The Art of Seeking Sponsorship: A Comprehensive Guide from Planning to Implementation
You need to know how to target reliable potential sponsors, draft an executive summary, and send personalized sponsorship proposals to potential sponsors to help obtain more sponsorships. Read the article below to learn how to seek sponsorship.
Identify Potential Sponsors
Look for businesses that sponsor similar events or organizations. Leveraging previous successful research or experiences from other organizations can help you find the right sponsor. If you’re looking for sponsorship specifically for a walk or run, research other running events in the area and see who the sponsors are. This way you might be able to find a good starting point.
- If your event is athletic, consider Nike, Adidas, the Cancer Foundation, and other sports-related organizations.
- If you are organizing a music project or concert, consider local radio stations, music publications, and other businesses with similar interests.
- If you’re organizing a food project, consider Gourmet magazine, Food Network, and other large food groups.
Create a list of potential sponsors. It’s good to have a long list of potential sponsors, but you don’t want to ask every person or company you know to be a sponsor. Your list needs to be an actual list of potential sponsors, meaning these are the people or companies you feel would consider a sponsorship request. Include companies that have sponsored you in the past, companies that have sponsored ideas similar to yours, and people or companies that you feel you have a personal connection with that could serve as sponsors.
Research each company or person on your list. Having background information on potential sponsors can help get you sponsored. Think about it from the perspective of your potential sponsors, what benefits can they gain by sponsoring you?
Anticipate the needs of each potential sponsor. If you learn the demographics, business model, and goals of your potential sponsors, then you can begin to develop some of how you might target sponsorships.
- For this reason, more local businesses tend to be safer than larger companies like Nike. Nike certainly has a lot of money, but they also may receive hundreds of sponsorship requests in a given week. A local radio station or a sporting goods store may be much less so. Moreover, if your customer bases intersect, you may be able to bring them a lot of potential income.
- Consider tapping rival potential sponsors. If a sporting goods store on the west side of town has committed to a certain level, tell that to the sporting goods store on the east side of town. They understand what is implied.
Build a Sponsorship Package
Write an executive summary. When writing a sponsorship proposal, you often must first write an executive summary (or mission statement) related to the event or enterprise you wish to sponsor. The word count is about 250-300 words, and you should explain in detail: 1. Where will the sponsorship be invested? 2. Why are you seeking sponsorship? And 3. How can the other party benefit as a sponsor?
- A well-written executive summary will keep potential sponsors interested in reading, so don’t write a cookie-cutter letter. Write a personalized summary that makes potential sponsors feel like you really took the time to get to know them and their company. This also demonstrates to potential sponsors that you will honor your sponsorship commitments during the partnership.
- Remember to thank the sponsor for considering your proposal. Show your seriousness and professionalism with a formal, friendly, professional letter.
List the different sponsorship levels. If you haven’t already, outline your company or business’s budget and decide how much you want to receive from sponsors. Create different “levels” of investment that potential sponsors might have, and then explain what you need at each level and why you need a sponsor at each level.
- Explain to sponsors what’s inside. Use your knowledge of their business model, audience, and goals to engage potential sponsors and explain how the sponsorship will benefit them. You may want to include justification for press coverage and other publicity opportunities.
Provide an action plan. Your action plan can be a form that they fill out and send to you, or your contact information for them to call you to establish sponsorship.
- Make sure the sponsor has a specific mission to accomplish to drive the process forward. Keep the ball in their court, and the easier it will be for them to complete the task you requested, the more likely they’ll be to say “yes.”
- Get to the point. You are writing to marketers, entrepreneurs, and business people, not academics. This isn’t about lengthening your article with fancy wording and useless text to make it sound clever. Make your argument, outline the business advantages for the sponsor, and close it quickly. Less but better.
Send Sponsorship Proposal
Avoid the aimless approach of machine guns. It can send as many scenes to as many different places as possible, reaching as many different avenues as possible with a blandly designed broadcast. This is wrong. Be smart about sending offers and only send sponsorship offers to companies that you are truly sure will partner with your business.
Send your personalized sponsorship offer to the potential sponsors on your list. Every email, proposal, and letter you send needs to be targeted. If you are too lazy to put pen to paper and have the same content, your project will never get the funding it deserves.
Then make a phone call. Wait a few days and then call the person you sent the sponsorship offer to. Ask them if they have received your request. Find out their problems. Make sure they know how to contact you when they make a decision.
When sponsors come on board, a plan is customized for each sponsorship amount. If some companies contribute 10,000 yuan to your event, and other companies only contribute a few hundred yuan, how do you distinguish them? The difference should be significant, from the additional income you offer to the way you promote it, to even the tone of voice you speak to them on the phone. Give sponsoring companies a sweet taste to stabilize them and keep them willing to cooperate with you.
Tips
- Start thinking about potential sponsors now. Maybe you set a deadline to find sponsors. But the more time you spend looking for sponsorships, the easier it will be to find interested merchants. Ideally, you’ll want at least three to four months to secure sponsorship.