Sponsor Amateur Football Teams With Your Merch

What's the play

Use your branded merch, like a football (soccer for us Americans) shirts, to sponsor local amateur teams. Email teams offering to send them your kit. It's a win - win. They get a sick jersey, and some people get to see your logo somewhere besides an ad on linkedin or a bilboard.

What was the alternative?

Ordering another pile of swag that sits in a closet.

Results / what moved

PostHog emailed customers looking for football teams to sponsor and offered to send its branded shirts. Recipients like Tijn van Daelen posted about the gesture calling it the kind of brand stuff people actually remember.

Cost breakdown

The cost of the merch and shipping

Time to pull off

A quick email exchange. Who knows if it was even manual? 👀

Steps

1. 1

   Make merch worth wearing

   Create branded gear that doesn't suck. Don't let the non-creatives have any input (jk....or?)

2. 2

   Offer to sponsor teams

   Email local amateur teams and offer to send them your kit.

3. 3

   Keep it no strings

   Just send the shirts, no process and don't ask for a post about it. They'll do it on their own if it's good enough.

Notes

Keep it no strings, no 'what's in it for us,' just send the kit. The thoughtful, low-friction gesture is what makes people post about it.

Receipts

Tijn van Daelen's LinkedIn post