How to find and keep event sponsors
Sponsorship’s are everywhere…Think of every time you watch your favourite sports team run onto the field or court. Or what about a large events like Melbourne Cup, Australian Open or the AFL grand final. Chances are there’s the presence of a major event sponsor clear as day printed in all kinds of places.
Have you ever considered how they got there…..or why? What do sponsors want?
Sponsorship is a highly specialised brand of advertising and marketing which connects brands to their customers perhaps better than any other way. Sponsors often have four things in mind when considering sponsorship:
How many people am I going to reach and over how long?
Does the audience suit my brand and target market?
Is there potential return on investment?
How much is it going to cost in time and resources including financial?
Once you understand the goals, objectives and motivations of companies, you can look at specific deliverables that work for them.
The branded Optus Stadium in Perth, Australia.
Finding Event Sponsors.
It is critically important that you seek out sponsors that suit your event. Aligning a brand that doesn’t share the same values as your event is a recipe for disaster and your public image with suffer. Aligning a liquor sponsor with a triathlon is an example of a poor sponsorship approach. However, aligning a sports energy drink with a triathlon would be perfect.
Identifying a ‘wish-list’ of companies to approach about sponsorship is a great starting point.
This is also a could chance to do your research. Where are they based, what do they sell, how many staff, are they owned by a parent company and so on. This will help you establish an baseline understanding of how you will pitch to them in your initial sponsorship request.
Starting the sponsorship conversation.
Once you have your wish list of companies you have identified and possible targets, it’s time to think about initial contact.
Don’t oversell yourself in the first email or call. Simply ask some questions to build a rapport and find the decision maker. Quite often someone in Marketing or Partnerships should be your go to but be careful not to intrude too much in the initial contact.
Linked In is a great way to identify these people and their roles. Sending a quick hello message telling them about yourself and your event is a great way to strike up a conversation. Remember your goal for the initial contact is to request an email address which you can send a sponsorship proposal to OR to meet up with your target in a face to face meeting.
When you do reach this person or people. Understanding their goals, objectives and motivations should be your priority. This will help you in putting together a sponsorship proposal for them later on.
Red Bull are unmistakably elaborate in their sponsorship strategy techniques used throughout the world of action sports, motor racing and adventure races.
The sponsorship proposal or deck.
So, you have identified your sponsor target, had meetings with them and received positive feedback from several who would like to see a proposal.
This is where a sponsorship deck comes in extremely handy. A sponsorship deck outlines all there is to know about your event in a 8-10 page document. It should outline the audience demographic including gender, age, location, financial security and interests.
In addition, your sponsorship deck should include information about your digital and print media reach. For example, what is the combined reach of all your digital channels across Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, as well as your average website traffic, google ranking and so on.
You should also review what your event is about and reference the previous event if applicable, with supporting content to give your sponsor target an idea of what to expect.
Talk about some key personnel that make your event possible and why they would benefit your sponsors.
Outline what your packages are and what they include. This is a great opportunity to provide top line deliverables that your sponsor will receive such as social media posts, email newsletters to your audience, access to imagery from the event, event signage and an activation which collects data from the event that they can use at a later date.
Pricing is important to display, but you should also be conscious not to give your target ‘sticker shock’. This is why an initial meeting is important to establish an understanding of expectation vs budgets.
Finally, you should finish your sponsorship deck off with your event mission statement and contact details so people can reach you at a later time.
The Vissla Shaping Shack sponsoring the Noosa Festival of Surfing.
Event Generals are sponsorship and activation specialists having secured several large sponsorship deals for its events in the past. We have an extensive list of companies ready to sponsor events that meet their target audience needs. Event Generals can also create professional sponsorship proposals from scratch that will be used by you to approach target sponsors in the future and win their business. For more information please contact the team by clicking the button below.