Sponsorship can seem complex and even random at times- sometimes technique A works, other times, technique B does the trick and sometimes, seemingly for months on end, nothing seems to work at all!
There is, however, a way to change the odds, and it is surprisingly formulaic. If you want to know how to get sponsorship or how to keep the sponsors you currently have, try the following nine steps:
Never go in Sponsorship Proposal First
Sacrilege, I know! “Send me a sponsorship proposal” is code for “no thanks” and when you go in proposal first you go right to the no. You certainly shorten the sales cycle but you don’t get the answer you want. Making your prospects read a sponsorship package full of assumptions and hope they find something that appeals to them does not lead to a strong close rate. Instead, have a conversation with your prospects about their sponsorship goals and find out what makes them tick. Ask them what they want to see in a sponsorship package! Want to know how to get sponsorship? Ask your sponsors!
Questions, Questions and More Questions!
The only time to speak in a sponsorship meeting is when your sentence ends in a question mark. Alright, I’m exaggerating a bit…but you get the idea. If you need to gain agreement with a prospect, end the sentence with “am I on the right track?” Think of every meeting as an opportunity to learn and to gather information to customize your coming proposal. Need some questions to ask? Try these!
Follow the BAMFAM Methodology
You’ve just had your discovery session, which is great. How often do you end the meeting by shaking hands and hoping the prospect will get in touch with you? If you do that 100 percent of the time, or even 50 percent of the time, you’re making a huge mistake.
Sponsors are busy people. I’m sure you got that vibe from your initial meeting with them, but even if you didn’t, it’s true. They have 60 other tasks they’re juggling at any one time, which means you’re low on the totem pole.
If you don’t schedule a meeting while you’re in front of the sponsor, the chances of booking another are a lot lower. The sponsor will go back to the tasks they have on their plate, you’ll get busy, and before you know it, you lose contact.
It’s possible to miss out on some very lucrative deals this way, which is why I’ve established the BAMFAM method.
BAMFAM stands for “book a meeting from a meeting,” and it’s as straightforward as it sounds. While you’re still chatting with the sponsor (but at the end of the meeting, you don’t want to be rude), ask them when you can have another conversation.
Align your schedules and get it booked. Continue to do this with each subsequent meeting until you’ve delivered your objectives.
Be Ready to Follow Up
Bearing in mind how busy your average sponsor is, do you think they’ll always have the time to get back to you, even if they want to? Heck no!
Just like you have to be ready to ask for another meeting if you want it, you must be prepared to have the ball firmly in your court when following up. I recommend giving it a few business days, maybe up to a week to hear back, but no longer than that.
Then it’s time to start your communication cadence. I suggest seven days of emails and phone calls to each contact within the company. If no one responds to you after all that time, you’ve got to move on.
Learn to Prospect
Okay, so how do you improve the size of your sales pipeline? It begins with good prospecting.
I say “good” prospecting because any sponsorship seeker can look up the top 50 Fortune-500 brands and say voila, they created a prospects list. I mean, technically, yes, but it’s not going to yield any results.
Those Fortune-500 companies get thousands, maybe even millions of sponsorship requests. Without knowing anything about their needs or challenges, the chances of your request standing out are low.
Instead, the best way to prospect is with audience data. And yes, I’ll talk more about this in a moment, but you should ask your audience about the types of brands they use.
The reason those brands are the most valuable is because your audience already has a connection to them, and that’s priceless. The more engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to participate in the sponsor’s activation at the event, which means success for them.
Customize Everything
Although I would hope this would go without saying, I don’t think it does, so I’ll mention it here. As you build your sponsorship proposal and especially your assets and activations, you have to customize everything.
I can count the number of brands that accept the gold, silver, and bronze package on one hand and still have fingers left over. It’s antiquated, and truthfully, sponsors are tired of seeing it. A generic, tiered sponsorship package doesn’t address a sponsor’s specific needs and challenges. It’s full of everyman assets that usually focus on the wrong goals, such as brand awareness.
When you customize your sponsorship proposal, there’s no need to say it. This is one of those times where actions speak louder than words. Show your prospect you did your homework when it comes to your audience. Show them you know your brand value and show them your assets and activations are based on your discussions during the discovery session.
Deliver a Fulfillment Report
The last part of any successful sponsorship relationship is one that often gets overlooked, and it’s producing a fulfillment report.
A fulfillment report, also known as a post-event or wrap-up report, is as self-explanatory as it sounds. It’s a six-page report that delves into your event and whether you fulfilled your obligations as the sponsor’s partner.
You should recap your audience data, your event statistics (tickets purchased, attendance numbers, etc.), and your deliverables, including a checklist of whether you achieved each one. Oh, and I also recommend adding plenty of images of your event for good measure.
Then, send the report to the sponsor and ask if they have the time to meet up and discuss it. As you talk about what went wrong and what went right, you have the perfect opportunity to bring up sponsorship renewal.
Working with the same sponsor is advantageous for your business or organization in so many ways. You already know them, so you have a better understanding of what works versus what doesn’t. You can also usually earn more money by renewing a deal, although you have to offer more.
That means coming up with new activations and assets based on another discovery session.
Understand, Measure and Implement the Sales Process
The donor pyramid does not apply in the world of sponsorship but the sales process sure does! Determine how you will measure progress, create benchmarks and use this process to guide you every single day. The key is movement, every day you want to move prospects up one rung of the sales ladder.
Build a Pipeline
Sponsorship sales is a numbers game. If you are trying to close 25 new sponsors then you may need a pipeline of a few hundred sponsorship prospects! There are so many factors feeding into how big your pipeline needs to be but I can say with total confidence, your pipeline is probably too small!
More Than Just Event Sponsorship
Most people think of sponsorship as event-based and stop there. Sure, event sponsorship is a huge part of this space, but it is just the beginning. Some of the largest and best campaigns I have ever worked on were for program specific sponsorship or point of purchase campaigns. Add to that the world of employee giving, corporate social responsibility and corporate third party events and the amount of revenue you bring in from a gala or two seems tiny in comparison! Don’t just put together a sponsorship proposal template with predefined sponsorship levels and send them to everyone in your database! Instead, have conversations with prospects to find out what they are looking for.
Know Your Audience
Know everything you can about your audience including age, income, interests, spending habits, hobbies and anything else that you can possibly know. “Audience” means far more than just who attends your events though. Don’t forget about people who read your blog, visit your website, social media, volunteers, program users, board members etc. When talking sponsorship, this stuff is gold!
Build That Inventory!
You can’t have a store without product; you can’t sell sponsorship without an inventory. What are the things that you can sell to a prospect? Think broadly! Naming rights, speaking opportunities, branding, expertise that you can lend/borrow, a captive audience of influencers…everything and anything.Once you know your assets, resist putting them all into a sponsorship package and sending to your prospects! Instead, use your inventory to guide your conversations with prospects.
Know Your Value
Apply a valuation tool and philosophy to your entire sponsorship inventory and know the value of everything you offer. Avoid the temptation to set sponsorship prices based on what others are doing, what it costs you to provide or what you need to make budget. Price your assets based on market value and be ready for the day to come when a prospect asks you “how did you come up with this price?” Quick tip: You can charge companies for the benefit of giving you an in-kind gift or providing volunteers for your programs! Remember this the next time you look for a “wine sponsor” to provide free wine without a sponsorship cost to do so!
Create a Sponsorship Activation Strategy
The moment you sell a sponsorship package, move your prospect into an activation and fulfillment phase before you do anything else. What good is selling someone the right to use your logo and address the crowd at an event if they never get to do it? Remember, it’s your job to make sure that your sponsors take full advantage of their sponsorship package.If you implement the above tips and techniques into your sponsorship strategy, not only will you raise more money and have better sponsorship package ideas but you will have fun doing (and so will your corporate partners).
FAQs
What happens if I don’t create a sponsorship fulfillment report?
Well, nothing, technically. However, you will have to continually search for new prospects every year or event, and who wants to do that? You’ll also miss out on the money you can make from extending long-term professional relationships, and you definitely don’t want to do that.
How do I know I’m valuing my assets correctly?
You should use market value as your guide and make any tweaks to your prices (whether over or under) subtly. I recommend comparing your sponsorship property against your competitors to give you an idea of whether you’re on the right track.
Wrapping Up
Sponsorship is a process, and following it step by step will set you up for success. You can’t skip any parts, switch them around, or modify them to be easier or faster. That said, if you’re willing to put in the work, results usually follow.
Do you need even more sponsorship insights? Check out our blog or book a call today.
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Chris Baylis is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Sponsorship Collective.
After spending several years in the field as a sponsorship professional and consultant, Chris now spends his time working with clients to help them understand their audiences, build activations that sponsors want, apply market values to their assets and build strategies that drive sales.
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