How to Secure Sponsorship

Throughout our careers — as national marketing managers and as marketing consultants — we have been on both sides of the sponsorship table. Deals we have been involved in include:

  • Prudential sponsorship of an 18 foot skiff in the curtain raiser of the America’s Cup in Perth
  • Steinlager sponsorship of Peter Blake’s catamaran in the round Australian Bi-centennary Yacht Race
  • Lotus sponsorship of the Sydney Swans
  • Toshiba sponsorship of various educational conferences
  • Mountain Design sponsorship of Australia’s first multisport racers (former Ironmen) in China’s Mild Seven Outdoor Quest
  • Outward Bound Sponsorship of instructors in Southern Traverse Multisport Races
  • Organisational Foundation Sponsors for Outdoor Education Australia

Here’s what we’ve learned and some suggestions about how to go about it.

Find your champions

Sponsorships are all about relationships. In many cases a decision to sponsor an event or company is either a) highly personal or b) has very strong alignment with values, target markets and business overlap.

When it comes to sponsorship, people buy from people they know or have got to know over a period of time. So it’s important to take a long term view to sponsorship development as it’s about relationship development. Build a database of potential sponsorship organisations and contacts and go to the industry events and functions they go to. This gives you an opportunity to talk about what you do (without any mention of sponsorship) so you can determine whether they have a passion for what you do. You need to connect with the people who are passionate about what you do.

In most cases for your sponsorship proposal to be given the green light, you need a sponsor within an organisation to sponsor or champion your proposal. A high profile sponsorship is not a decision made by the marketing manager in isolation. It’s made at management level with a majority vote because the sponsorship company is parting with something far more valuable than money. They are trusting you with their brand. Often to get that vote across the line at least half the people round that table need to be personally into what you do (.e.g education, opportunity, a sporting pursuit etc.), or organisationally there needs to be such strong alignment and connection between both parties that it makes good business sense.

Work your database and low hanging fruit

Look at your staff, members, customers and suppliers. What are their backgrounds, connections and passions? Who can they introduce you to? Get to know them and take an interest in their business first and foremost. If you think one day you might like to ask an organisation to sponsor you, make sure you are a customer of theirs and can talk with authenticity about your relationship.

Start communicating with potential sponsor organisations every 3 to 6 months, via a newsletter, Christmas card, invite to an event, so they know who you are and the gains you are making. This also demonstrates that you know the importance of having a high profile.

One possible tack is to have a conversation about what sorts of sponsorship your target organisation would be interested. This would allow you to frame a sponsorship proposal accordingly.

Who owns sponsorship dollars

In most organisations, sponsorship dollars sits with the marketing department. Approaching the marketing manager and being mindful of this is key. Sales Managers can hold some sway and it’s important that sales and marketing departments work together. Depending on the size and nature of your sponsorship requests, it may make sense to approach the head of HR. Medium sized organisations often have a philanthropy budget that staff get to vote on once a year. You will often find with large organisations that they publicise their sponsorship arrangements. It’s a good idea to search their website first for these as you may quickly realise there is no opportunity for you.  Most organisations cannot suddenly find money to sponsor you. It needs to be built into their marketing plan,  which are often developed by November 30 for the following calendar year or by May 30th for the following financial year. Hence why it pays to take a long term view to sponsorship.

Make sure your house is in order

It’s really important that you can demonstrate to potential sponsors that you get branding and database marketing. So make sure you have a professionally designed logo, business card, LinkedIn page, Facebook page, E-signature, company URL and email address. An organisation is not going to allow you to leverage their brand if you don’t value your own. Equally important is having a segmented database of members, customers, media, partners, etc. so they can easily understand who will be seeing the sponsorship arrangement and also who they can reach via the sponsorship.

Put together a professional sponsorship proposal

Get your proposal professionally designed, make it graphical, limit the words (no more than 20 pages) and answer the question of why it would be good value for the target organisation to sponsor you. What are the alignments and opportunities? What are you offering them in exchange for their sponsorship dollars:  HINT: Be generous with exposure that does not cost you much money but is of identifiable value to your sponsor.

Include a note in the presentation that you can structure a sponsorship arrangement according to their budget. This lets them know that the one sponsorship proposal you have submitted is not the “take it or leave it” type. It enables you to have a conversation with them about their budget, potentially removing “we can’t afford it” out of the equation.

Prepare a cover note to accompany a sponsorship document

Make your initial approach via a phone call and a meeting if possible. If you can’t secure a meeting, send a cover note with your proposal, highlighting in the cover note the essence of the proposal (this makes it easier for them to forward onto others without having to summarise the benefits). Even if you are able to have a meeting, send a follow-up post the meeting that has not just a PDF of your proposal but also include in your cover note the value and benefits of the sponsorship proposal

Have an MOU

Have an MOU that outlines both sides of the arrangement, outlining due dates for receipt of payments, logo and other materials. Have this signed and exchanged with both parties.

Documented Marketing Program

Provide the sponsor organisation with a schedule of exposure activities and email (attach / link) exposure when it occurs.

Check-in

Check in regularly to see that the sponsor is happy with how thing are progressing. We suggest you do this four times over the course of the sponsorship term. This is key to ensuring your sponsor is happy and getting value for money. It will smooth the way for the way for future sponsorships. HINT: Look at how you can extra value beyond the terms of the sponsorship through emerging opportunity. Sponsors like to be included, valued and taken care of. This is how you build the partnership.

Persevere and be resilient

With sponsorship approaches, if you believe that your organisation and your sponsorship target are a great fit, then don’t take No as a permanent answer. Approach your target every six to twelve months. Timing and personalities have a lot to do with sponsorship success. New staff or new members to a management team can create an opening for a proposal to get off the ground after it had been rejected previously. Sponsorship is a sales process and every no is a step closer to a yes. They often say you have to ask for the sale at least 5 times.