporate funds in the industry. For the athletes and sports entities, this translates into better resources for training. As for the brands, it is a very cost-effective way of gaining loyal engagement. It, thus, makes for an excellent proposition, a win-win situation for both the parties involved.
But there is one small problem involved with the traditional ways of sports marketing – accountability.
Although sports marketing is good and rewarding, brands often struggle to track the extent of a particular campaign’s impact. For example, if a brand manages to provide sponsorship to a sportsperson in return of T-shirt branding or event participation, it is difficult for the organisation to measure the impact of the campaign.
As a result of this lack of clarity, the return on investment calculations are affected negatively. Spothlete was developed keeping this exact problem in mind.
What is Spothlete?
Spothlete is a sports influencer marketing platform where brands reach out to their target audience through athletes. It is India’s first Athlete Influencer Marketing solution that utilizes digital media to provide ROI value to the brands. Spothlete also aims at providing athletes with a sustainable source of remuneration.
The present-day sports management processes are unscalable and cater to only the top layer of athletes. Design of Spothlete is so as to reach out to the country’s entire athlete population.
It is, as a result, very much scalable as well. One doesn’t need to be famous on social media to avail the services of Spothlete. Any professional athlete with a following of even 5000 could start generating income.
The vision behind Spothlete is to develop a sustainable circle in the sports industry. As athletes profit from undertaken marketing campaigns, they can divert the funds procured for bringing improvisations in training. This may include upgrading coaching services, improving diet, machinery, or injury rehabilitation.
This, in turn, boosts the athletes’ chances of winning medals in competition, which then helps in boosting their popularity. With an elevated following, there is a boost in marketing offers, and the cycle goes on…
But what is Sports Influencer Marketing?
Influencer Marketing is one of the most promising modes of digital promotion today. It utilizes various social media platforms for the promotion of products and services.
In 2018, it was the fastest-growing digital marketing channel better than organic search or even paid ads, according to Bazooka report. Almost 73% of brand marketers who have used influencer marketing in 2018 are set to increase the budget in 2019.
Also Read | Why Working with Sports Influencers is so Effective for Brands
How Does Spothlete Work?
Step 1: Discover
With its sports expertise, KreedOn helps brands discover athletes depending on the marketing objective. If organizations have already shortlisted certain athletes to work with, they can proceed with the following steps.
Step 2: Request
After having finalized whom to work with, the Brands then brief athletes with content and publishing particulars. Else, they can employ KreedOn services for designing campaigns.
Step 3: Publish
Athletes follow the prescribed instructions and publish posts as per the schedule. KreedOn assistance is present if athletes need any help in fulfilling brands instructions.
Step 4: Capture
Once the sponsored post is live, the performance of the campaign is captured and reported with all the analytics. This helps brands in gauging the engagement generated by the campaign and its impact.
Benefits
- High engagement rate: Unlike others, sports influencer has an authentic fan following. This results in higher engagement rate and thus, an elevated impact. Moreover, the athletes continue to bring in laurels for the country thereby always remaining in news. As a result of this, the engagement achieved through this mode is 3 times higher than average influencer marketing campaigns.
- Hassle-free Relationships Maintenance: With Spothlete, it becomes easy for brands to maintain long term relationships with athletes. This is not possible with other influencing platforms.
- Consistent Content Quality: The content that is to be published is reviewed thoroughly for quality before approval.
- Tapping Uncharted Markets: Through an exhaustive list of athletes and sports influencer on Spothlete, Brands can target tier 2-3 cities and towns.
- Increased Brand Loyalty: Athletes represent and ultimately serve their nation with their performances. This elementary fact puts them apart from the rest of influencers. Marketing with athletes having a loyal audience, in turn, helps in generating brand loyalty.
- Continuous Offline Exposure: Athletes provide tremendous amount of free, built-in, ongoing exposure through the leagues in which they play, teams for which they play; As a result, the local, regional, national and international media companies that continuously stimulate public interest and excitement for their teams and league and, therefore, the athletes themselves.
Conclusion: Sports Influencing is the way ahead!
Spothlete is developed with a vision to provide monetary opportunities to athletes while delivering a tangible ROI value to Brands. It helps in efficiently reaping the benefits of influencer marketing along with bypassing the shortcomings of traditional influencer marketing such as fake following and lower brand loyalty generation at the same time.
Moreover, promoting through athletes translates into supporting them in a way which is, in turn, akin to national service. This helps brands project an image far different from using any other marketing tools.
We, thus, believe Spothlete is the go-to tool to cater to Brands’ marketing needs.
