We want take the time to tell you about how our athlete program works so you can have a better understanding of why we make the offers we make, how you can work to get a higher IPD Athlete Score ranking, and how we can work together towards your success as an athlete.
HOW YOUR SCORE IS DETERMINED
Your Athlete Sponsorship Score is calculated on your notoriety as a Jetski Racing Athlete, and your Social Presence. The products we offer are almost entirely visually driven, so how many Jetski related followers you have, how many Jetski related pictures you are posting, the quality of those pictures, the amount of people that are engaging with your posts, and “how” they are reacting to your posts are all very important to us when ranking you as a potential IPD Athlete.
MOST COMMON REASONS FOR GETTING A LOWER OFFERING:
- Following: Low Instagram follower count, or no page at all. We’re a visual company, so Instagram holds the most weight.
- Posting Frequency: Low post count, low post engagement, and/or low amount of Jetski related content.
- Post Quality: Since we are such a visual product, blurry bad quality or uninteresting images will lower your score greatly.
- Private Account: Having your Instagram account set to private is a sure way to a large deduction on your score.
- Ski Model(s): The ski model(s) that is being promoted is not a popular model or one that we have nothing available for.
OTHER IMPORTANT OFFERING DETAILS
YOUR FIRST YEAR • We almost always issue a “soft offering” to new applicants on their first year. This sets the tone for how appreciative the new applicants is going to be of our sponsorship going forward, and allows us to gauge if they really do value the IPD brand, or if they are just trolling for “free stuff”. We have not had a great results in the past with giving away too much right away, it’s the relationships that we have built over a few seasons that seem to yield the best result for both parties, and allows you to earn your way to getting better sponsorship offerings for the long term. We are not looking for 1-year relationships with our athletes, we are looking for athletes that we can partner with for many years, and hopefully through the life-time of the athlete’s career.
IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL • We invest a lot in our athletes, and want to make sure that we can build a lasting relationship so both sides can yield a long-term positive return on that investment. Our IPD Athlete program is a HUGE part of our marketing strategy, and in this plan there is a lot of time and money dedicated towards promoting our IPD Athletes to help you get more exposure, which helps you get better sponsors.
WHAT’S YOUR VISUALITY • Since we don’t sell a performance related product, winning, podiums, or being the next big superstar does very little to sell graphics. We gauge the success of each athlete mostly by how often each rider posts pics with our products on their social media accounts, how often they tag us, how many good pics we are able to get from you for our marketing collateral, and how many sales that we get from your IPD Team Pilot cards that we give to you to hand out. With that said, you can see that it definitely takes a season for us to monitor this properly before we can truly value the new rider in order to decide the level of sponsorship that they deserve.
ATTENTION IS EVERYTHING • Long gone are the days of old when you had to be a champion to get decent sponsorship. Technology has brought in new and more effective ways for new athletes to achieve impressive sponsorship packages from today’s businesses. We’re all just fighting for attention in today’s digital market place, and this has leveled the playing field for the up and coming athlete to have the potential for high-levels of sponsorship. The number of people that you have the attention of through your social platforms and in your peer network is what is really going to make you more attractive to potential sponsors, even if you never win a race.
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
If you need help or have more questions about our IPD Athlete program feel free to Contact Us.