12/13/2024 Target Sports Articles

How Athlete Sponsorship Can Help Boost Your Business

Athlete sponsorship is a proven marketing strategy that connects prominent athletes with brands to enhance visibility and sales. This article explores how ELEY achieves global success through targeted sponsorship of shooters and the benefits this strategy offers to businesse. Get inspired and discover the potential of athlete sponsorship for your business.

Shooting athlete preparing for a competition.

Brands in sport: ELEY shows how athlete sponsorship can work.

In the world of modern business, the marketing mix has grown to become somewhat of a monster. What used to be a relatively straightforward task of following the four P’s – promotion, product, place, and price – has swelled to become more complicated and consuming than ever before. These four basic principles remain, but as new technologies and new consumer behaviour patterns have developed over the last decade, the way in which companies communicate their message and market their brand has also changed.

Just a decade ago, you would have probably got some strange looks if you had tried to talk about influencers in a marketing meeting… or would you? The concept of having prominent people associated with your brand, despite what the fledgling world of social media influencers might make you think, is actually not a new idea at all. It’s been happening for a century or more, it’s just that now social media makes it more accessible. But just because this is an old idea, does not make it a bad one – far from it. Whether directly or indirectly, having famous or high-level athletes associated with your brand can definitely help boost your sales and the profile of your company. To explain how let’s take you back in time…

A pivotal moment

The year is 1951. It's a cold, wet, and miserable day. The kind of day when it barely gets light. Grey clouds hang heavy in the sky above and wind and rain lashes at the few hardy spectators who have come out to this shooting ground in Montrose, Scotland. This is not the kind of day where you’d even want to have to get groceries from the local shop, let alone be competing in the National Small-bore Rifle Association (NSRA) Championships. But that is what is facing the shooters here – hope is at a premium. But British shooter John Hall has an ace up his sleeve, though he doesn’t realise it yet. He is testing a new round, ELEY tenex, and has been tasked with reporting back on how it performs to the English manufacturer. John emerged from that maelstrom of wind and rain with a clean sweep, winning the A Class Competition and setting a new record along the way. Just a few months later he repeated the feat alongside teammate Tom Knight at the Bisley Championship. John’s dream year continued when a telegram arrived from King George VI congratulating him on his score and his team’s achievements. This was a pivotal moment, not only in the history of British shooting but also in the history of ELEY. This moment marked just how important it was to put their market-leading products into the hands of the very best shooters and showcase them to the world. This was the start of #teamELEY.

Countless tournament victories and medals claimed by ELEY-sponsored shooters in the decades since have reaffirmed the importance of this marketing strategy for the British company. It currently has 39 shooters across 22 different countries in its team as well as sponsoring national federations in the United Kingdom, United States, China, and Serbia.

Authentic and engaged

“Our ELEY team programme is a sports marketing strategy that is adopted by many sporting brands around the world, explains the company’s Sales and Marketing Director Michael Atkinson. “It has been critical to be present at all global events. Without first-hand visibility of athlete performances, we would not be able to make decisions that drive our selections. It is crucial to ensure authenticity, audience engagement, and brand alignment.

“ELEY’s vision is to be the most connected, customer-focused competition shooting brand in the world. Inspiring and helping people reach their competitive goals, surpass their potential and enhance their enjoyment of participation in shooting sports.”

Shooting Athlete Ginny Trasher showing her gold medal and ammunition.

Ginny Trasher, Gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, is just one of many athletes in #teamEley

Sponsored stars are almost everywhere you look in advertising. From soccer players to movie stars, there are plenty of high-profile examples. In shooting, the opportunities are a little more targeted. We can hone in on shooters who represent the values and ethics of our brands, as well as being among the best at what they do. Some brands take things even further and use high-profile names to help them develop new product ranges – a step that can only be taken when a partnership between brand and individual evolves to a high level over a long period. This arena is also one in which you must tread carefully, because just as a star can elevate your brand, they can also cause damage to it if they are not aligned with your ethos. What is clear is that the shooting world has many opportunities to work with the brightest stars, with brands able to reap the benefits if they are smart about how they organise and operate their teams of sponsored stars.

Inspiring loyalty

If you’re in need of some recent examples of how a strategy like this can work, then look no further than Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikec, who became an online sensation in the summer of 2024 after securing a historic silver medal for his country in Paris and also adopting an unorthodox stance with minimal equipment. Another star of the summer, Korean shooter Kim Yeji, also shoots with ELEY ammunition as does ISSF Women’s Athlete of the Year Jiin Yang. Exposure like this, especially when it reaches beyond just the shooting community and into the sphere of the general public has a multitude of benefits for a brand. Besides the obvious increased visibility, it also delivers other more subtle benefits that you may not expect such as giving great product feedback, creating an emotional connection with a brand, inspiring loyalty, and increasing opportunities for global networking.

Analysing all of these measurable data points is something that companies like ELEY take very seriously so that they can continue to grow and adjust their sponsored athlete programme in order to continue delivering results.
“Success is the cornerstone of our marketing strategy,” explains Michael. “Athlete endorsement boosts our credibility, authenticity, visibility, reach, relevance, connection, sales impact, and product placement, creating pull in the market. We would love inspired shooters to ask for ELEY products in their local gun shop or shooting range, that is a great measure of successful marketing.
“ELEY Sponsored athletes are role models for continuing ELEY’s heritage and legacy, they amplify our vision and drive our desire to be the most successful shooting brand on the planet.”