How to get a Trampoline Web and Warehouse sponsorship.
We have started sponsoring some Instagram tramp athletes this year and it has been a positive experience for us and for the athletes.
As a result of sponsoring, we are now messaged daily about sponsoring kids and honestly, if I was a philanthropist instead of running a business, I would have no shortage of worthy recipients to give to. Sadly for most of you I am not a philanthropist and not in a position to give away hundreds of trampolines so as a responsible marketing person of Trampoline Web and Warehouse I’ve had to set some guidelines from a business perspective; giving thought to; how many trampolines do we give away, what sports to capture, what sizes, and the most difficult part who.
Good news if you’re an Australian resident
- We only sponsor within Australia and starting in 2018 also New Zealand
- Technically we can ship internationally anywhere except; the USA.
- Due to excessive freight costs, we choose not to sponsor internationally.
- To further clarify regarding the USA; our public liability insurance won’t cover us and we don’t want to be in a position to have to cover the tens of thousands of dollars in excess in the event of any issues.
- So if you are an Australian resident you are at least in with a chance.
What do we specifically look for in deciding on an athlete?
Firstly, we have had to set a broad numerical range of social media followers. This is where business comes in, in return for giving a trampoline to someone, we need the marketing reach that the sponsored athlete has on their social media account. This means they will have contact with a broad market of followers across a number of different social media platforms. This is called the influence that the person has with their followers. It is about the eyeballs and active interactions via likes and comments on images and videos.
As a number, we are seeking a minimum in the range of 5-10k followers with a primary focus on Instagram and youtube. Facebook and Twitter are considered good to have as secondary active accounts.
- We expect to see regular postings and vlog/video uploads (several times a week over an extended period of time)
- Varied and interesting content is important
- We look for family-friendly G rated content and language
- Comments posted on other peoples posts to be supportive, friendly and encouraging within the overall platform's community
- We look for a varied age range without exploiting the really young kids
- A range of sports covered, eg Gymnastics, parkour, cheerleading, snowboarding and just pure tramp flippers
- Boys and girls. We have found it very easy to connect and find boys but girls somewhat a lot harder
- Talent in the sport is a focus but not the priority, consistent growth of skills and persistence is more important
- Peer appreciation and active communication from and with followers are valuable
Brand Authenticity
- Trampoline Web and Warehouse is a business brand we wish to be known as an authentic brand. We like to know that the kids we are sponsoring really like our trampoline even before we send it. This is because we want our sponsored athletes to be not only speaking highly of our trampolines and actively show videos and photos of themselves enjoying our trampolines in front of the camera, but just as much away from the camera.
- As humans, if we don’t like something as much as we say we do, it shows and all integrity is lost, as a brand, we don’t want that at all.
Our current fully sponsored athletes
This means that we have shipped at our full cost, a trampoline of the size we believe will be the correct one for them. Based on the sport they are doing and their age/weight.
We have sent out all that we plan to sponsor this year and will actively start looking for athletes again in April 2018.
Jesse
This year we have sponsored Jesse Jankulovski and we had been watching him for some 10 months or so before we took action this year. Our renewed interest to sponsor him coincided the very week that he tested one of our trampolines that his friend had just purchased and he openly shared that he really loved it. We couldn’t get a 10x17ft to him quick enough. @jessejankulovski
Andrew
We then were looking into another athlete who mainly did parkour but did integrate a trampoline into his training. His style is very different from Jesse in that he doesn’t talk to the camera or interact with the viewer, he just puts flip combos together. He is very active with communicating in the comments of his posts. Due to his very unique style and skills, we then sponsored @parkourayce also with a 10x17ft high bounce.
McKenzie
@kenzietumbles is our first girl to be sponsored with a 9x14ft high bounce trampoline. At the time of putting this together, she hasn’t yet assembled the trampoline but we can expect some very nice content coming from her and her friends in the near future. She got our attention by her very creative and beautifully curated Instagram page. She has a huge following and pretty much all done within a year. She has great gymnastics skills, is very friendly and is active with a number of girl friends who will also get the benefit of the trampoline.
@tiltfreerunning
A 14x16ft trampoline with high bounce mat and springs has been sent to a group of kids to collectively share and create videos and posts. They have a very high level of trampolining skills as well as brilliant video editing skills and a large social media following between them. We should start to see some action from them early in August.
@liammtramp
A 9x14ft with high bounce mat and Aus Gal springs was sent to Liam late in 2017. He has crazy height for his age and size. Fearless is another word to associate with him.
Our partial Athletes
By our definition; a "partial athlete" is someone with one of our trampolines already who we decide will be a good partner for us in a number of ways. Providing spare parts or upgrades or anything else we may see appropriate to help them with.
Jye
We have partially sponsored Jye Mainprize, he is the friend that had our trampoline Jesse first tested. Ensuring for us that Jesse authentically and genuinely liked our trampoline. We chose to reward, and thank Jye with sponsoring him with a high bounce mat and springs for his trampoline. @jyemainprize
Ashlee
@ashlee_gym10 A young girl who has a growing Instagram gymnastics following became a girl of interest to us. She has our 14x16ft but due to how light she was she wanted to also have a 10x17ft with high bounce mat to do different tricks and attain height. We have given her a partial sponsorship on the 10x17ft and also a new mat for her 14x16ft.
Lucas
@lucashayde was the first person to ever contact us asking for sponsorship until we communicated with Lucas we didn’t know kids even wanted to be sponsored. So he got the ball rolling for us to look into how businesses sponsor kids for mutual social media benefit. Lucas has one of our 14x16ft trampolines that he purchased with a standard mat. Just recently we sponsored him with a high bounce mat for his trampoline after attending the 1st Web and Warehouse meet up in July.
Lachlan
@lachlan_hutson is a great young kid who has had our 7x10ft for some time. He attended our first meet up, was lucky enough to have his name drawn for the second meet up and has come to the warehouse on a number of Saturdays to jump. He has given us a video review and been active in the meetup chats keeping conversations active and interactive. Quite a skilled and passionate young kid who we will all see more of in the future. We felt he was deserving of a partial sponsorship when his dog attacked his trampoline net.
Chad
@chadyatess Chad became one of our customers in late 2016 and really was the first promoting us on YouTube and Instagram. He attended our first meet up and we selected him to attend the 2nd meet up. He set up and oversees the meetup chat groups. He is very active within the tramp flipper community online and has a growing and strong following. Although at this point we haven’t done anything for him in way of sponsoring we consider him one of our partial sponsored athletes and will support him with spare parts when needed and likely flights to a NSW or QLD meetup in the future.
Our warehouse display meetups in Geelong
We hope to continue with our meetups each school holidays after the 1st one was a huge success. This is a way for a group of kids to come together with any brand trampoline and enjoy their tramp community at our warehouse. Where we provide supervision, all refreshments and a gift - eg an event tank top. We offer this free for kids to come to. We view our meetups as a small way to promote or say thank you to the kids that follow us and interact with our posts or maybe have purchased one of our trampolines and shared our brand with their followers.
Already, interest outnumbers the allocated number so have already used a ballot system to fill the spaces.
Everyone has a chance for something small
We will never be able to sponsor everyone but we do try to have a fair way to reach everyone and give them some exposure through weekly opportunities for shoutouts and reposting videos, more so if the person is on one of our trampolines or a Vuly trampoline (which we also sell).
Followers Friday
Every Friday on our Facebook account we share one of our customers videos from either Instagram or YouTube to our page with the idea that they will get exposure for some likes/follows and our future customers see our trampolines in action in a garden setting and also have the means to DM to ask questions about the product.
Inspirational Quote Saturdays
Send us via DM your best flip photo that you think would look good with a quote on it and we will tag you in it and put it on Instagram, with an Instagram shout out, Facebook and our Pinterest account.
Access to our trampoline display
Probably more of a benefit to locals is the chance to feature in our trampoline display promotions when visiting by shouting them out, doing live visit reports or sharing their photo at the display as a post.
Interstate meet-ups
We will find ways from time to time to sponsor events through a banner, tops or pizza just pending on the particulars of the event.
Dos and Don’ts for aspiring future sponsor recipients.
- Do flip and practice your trampolining skills for your pleasure only. Don’t do it to impress anyone or to be sponsored as that is the wrong motive and can be detected easily.
- Be authentically you, by that I mean don’t try to mimic or copy someone else’s style. You are you and all we ask is you be the best you, you can be.
- All of us being our own “you” helps us to know what we do and don’t like and keeps us on a plane of balance. We don’t have to keep looking to see how someone did something a year or 6 months ago so we can copy, we just do our own thing our own way.
- Please, no pressuring us. We won't respond to people who continually pressure us for sponsorships.
Just be authentically you
If you would like to discuss call us on (03) 5292 1100, or message here.
