The Sponsorship Package is an Outcome, Not the Starting Point

Most organizations start their sponsorship journey by creating a sponsorship package. They create beautifully designed proposals, edited by multiple levels internally, voted on by the board and written (and rewritten) with every single eventuality in mind.

“If we create a sponsorship deck that covers absolutely every option for a sponsor, then every company we approach will see something for them” is the guiding logic.

Then once all of the above is complete, and only then, does the organization reach out to sponsors, sending in the masterfully created sponsorship package and waiting for the sale.

Sound familiar? It should! It is the default approach of virtually all organizations seeking sponsorship. Unfortunately, it is also the worst possible way to sell sponsorship.

The sponsorship package is not where you begin your sponsorship sales process, it is where it ends. The process of developing a sponsorship package should uncover valuable information from within your organization and not simply describe what you think sponsors want.

Check out these five steps in building your sponsorship package:

Inventory Building

You can’t sell product without stock and your sponsorship assets are what you have to sell. Most sponsorship packages start with a 5 minute exercise where the person writing the package makes a list of the things they think sponsors want. It usually starts and ends with “logos on stuff” and includes free tickets, mention from the MC and other assets focused on building “awareness.”

Instead, do this:

Get your entire team together and ask:

• What do our sponsors want to achieve?
• What actions do they want our audience to take?
• What do they want us to measure to prove that we delivered?
• What do our sponsors want more of and what do they hate?
• What does our audience want more of?
• Where can we put logos?
• What can we do without ANY logos?

List every single idea you have, without exception! Now look at your competitors and see what they offer to make sure you aren’t missing anything. Once you’ve done this, reach out to at least five sponsorship prospects and interview them, asking them the same questions.

Sponsorship Valuation

Once you’ve defined an inventory of assets for sale, the next step in building a sponsorship package is to understand your value. Common practice is to start with how much money you need to raise and then divide it arbitrarily across your sponsorship levels (Gold, Silver, Bronze anyone?).

This is a dangerous practice that alienates sponsors, leaves money on the table and ensures that your sponsorship proposals make a direct trip to the recycling bin!

Valuation is simple in concept but highly complex in practice, depending on the size of your inventory. Start by asking the question “How would my sponsor get this exposure without me?” and then look to those sources for values. Logo placement, for example, is similar to small ads in publications targeting your audience. Sponsor wants an email address? How much will it cost them to get an email address without you (through social media or buying a list)? What about sampling? Look to events attracting the same audience as a starting point.

Know Your Audience

Most sponsorship packages start with pages and pages of things like mission, vision, history of the organization, maybe a bio or two of the founder or a prominent board member and then a description of the social impact of the charity.

Including details about your organization is very important but this high level of detail does not help a sponsor understand the value of your sponsorship opportunity. Instead, spend the first three pages of your sponsorship deck describing your audience in detail. The “general population” is not an audience, nor is “everyone” or “all of city X, country X” etc.

Send out a survey to your audience and collect the following as a starting point:

• Job titles and industry
• Wealth data
• Demographic information
• Preferred brands
• Coming purchases
• Hobbies and past times

Aim for no less than 20 data points. This is the stuff sponsors want to learn about and it is this information that will help you to stand out above other organizations, with equally good causes, who don’t understand their audience.

Develop Some Sponsorship Activation Ideas

Putting logos on things is still part of the sponsorship world but if all you’re selling is logo placement and free tickets, you are in big trouble! Sponsors want to connect with your audience, your membership and your database. The best way to do that is to offer your audience something that interests them (based on their answers from your survey!). Rather then enduring yet another speech at your next gala, offer your guests something that adds value to their lives or that solves a problem they are experiencing.

Those are the things that sponsors want to be part of! Describe the unique opportunities that you offer your audience in your sponsorship package, not in a chart with values, but as a collection of examples that show how you work with your sponsors.

Only Include The Things That Your Sponsors Want…

(and Nothing Else)

The biggest problem with using a sponsorship package as the starting point of your sponsorship journey is that you have to guess at what your sponsors want. The attempt to include everything you can think of in your material so as not to miss out on a key detail is an impossible pursuit and makes for unreadable sponsorship packages.

Instead, include only and exactly what each sponsor wants. How do you accomplish this? By talking to your prospect BEFORE you submit a proposal. That’s right, you will actually meet with and sell to your prospect before you finish each sponsorship package. Don’t give them a list of things to choose from. Instead, talk to them about your audience and their goals, and then discuss how you can work together to connect them in meaningful ways to their target audience and ideal customer.

Using this approach, you will spend less time in internal debate about what to write on page 17 of a sponsorship package for a hypothetical sponsor and instead will develop sales material perfectly suited for your prospects. You will also start to see that a sponsorship package is the outcome of good fundraising and not the driver of the fundraising process.

Do I Need a Sponsorship Package at the Beginning of the Sponsorship Process? 

Here’s the part that always throws sponsorship seekers for a loop. You don’t need a sponsorship package, at least not initially.

It’s like I said, it’s not the starting point, it’s the ending point.

If you prepare it too early, you’re likely to run into the following issues.

Your Sponsorship Approach Will Be Far Too Salesy

Listen, I know you’re eager to close your sponsorship deal. You’re waiting on bated breath for a response from your prospect, which is why you shouldn’t wield your proposal like a sales weapon.

When you take a sales approach to putting together your sponsorship package, you’ll inevitably focus on the wrong facets.

Your audience data will be minimal at best, either because you didn’t spend enough time focusing on dividing your audience into small, specific segments, or because you don’t want to extrapolate on your data because that’s less space you have for gold, silver, and bronze sponsorship levels.

You’ll also waste your initial meeting with the sponsor, focusing on sharpening your sales pitch and closing the deal ASAP. That’s rarely how sponsorship works.

Sure, some sponsors make up their minds quickly, but in most instances, it’s a slow burn. The process requires several meetings and conversations. When you try to jump in and dominate by closing the sale, you interrupt the process.

You’ll Have Generic Assets and Activations

Have you stopped and thought about what you’re selling? I find that many sponsorship seekers obsessed with closing the deal rarely do.

Whether it’s through inexperience, focusing on the wrong things, or an eagerness to close the deal fast, most sponsorship packages from beginners feature gold, silver, and bronze packages filled to the brim with generic activations and assets.

The problem isn’t only genericism. The assets are inherently low-value, such as logos and shoutouts from the podium. These are opportunities that only promote brand awareness, and hardly.

If you’re focused on sales, generic assets are the last thing you want. They aren’t going to give you the big earnings you were hoping for. That’s because you need custom activations and assets.

You Won’t Learn the Value of Customizing Your Sponsorship Package 

Customizing your sponsorship package is one of the most valuable tools in your kit. I wouldn’t call it a skill, per se, but rather, a protocol to learn. You discuss a sponsor’s needs, create solutions that solve those needs, and also loop in your audience, fulfilling their needs.

I know I make it seem simple when I put it like that, and it isn’t necessarily. However, any attempt you make at customizing your sponsorship package is better than offering gold, silver, and bronze tiers. Trust me on that.

Sponsors have problems that need solving. When you come in with a sponsorship package you put together before you even met the sponsor, those solutions may or may not solve the problem. I would bet that most won’t, because many generic assets focus on brand awareness, a goal most sponsors don’t have.

The next time you try to pedal assets and activations to a sponsor, stop and ask yourself a question. Do the assets in your sponsorship package help the sponsor get more website traffic? Social media engagement? Do they assist them in expanding their audience by breaking into a new market?

If the answers to those questions are no, your assets are too generic.

Where Does the Sponsorship Package Fit In?

Writing the sponsorship package before you talk to a sponsor not only puts you at risk of genericism, but you also risk wasting your time!

Time is money, and if you have a time-sensitive event, program, or opportunity, every second is precious. Wasting time now adds up later.

So, just so we’re both on the same page here, I figured it’s a good idea to review the stages of sponsorship and where your proposal belongs.

• Goal setting: Before you seek a single sponsor, you should know what you want and why. Does your gala need more funding? Is your startup new and could use more promotion? Not all sponsors are the same. There are the ever-popular cash sponsors as well as media sponsors and even in-kind or contra sponsors. You need to know which you want.
• Audience data: Next, survey your audience to understand their challenges and needs better. You especially want to learn their opinions, beliefs, and motivations, or psychographic information for short. Once you have this, split your audience as finely as you can, generating 20+ data points on each segment.
• Prospecting: The audience responses make prospecting a lot easier, as your customers, donors, or attendees should have been upfront about the brands they most like. Start with those, then build out your prospects list with similar brands, such as those that advertise to people like your audience. Competitors of all the brands are also great to have on the list to give it more bulk.
• First contact: The goal of connecting with a sponsor is to set up a discovery session, which is an informal meeting where you learn more about their goals and challenges.
• Discovery session: Use this as an open conversation between you and the prospect. The point is to understand where your services can fit in and how.
• Sponsorship proposal and package: Yes, now it’s time for your sponsorship package. By taking the time to put it together at this point, you ensure you have assets and activations that respond well and solve a sponsor’s issues.

From there, you’ll likely have a few more meetings with the sponsor to cement details. Then you’ll get to the point where you both sign a contract, and voila, you officially have a sponsor.

FAQs

What Should Go in a Sponsorship Package?

Your sponsorship package should include an opening letter, in-depth audience data (let those segments shine!), and asset and activation inventory.

How Do You Structure a Sponsorship Package? 

I got you covered. It’s a six-page document that begins with a title page, delves briefly into your opportunity and cause, divulges all your audience data, then includes a menu of your assets and activations.

Wrapping Up 

Your sponsorship package is a valuable tool for showcasing audience data and sharing your asset and activation inventory, but it has its time and its place. That is not at the beginning of the sponsorship process, but rather, nearer the end.

By giving the package its due process rather than trying to force it down a prospective sponsor’s throat, you could find that your meetings transpire more smoothly, and your prospects are more receptive to working together.

Of course, if you need further help achieving your sponsorship goals, you should set up an appointment with the Sponsorship Collective today.

This post was first published by the good people at Charity Village.