When you discover that a sponsorship prospect is clear across the world from you, you might feel disinclined to pursue them further. You’re worried about regional differences that could rear their ugly head, not to mention the annoyance of different time zones.
Well, I’m here to tell you that geography does not have to be a major stumbling block when it comes to prospecting and obtaining sponsorship clients. I’ve done it personally and I have clients who do it and I can tell you, it’s absolutely possible!
This post will be helpful to those who sell sponsorship in geographies outside of their head office location or aspire to soon begin doing so.
Tips for Obtaining Sponsors Regardless of Location
Sharpen Your Value Proposition
What do you bring to the table? In other words, why should an international sponsor take a bet on you?
Remember, it’s enough of a risk for a local sponsor within the same country as you to take a chance on you when you’re green and unproven. There is substantially more risk when seeking international sponsors regarding time, reputation, and money.
That’s why your value proposition must be as sharp as a rock and as clear as crystal. If someone asks you the question I did to start this section—what do you bring to the table?—you should be able to succinctly and concisely explain.
You’re not giving a potential partner an elevator pitch. You’re simply talking about why what you do (whatever that happens to be) matters and why your audience sees your services as valuable.
Vet Your Prospects
I’m not going to lie to you. It is more difficult to connect with and ultimately secure a sponsor if you two are separated by oceans. The above mentioned issues come into play like time zone differences and the question of who’s going to travel (not to mention who’s going to pay for it).
I’m not trying to dissuade you from working with sponsors outside of your region. Not at all. You just have to know what you’re in for.
I also implore you to ask yourself a simple question. Why this prospect specifically? What do they offer that no other sponsor does? Could a local sponsor offer the same if you were to dig deeper?
Some sponsorship seekers think that having a big national or international sponsor looks cooler on their resume. It can, but the strife you can go through trying to negotiate a deal of this magnitude can negate many of the benefits.
I recommend starting your sponsorship program with good, old-fashioned prospecting. Well, you should have audience data first, but I’ll talk more about that in the next section.
You can create a solid list of upwards of 60, 70, sometimes even closer to 100 sponsorship prospects if you use your audience as your guide.
When you send your audience a survey asking about their interests, motivations, and purchasing behavior, pay attention to the brands they mention. These are your top-tier prospects. Even better, they’re usually quite warm, i.e., more receptive to your communications.
Next, make a list of the brands that your audience tells you markets to them. This information should again come from your audience survey.
Your audience doesn’t necessarily engage with these brands, but they’re likelier to. Thus, these prospects are warm but not as much as the first group.
Now you’ll create another group of prospects, which are the companies that should advertise to your audience based on what you know about your audience. These prospects are cooler but still valuable.
Finally, I want you to go through every prospect on your list and then come up with three or four competitors for each one.
I never said sponsorship prospecting was fast, but it is effective.
Send a Business Case, Not a Sponsorship Proposal
Even though your sponsorship prospect might be on another coast or even another country, that doesn’t mean the basic sponsorship rules go out the window.
Geography isn’t a good reason to ignore corporate sponsorship best practices, which means you shouldn’t lead with a sponsorship package, a one-pager, or a giant email packed with your mission and vision statement hoping to make the sale without ever having to meet.
If anything, a faraway prospect would be even more disinclined to look at your sponsorship proposal than a local. You could have at least had some face-to-face interaction with a local prospect that cannot happen when you’re separated by thousands of miles.
In other words, the faraway prospect doesn’t feel any personal connection to you, so they don’t feel like they have to do you any favors either. You’re a virtual stranger to them, and no one wants a sponsorship proposal from a stranger.
National and international sponsorship sales don’t require a sponsorship package any more than local sponsorship does. At some point, of course, you will likely want to put together a custom sponsorship proposal.
At the very least, I recommend making a business case in scenarios like these. Nowhere in this case document is how much money we’re charging, sponsorship levels, or exhibiting opportunities.
What we focus on instead is the following:
- Where the audience is coming from
- Who they are
- What they earn
- Why they are important
- What they buy
In other words, this is the audience data that you’d present to any sponsorship prospect. Except instead of the usual context of this data in your sponsorship program, you’re putting it into an easy-breezy business case.
A business case comes with less pressure. Your prospect might be more willing to glance over a business case because it feels more informal compared to a multi-page sponsorship proposal.
Plus, if the prospect feels like your audience isn’t a good fit with their target audience, you’ll know right away.
As a note, these kinds of audience mismatches shouldn’t happen if you take the time to research your prospects.
Learn How to Handle National Event Sponsorship Challenges
I hear all the time that “we run an event/conference etc. that changes locations every year.” My response? Good!
This way, you don’t exhaust your local sponsors.
My question is always: who is your audience and who are your attendees? If they all travel to your sponsorship event or conference, then your prospects aren’t geography-specific anyway!
If all your sponsors and attendees travel to your chosen location, then you don’t really have a problem with geography.
Go to where your sponsors are located, and if those sponsors are prepared to travel to meet your guests, they have the same problems of geography as you do and won’t mind more phone meetings than usual.
What about those pesky time zone troubles? Well, somebody’s going to have to bend and go out of their way to accommodate the other. I would suggest that someone be you.
After all, you’re the one asking something of the sponsor, not the other way around. You want to do what you can to make the arrangement between you and them a smooth one.
If that means waking up early or staying up late to chat on the phone, respond to emails, or do a video call, then so be it.
This isn’t forever, so remind yourself of that. Within a few weeks or months, your event will end, and you won’t be in as frequent communication with the sponsor.
Expect to Travel, But Not All the Time
I want to reiterate a point I mentioned before. If you want to work with them, you often have to go to where your sponsors are located. This will mean traveling.
I know what you’re thinking. If you need sponsorship funding to pull together an event, how are you supposed to afford frequent jet-setting across the world?
Well, the good news is that you won’t travel as much as you think.
I sold a sizable sponsorship package to a company in Australia for a US-based event while living in Canada. How many times did I go to Australia? Zero.
I had to take calls in the middle of the night to accommodate the time difference, but that’s it.
You might be able to pull off the same, especially if you have several successful sponsorship programs under your belt already.
If you must travel, then you want to do it only when it’s really, truly required.
Today, we have all sorts of cool technology that allows us to almost seem like we’re in the same place with someone else. Use that technology as much as you can.
Your sponsorship prospects know that traveling isn’t free, and that money doesn’t grow on trees. Thus, if they’re asking you to come out to see them all the time for matters that could have been dealt with over the phone or through video chat, I’d reconsider working with them.
Use Your Trips to Create Deadlines
When you hop aboard a plane and venture out to a new part of the world, be that the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, or anywhere, be smart about how you use your time.
Your travel schedule can create some pressure on your sponsorship prospects to get the ball rolling or keep it rolling. This pressure wouldn’t exist if you were working on a local deal, so long-distance sponsorship arrangements do have their perks.
When you tell a sponsorship prospect that you are in town for three days and you want to meet with them to discuss next steps, something magical happens. Those prospects who aren’t serious vanish and those who are step up to the plate.
They know why you are coming to town; they know you only have a small window and they know how you have prioritized them so they are either flattered or afraid that you will try to close the deal when you meet.
Let me tell you, you don’t have to close a sponsorship deal when you meet with a prospect in person. It’s convenient if you can, but you can always take care of the fine details through email or video chat once you’re back in your respective countries.
Even if your goal isn’t to close a sponsorship deal in three days (which is often unrealistic anyway), you do want to get on a plane with deadlines in your mind.
You can’t close the deal in such a short time, but what else can you do?
Have the discovery session? That’s absolutely a realistic goal. Maybe pass along some documents like your sponsorship proposal if the prospect is interested? I would recommend bringing several copies of your proposal, yes.
Talk about activations and do other planning for the event? That’s another goal that should be doable.
You’re already going to be exhausted from the jetlag, the time differences, and the work you have to do. Plus, if you follow the schedule I’m going to lay out in the next tip, you’ll have that exhaustion creeping up on you as well.
Overshooting your expectations can make what you do achieve seem meaningless when it really isn’t. It all comes together in due time!
Stack Your Meetings
This next tip is all about those juggling multiple prospects when traveling. I like to categorize sponsorship prospects into an A, B, and C list. Start with the A-listers and book your meetings.
If none of the A-listers want to meet, then the trip isn’t worth it. You don’t really have a sponsorship pipeline anyway.
I would recommend trying to strengthen your prospects list and then look into traveling maybe several weeks or months from now.
Once you have your prospects split into categories like this, I like to stack meetings. Start with an early-morning breakfast for A-listers only. Give every meeting outside of meals one hour and stick to it.
Try to make your sponsors come to you (which is much easier if you can set up camp at a nice café to entice them) and give yourself no more than 30 minutes between meetings.
Yes, this is an incredibly regimented way to do it. You will feel awful at the end of the trip. But you know what else you’ll feel? Accomplished.
Here’s what you could do over three days:
- Two breakfast meetings
- Three lunch meetings
- Three dinner meetings
- One networking event
- 15 coffee meetings
- One business breakfast
Total number of prospects over those three days? 35! And that isn’t including all the potential prospects you could meet at the networking event!
Networking events are far more valuable than merely collecting the business cards of potential sponsors. I never plan to travel for meetings unless there is a networking event to use as an anchor.
This lets me maximize my time spent in a location. Once I have my anchor, I make sure I plan a business breakfast with a local contact while I’m there.
Gain an International Following on Social Media
A lot of sponsorship seekers ask me how to break into overseas or international sponsorship. One of the easiest ways is by building connections.
Social media is an excellent place to start. Begin pivoting your advertising and content publishing toward international audiences. For example, the next time you host a contest or giveaway, open it up to participants worldwide, or at least in the country you’re targeting.
Watch as your followers begin to diversify. From there, it’s a lot easier to get to know what international audiences like, which will point you in the direction of which kinds of prospects to seek out.
However, remember that while you’re doing this, you can’t neglect your local audience, or that can hurt attendance or participation during your next event, program, or opportunity.
Be Ready for Some Late/Early Meetings
One of the trickiest parts of gaining international sponsors is dealing with time zones. They’re unavoidable.
I mentioned earlier how you’ll have to be prepared to travel as you expand your sponsorship parameters, but what about those times when you’re communicating with prospective or current sponsors via phone call or video meeting?
You’re going to have to stay up late or get up early. It’s always best to accommodate the sponsor’s time zone, as you’ll make it as convenient as possible for you two to interact and continue to keep the ball rolling.
Keep in mind when sending emails or DMs that time zones can impact when you hear back. For example, it might be noon for you when you fire off that message, but on the other side of the world, it’s the middle of the night.
This can sometimes slow progress as you wait longer for responses, so build that time into your deadlines if you can.
Have a Plan in Place for Language Barriers
However, far more difficult than even time zone differences are language barriers.
Ideally, you should be at least conversational in the language the sponsor speaks before you seek a working arrangement. This will make communication much more streamlined and straightforward, which you need to form the basis of a solid working relationship.
I mean, if you must have a translator—and I mean hiring a human translator and not relying on a tool like Google Translate—then so be it. Keep in mind though that despite perfect translations, some concepts, thoughts, and ideas can get lost in translation from one language to another.
Of course, in some instances, you and the sponsor may both speak English, but theirs may not be be as good as yours. Help them along without being condescending and go out of your way to ensure you’re on the same page when talking about the sponsor’s goals and challenges especially.
Build on the Trust of One Successful Partnership
Seeking international sponsorship is sort of like starting over. You remember what those days were like when striving to work with national sponsors, right? It was all about gaining and building on trust.
Trust will take you far in international partnerships, so do your best to develop a positive reputation. Dig in deep during the discovery session to get to the core of the sponsor’s problems. Brainstorm hard to create custom assets and activations that will make a difference.
Value fairly, deliver well, and put together a fulfillment report even if you aren’t interested in renewal.
Following these steps will build trust between you and your sponsor, and that begets other successful sponsorship relationships in the future.
Continuously Network
That said, you shouldn’t rest on your laurels yet. Work hard to build a network. When you travel to another country for a sponsorship meeting (or the event itself), see if there are any networking conferences or events you can attend.
When you’re back on home soil, connect with potential prospects through LinkedIn and other online avenues.
Networking is great because you never know who could have your next sponsorship opportunity. Even if they don’t directly become your next sponsor, they could recommend you to someone will be.
Create Case Studies
Going back to the importance of building trust when working with international sponsors, case studies are the way to do it. Detail a problem the sponsor faced and how your assets and activations helped them overcome. If you have stats, data, and figures to back you up, that’s even better.
Case studies are valuable for more than building trust. They can drive sponsorship renewal, as here you have hard numbers that prove how reliable you are. They can also influence future sponsorship relationships.
Get Clear on Currency
There’s one last struggle with international sponsorship I haven’t touched on yet, and it’s a biggie. It’s currency.
Currencies vary in countries globally, and what sometimes seems like a large amount can be considerably smaller if you convert it to your native USD (or CAD, in my case!).
For example, if a sponsor offers you 1,000,000 yen, you’ll think you’ve hit the big time, right? That’s a million smackeroos.
Except it isn’t. It’s 1 million yen, but when converted to USD, it’s only about $6,600.
Fortunately, there are enough free currency calculators out there that you can easily convert your valuation dollars into the sponsor’s currency. When they propose an amount, you can always convert that into USD or CAD.
FAQs
What Are the Benefits of International Sponsorship?
Broadening your sponsorship horizons has many advantages, including:
- Increase your audience size by accessing different and unique markets
- Elevate your revenue
- Build your business or organization’s value
- Strengthen your branding
- Diversification and adaptability
What Are Some Challenges of International Sponsorship?
Besides language barriers and time zone differences, here are some issues you must be privy to as you contemplate international sponsorship:
- Supply chain delays
- Understanding foreign policy
- Cultural differences
- Potential delayed payments
- Difficulty finding a payment system
Conclusion
Sponsorship seekers can be intimidated by geography, but there’s no need to be. With the tips I outlined for you today, you can connect with sponsors in other parts of the world and travel when it matters. When you’re abroad, you can also make the most of your time.
Good luck!
- About the Author
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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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