I’ve been helping clients with their sponsorship aspirations long enough to identify common stumbling blocks among sponsorship seekers....
Archive: Sponsorship Prospecting
The latest industry news, interviews, technologies, and resources.
The Art of Sponsorship Prospecting: Targeting the Right Brands for Your Niche
Sponsorship prospecting is not selecting names out of a hat or picking a sponsor based on perceived budget. It’s a dedicated process that...
Sponsorship Follow-Up: The Art of Overcoming Objections
“What do you mean you sold the last spot!? We’ve worked together for years and you sold my sponsorship package to my competitors?” My heart sank. I had an irate sponsor on the phone, or former sponsor in this case, who clearly wanted to come on board but I didn’t give him the chance to. My reasoning? I didn’t want to be pushy or rude and I assumed his responses to me were polite “no thank yous.”
The Five Reasons Your Sponsors Ignore Your E-mails
Email is a fabulous tool to help warm up cold calls…except when it isn’t! I hear from clients and colleagues all the time that their e-mails are not producing results. They send out 1,000 emails and hear nothing back. I have had excellent results using email to help open doors and I see truly horrible examples of email marketing every day. Let’s talk about why nobody is replying to your sponsorship sales emails. You Try to Make the Sale If you sell sponsorship for a living, you’ve had this dream – we all have: you write 10 emails, with sponsorship sales letters and sponsorship packages attached, get 10 responses, all yes with cash in hand. A nice dream…but a dream nonetheless! I can’t say this any clearer than this: You do not want to make the sale on the first call. Sponsorship is a process, not direct mail! If you do, you are leaving money on the table. Big time. What’s the goal of the first meeting? To get the second meeting. How do you get a first meeting? Phone call. How do you get a phone call? A well-written email (assuming no warm introduction, of course). A well written email […]
What Companies Wish You Knew Before Reaching Out for a Sponsorship
The rules of dating have changed a lot over the years, but one constant remains. Sooner or later, you gotta make an ask. Personally, I’m a little old school; I think the only way to ask someone out on a first date is in person. But that is neither here nor there. However you do it, you’ve got to ask at some point. And so it is with sponsorships.
3 Most Common Barriers to Good Cause Sponsorship
Before you dive in, if you are involved with a charity or a non profit looking for sponsorship, check out these titles in our “sponsorship for causes” series: Cause Marketing versus Corporate Sponsorship Sponsorship Cause Marketing Common Mistakes Definitive Guide to the Sponsorship Proposal The Biggest Problem with Sponsorship and How You Can Fix It Three Things Missing From Every Sponsorship Package Corporate Social Responsibility a Users Guide for Nonprofits How to Start a Sponsorship Program for Your Nonprofit Things Sponsors Say: “We Don’t do Sponsorship” What I Wish I Knew at the Beginning of My Sponsorship Career Cause sponsorship is what we call it when charities, not-for-profits and associations engage in sponsorship (hospitals and education are covered under cause sponsorship, too). We work with tons of causes on their sponsorship programs and have noticed some themes come up repeatedly. Let’s talk about the three most common (perceived) barriers to good cause sponsorship: