Welcome back to another Through the Turnstile of Non-League Football meets, this time I am sitting down with the founder of SNAP Sponsorship, Mark Covington. Mark was really kind with his time and explained everything about SNAP from its concept to how it operates today as well as the plans they have in place for the future.
I was incredibly impressed by everything we spoke about and without giving any spoilers, cannot believe every club doesn’t opt to use their software.
Why do I think that? Well let’s get stuck into the conversation to find out!
Q) What is SNAP Sponsorship and where did the idea for its creation come from?
Q) Sports clubs, especially Non-League clubs, are often short of people and time – how does SNAP help solve that problem?
Yeah I think you know, there is not a club I go into anywhere in the country, regardless of sport, size, level of performance there are normally
a relatively small group of stalwarts who spin multiple plates, wear many hats, from cutting oranges, painting lines, washing kit,
you know, coaching on the field.
So I think it is really common that in most teams, ultimately there is a group of individuals that are either time poor or knowledge poor in certain areas, particularly around things like sponsorship.
Whilst they may be amazing managers, amazing clubhouse operatives, you know, running sponsorship is a skill set
that some people don’t possess. And that’s been kind of at the forefront of everything we’ve done with SNAP. Everything we’ve done has been built
hand in glove with volunteers, the tools we’ve built of solve the exact problems that volunteers are having.
Ultimately the question we are looking to solve is – how do we drive value to the three most important people to a club?
Well we provide Value back to the sponsor, value to our fans and players and members and its value to the club itself, they are our three key
criteria, so if we can ultimately deliver value to all of those whilst making a volunteers life easier whilst doing it, we have done what we have set out to achieve with what we have built here at SNAP.
I take an example from a club like Woodham, those guys have managed to secure 28 sponsors over the course of just 4 months using SNAP, this is from switching from a really manual process working really hard at it to no avail to now using our product and being really successful in a really short space of time which is incredible.
Q) Are there any pre-built templates that can be used for sponsorship packages + can the user also create their own completely bespoke packages too?
Q) How user friendly is the tool – would you have access to an account manager to help guide you through the whole process and to ask any questions they may have to?
Q) How much does this cost and can you pay per month?
Yes, we have tried to keep it really simple for people to understand the cost of using SNAP and cater to all kinds of clubs.
There are two tiers to choose from:
Standard (£9.95 per month + 20% commission on secured sponsorship)
or
Pro (£29.95 per month – 0% commission)
Ultimately the number people need to consider is am I looking to make under or over £1200, if below the standard package should suffice if over then professional package would be the one to go for. You can always start on the standard and then upgrade later to be on the professional account.
Q) Someone has signed up and they log into their portal and start to add their player sponsorships into their account – once they have finished tailoring the listings (including photos and prices) they then share the link to anyone and everyone they feel could be a potential customer. How easy is it then for someone to pay for the sponsorship, do they have to make contact with the club or can they add to cart and buy what sponsorship they want there and then?
Q) What is the process behind the scenes once that payment has been made – are you able to generate a contract should somebody need one for their records and if you can, how easy is that to do?
Yeah so what we have try to do at SNAP is provide a level of professionalism and a level of resource, which takes a club beyond where it would be able to operate otherwise.
So not only can we instigate a connection between a club and a sponsor, by populating a deal with all of the elements you want to include (player sponsorship, advertisement boards, logo on shirts) to create an overall package. You can then formulate that into a final contract, which is a fully automated process.
Essentially we provide you with the template to create a contract, agree it with your sponsor and at a click of a button have a formal contract generated, it isn’t overly laden with legal jargon but it gives formality to the deal, give protection to the club, give protection to the sponsor, detailing the price, the payment schedule all in one tidy document.
Sign, Pay, Done.
Q) How does the software differentiate from club to club?
Q) What are some of the built-in functionalities that someone could use to help maintain a good relationship with their current sponsors? And is it possible to use the system to inform you when a current sponsor might need a little nudge due to an overdue invoice or if their current deal is coming to an end shortly?
Q) The built in ROI calculator mentioned earlier, can help you with your pitch – can you explain how this tool can be used to your advantage?
Absolutely – so where do you start when it comes to pricing your sponsorship right?
I have personally seen some absolute horror stories over the years, where you have got 10 different pitch side boards down the side of a pitch all charged at different prices. The sponsors arent getting anything different from each other but they are essentially being charged whatever they are willing to pay in order for the club to get some revenue in.
I think it all comes back to, how do you deliver value to your sponsors. Because ultimately a pitch side board sold at £500 if they have the potential to make say around £10,000, it may well be a good deal for them to take.
So the core principle of the tool is behind the return on investment calculator is to give the club volunteers a glance at the possible opportunities for that sponsor to earn money. So if you can populate the number of fans/members you’ve got and how many of those you think you could influence to use that sponsor, the template which is already built-in to the software will generate and provide you with a projected return on investment.
The tool is a great help for volunteers to formulate and decide on what the price point should be for all of the available sponsor advert spots, the system will take them through all of the steps and makes sure that it takes care of everything in the best way possible.
Q) Now you operate in all sports now, but with Non-League Football in particular – how much success have clubs seen from partnering with yourselves?
Q) Why should someone reading this who is still nervous about using a software based system sign up and take advantage of what you have to offer?
I think anywhere you are going to be spending money on something is always a leap of faith and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.
We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved here.
One thing which I am extremely proud of is that we offer a guarantee, which de-risks the entire process, if someone signs up to SNAP on our professional package, if you haven’t made more money on SNAP than what you have spent on paying to have the software after 6 months we will refund you the difference. So essentially you have nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain from giving us a go. That is how confident we are that you will be successful using us.
We do have tons of people on our website talking with their own voices about their very real experiences using SNAP and how it has helped them, I am here talking to you today but I know just how important it is to hear from people who are using our software. (below is two of those case studies).
Q) What is on the horizon for the future of the company?
Now you understand it right!
What a superb piece of software and designed completely knowing some of the limitations that clubs can face.
The fact SNAP offer a completely financially risk-free option should be enough of an incentive to give the whole approach a go! I would encourage you to do so, even if you have a current process that works, the fact this simple to use software can bring all of your products in one place and be instantly updated is a huge benefit.
Want to give SNAP a go?
Use code: TTTONLF at checkout for 20% discount!
Until next time!!!
Through The Turnstile of Non-League Football 
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