I am always surprised when I hear that a college or professional sports team doesn't charge for their mascot appearances. For them, mascot appearances, are part of an important branding initiative to have their image out in the community as much as possible. The fear, it seems, is if they charged for their mascot’s appearances then the demand wouldn’t be as high and the number of outside appearances would be down dramatically. There is no question in my mind that hundreds of thousands of dollars are left on the table every year because of this fear. At a minimum the goal of every mascot branding program should be to offset the costs of running it and appearance revenue can reach and exceed that goal easily. That is not to say that the fear of decreased demand isn’t real. In the short run demand may go down. The philosophy of giving your mascot away for free decreases the perceived value and in some cases that can be irrevocable. Remember years ago most of minor league baseball didn’t charge for their tickets relying instead on concession sales to drive revenue. It didn’t work in the long run because the customer didn’t hold any value for the product and the same thing will happen to your mascot program.
Here are to top 5 ways to build value and revenue with your mascot appearances now.
1) Charge travel fees – I covered this in my last post and it is the easiest way to drive revenue immediately with mascot appearances even if they are for “free”.
2) Make sure your mascot costume is clean and smells great – I know, I know…simple right? But you would be amazed how little this simple step is taken. If you don’t care about your mascot no one else will!
3) Set a “per hour” appearance rate – Decide what you will charge by the hour for your mascot appearances. Make sure everyone in your organization is aligned and set a minimum appearance time of one hour.
4) Define a charity – Announce the charity or charities that your mascot will support and only book those appearances for no charge (you should still assign a travel fee)
5) Build Fun mascot packages – Be creative and have fun building specific mascot appearance packages. How about a “Break Up” delivery. For $75 your mascot will handle the tough task of delivering the bad news to your future significant other! Mascot delivery appearances have been very successful for the NBA mascots for years.
Start today and follow these five steps and you will be driving thousands of dollars of unrecognized revenue within the next 12 months. More importantly you will be building value for your mascot and your brand. Remember this is all about MoneyMakingFun!
