Recaps and Reports Sponsors Actually Use

Most racers think of reporting as a chore that happens once, at the end of the season, right before they ask for more money. The brands that sponsor them see it differently. Your recaps feed their internal reports, give their social team something to post, and tell them whether you are worth the effort of renewing. A racer who reports well all season makes the renewal an easy decision. A racer who goes quiet for nine months is asking the sponsor to take it on faith.

Here is what brand-side marketing people told my Summits and Meet the Sponsors webinars about how often they want to hear from you and what they want to see.

Know who your report is really for

The person who signed you probably isn't the last person who reads your numbers. Tony Yorkman, senior partnership manager at K&N Engineering, explained that K&N's reporting went up to owners who didn't come from racing. "Metrics are huge. Everything, I've got to give to them metrics," he said, because "their acknowledgment, understanding of what our industry is and what our community and our culture is, is not the greatest. So giving them metrics, it gets us a better selling power." ▶ Watch Tony Yorkman explain this

Your report is ammunition for your champion inside the company. Write it so someone who has never been to a race can read it and understand what the brand got.

Report on a schedule, not just in December

James Ort, who works in BRP's sponsorship department, listed reporting among the habits that separate partners who last. "Sending recaps, like once you're working with a brand, recap monthly, quarterly, annually: how you did, what you did. Those really go a long way," he said at the Off-Road Sponsorship Summit. ▶ Watch James Ort on this

Yorkman described almost exactly that rhythm at K&N. "We look for quarterly updates. We look for inclusion," he said. Social metrics, if you have them, he wanted monthly, "because it goes into some of our reporting." He kept a running grade on every partner, and what moved the grade wasn't follower counts. "Most of it's keeping up with the communication and showing what their efforts are," he said. "It's not so much about the performance in those ways, but it's about the effort and the support that goes through there." ▶ See the full interview

Make every recap usable

A recap that only tells the sponsor how your weekend went is a report. A recap that hands them content they can use is a deliverable. Megan Meyer, the two-time NHRA world champion who co-hosts my Summits, built an event recap template in Canva for her team and her clients. It covers qualifying and race results, any interviews or articles, links to your best posts, your social stats and your next event. The most important box is a link to a shared folder of photos and video.

"One thing that we did add on here, which is very important for your sponsors and partners, is to be able to send them the pictures and the videos that you are getting at your events for them to post on social media, or they can use it in email marketing and advertising," she said at the Drift Sponsorship Summit. "However they use the content, but they need it from you first." ▶ Watch Megan Meyer on this

Speed matters. "Hopefully you can do it as soon as it's over. Don't wait till a week later to upload everything and then send this recap report," Meyer said. "It should just take you like 15 minutes to fill in all this information." ▶ See the drift session

At the top end, Brett Carpenter, who manages the racing program at Polaris, described what Casey Currie's team delivered from a rally in Brazil. "We're getting updates daily with content from that stage. We're getting a video recap, notes, comments, quotes from Casey. And we're being delivered that at the end of every day," he said. "Not everybody can provide that, but you can learn based on what Casey's doing." What made it work wasn't only the media budget. "The deliverables are defined up front and they deliver." ▶ Watch the Polaris interview

Shoot the proof while you're there

You can't report what you didn't capture. Meyer's fix costs nothing. At a display, sampling or sales event, bring someone whose only job is pictures of the sponsor's product and logo with people around it. "Maybe it's a family friend. It doesn't have to be a professional photographer. Just give them your iPhone or your cell phone and take a couple pictures," she said. "That's going to go such a long way when it comes to the time to renew your contract with them, because you're going to have all this literal proof of what you did for them." ▶ Watch the clip

Show trends and numbers they can check

When the year ends, roll your recaps into one annual report, and lead with movement over time. Peter Calhoun of BFGoodrich Racing and Michelin Motorsports tells partners to come back each year "with a proof of performance presentation and say, here's what I did the last 12 months. I grew my audience this much on my social channels, they were this engaged. If there's a commerce element, this is how many units we sold or how many dollars we sold." ▶ Watch Peter Calhoun on this

Be careful with the big dollar figures that valuation tools produce. Calhoun told me he doesn't put much weight on them. "You can tell me that the value of their post is X number of millions of dollars. It's a fake number," he said. "I want to know number of people and how engaged they were." ▶ See the full answer

Matthew Winter, global off-road marketing manager at Ford Performance, said Ford tracks its partners' social performance through Hookit and checks the deliverables written into the deal, both on track and off. Growth is what he watches. "We'll look at those kind of metrics, see how the brand is promoting, how your audience is growing," he said. "We do like to see a lot of growth, especially once you get into the Ford ecosystem and you're being promoted through our various different networks." ▶ Watch Matthew Winter on this

If a sponsor promoted you through its own channels, show what happened to your audience afterward. That's the kind of growth Winter is talking about.

Ask what to do better

Almost every post-event report I've seen over the years says the same thing: here's what I did. Almost none of them ask what the sponsor wants more of, what it didn't like, or what it needs next time. Add that question to every recap. It turns a one-way report into a conversation, and the answers tell you what to put in next year's proposal.

Reuse the report to land the next sponsor

A strong year-end report has a second life. "You can then use that proof of performance report as a case study to help you get a new sponsor," Megan Meyer said. Show a prospect what you did for a current partner, with the photos and numbers to back it up, and you're no longer asking them to imagine what you might do. ▶ Watch the clip

The takeaway

• Send short recaps after every event or appearance, monthly social numbers if you have them, a quarterly update and an annual report.
• Include a download link to photos and video in every recap, and send it within days, not weeks.
• Bring a friend with a phone to every activation to shoot the sponsor's product with people around it.
• Lead the annual report with year-over-year growth and real counts, not inflated dollar values.
• End every recap by asking what the sponsor wants more of next time.