how to find sponsors - sponsormyevent · ductions). this all-purpose video can also serve you well...

www.sponsormyevent.com

How to findSPONSORS

by SponsorMyEvent.com

part I


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INTRODUCTION

Congratulations! You’ve decided to organize an event. That’s awesome and thrilling. Your quest for the perfect event is probably only starting at this point and any exciting but

also tough moments lay ahead. ne part of the job is the search for sponsors that will allow you to finance your event or to bring in needed goods and services such as catering or technology.

So let’s go and get everything started. But wait … don’t start shouting about it to sponsors right away. Like everything in life, a successful sponsorship campaign needs careful planning. Com-pare it to going on a date: you know what you want (at least we hope). But if you just go for it without preparing the date well, you will be doomed to fail (or in other words; walk home alone). So take a breath and first think about what you want to do and what you want from others (namely your sponsors). I often emphasise the fact that sponsors are like clients: they need to be convinced to buy your product. Your product is your event and you should never forget that you’re not the only one to invite the sponsor for that famous date. You are in fierce competition with many event organizers who might have some great proposals.

So what do you need to do? Give up? NO! You just need to be better than the others!


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PART1:Description firstDRESS TO IMPRESSPreparations for a date can be quite impressive. On the woman’s side it often starts with lengthy sessions in the bathroom. Hair being curled up, makeup added, nails pristinely taken care of. Men usually shave and put on their best aftershave, eventually some gel in the hair. Then comes the dressing: skirts adapted to the situation, maybe a suit for the gentlemen, shoes that mark the final touch. And tadah, we are ready to enter the stage and to make our date a success.

Sounds familiar? Sure, for most of us that’s a no-brainer.So let me ask you one question: why do so many organizers not apply the same rules when it comes to finding sponsors? You need to impress a sponsor! After all, you want their money, don’t you?Dressing in this case means that you have to gather all the neces-sary facts about your event and to compile them in a way that sponsors cannot resist anymore.

We at SponsorMyEvent see so many events coming in with two or three lines of description. Excuse me, but who do you think you will be dealing with? You’re asking for real money (and often considerable amounts) from your sponsors and then you dare to come up with a two-line description of what you’re offering.


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MISTAKE The first contact: - “Don’t: Here’s my event, give me money!”

How many times did I see messag-es like “Hey we’re organizing this event and need $5k.”. Honestly: would you answer to such a re-quest?No matter what channel an organ-izer contacts a sponsor through, the first impression is a lasting one. A carefully drafted, well prepared presentation of the event is the first step to attract the sponsors attention. Poorly showcased events will end up unseen.

1Think twice please.

Crafting a compelling description is not an easy thing. We all know that. Few people are gifted writers, but many things can be learned or outsourced if necessary. First, put yourself in the shoes of the sponsor. Imagine how you would describe them your event. What could be interesting to them? The colour of the seats chosen for the conference that you are so proud of? No way. Spon-sors are interested in VISIBILITY. There-fore align your pitch around this crucial fact. You need to prove to a sponsor that your event is THE occasion for them to gain visibility and find new clients. So emphasize how many people your event will attract, what kind of people they are and why they will give your sponsors the attention they deserve.

Also emphasise the different opportunities you can give the sponsors. Times are past where hanging a banner is compelling. You need to carefully craft ways to immerse your sponsors in your event and thus create a win-win-win situation (win for the organizer, the sponsor AND for the audience).

The description shouldn’t be too long. Sponsors usually don’t have much time and are not willing to read a whole novel. They are interested in getting straight to the point. Avoid marketing blah-blah and instead better focus on what assets your event brings.


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THE TAGLINEWhat do you see first when you meet for a date? Yes, it’s the ap-pearance, the smile, the first movements. After just a glimpse, you’l feel attracted, or not!

It’s useful to start your description with a 140 character tagline that introduces your event and attracts much needed attention. This synopsis allows the sponsor to have quick overview over your event and to decide in a fraction of a second if it makes sense to keep on reading.

A good tagline could be “The sport-event that gathers over 5,000 runners from all across Europe in one of the it’s most beautiful cities.” Or for a corpo-rate event: “200 international MedTech specialists discuss-ing the latest inventions in X-Ray tech”. For local events a good tagline could be: “THE rock-concert for 20+ genera-tion in Shoreditch. A must for music addicts.”

Imagine that you would tweet this tagline so that you attract more followers. We are living in a Twitter-world and therefore it’s important to catch peoples’ attention within 140 characters.

THE INTROThe first words can ultimately decide whether a date will be a success or if the Titanic will drown a second time. Greasy words


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without any meaning are no-go’s! Be authentic, real and honest.

I admit that looking for a sponsor is far less romantic than the heading out for a date, but still it remains a dance for attraction.

So briefly describe what you are up to and organize why you are doing it. It’s a bit of storytelling that will help here without loos-ing the focus on what your event is. Keep it concise and compel-ling by giving valuable information about your event. If the spon-sor sees it and says: “Wow, sounds interesting, I’ll read on”, then you have made it all right.

THE MAIN PARTThe main dish is served. We have made it through the intro and hopefully your vis-à-vis is still lis-tening to you after you’ve attract-ed their attention. Now we’ll dive in deeper, we’ll become substan-tial. This is the point where it’s decided how your future will be. Alone, or in good company.

Surprisingly it’s exactly here where most organizers fail. Mostly because they forget with whom they are talking. It’s NOT about describing how fantastic your event will be and why everyone should visit this event. NO! It’s about describing why your spon-sors should sign the cheque. So what will you focus on? Right: what you can offer to sponsors (this is not to be confounded with the description of available sponsorship packages).Here you will emphasise what makes your event special for the sponsor. Why the sponsor will say “I want to sponsor this event and not another one.“ Work on explaining why your event gives


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MISTAKE The Title - “Don’t: Miss America”

The title of your event opens doors - and closes them. Many times have I seen events published under the brand-names of bigger organiza-tions. It will not help anyone if you are a wannabe beauty-queen and publish an event with the title “Miss America” just because you intend to participate in the beauty-contest one day. That’s not only mislead-ing but also legally difficult. Most sponsors will feel that you’ve stolen their time when they discover that you are actually not organizing the event the title supposed you would.

2the sponsors better visibility than oth-ers. Are you integrating the sponsors in a more efficient way than other events? Are you using technology on site that will give the sponsor the most attention? Do you apply a concept that is new and will be well appreciated both by the audience and the sponsors?

So what will you do if you are not a good writer? Look around you. Very often someone in your entourage will be willing to give you a helping hand to write a de-scription that will be well appreciated by sponsors.

Another possibility is to rely on a ghostwriter. You can find many offering more than decent writing skills for a bargain. Why not outsource? Give them a good briefing and invest a bit of money for a far better result.


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PART 2:A video80% of all Kickstarter campaigns come with a video. Why is that? Have you been on YouTube recently? Bingo, you have the an-swer. A short video can be the perfect teaser for almost every kind of event. And honestly; making a video has become so main-stream that it’s almost considered a must for successful event organizers. More and more events on SponsorMyEvent are pub-lished with a video - most of them pretty good ones. I’ve been producing videos for many years and thus I know pretty well the pitfalls of making a compelling video.

Your video should be a pitch that describes what your event is about. It doesn’t need to be sponsor-centric, you’re best off pro-ducing an all purpose teaser that describes your event ,unless you have enough ressources to make a tailor-made video just for your sponsors (which might well be the case for bigger event-pro-ductions). This all-purpose video can also serve you well to adver-tise your in other places.

The first lesson to be learned is that today everyone has access to the technology needed to produce a good looking video. To-day even smartphones produce a quality which is good enough to make a decent video. The bad news; not everybody is gifted to do so. So what to do? Video-production companies exist and are willing to produce teasers of existing footage for reasonable pric-es. Not entirely for free, but it’s an investment that may well pay off. Also it should be remembered that you may find someone you already know who is willing and able to help out with this.

Just as with the description or the event you should go for qual-


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ity. Don’t make a bad video just because you think you have to make a video under any circumstances. In this case it’s better to focus on a pristine description and additional ressources.

TWO POSSIBLE SCENARIOS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED:There’s footage available from a prior eventThat makes it easier. You can compile a video and showcase what already happened during your last event. Make it short and relevant and keep it dynamic. If you have statements with at least acceptable audio-quality from participants, include them. You should focus on the bigger picture and thus giving a good over-view of what your event is all about and how it looks. Then fill it

up with images of the details that are noteworthy and might give your event the special touch.

If you have footage of how you’ve integrated past spon-sors into your event, you should definitely use this

There’s NO footage avail-able

This doesn’t make it easy, but also not impossible. There are sev-eral remedies for this: for a teaser-style video, take images of the venue you have chosen and combine these images with short panels containing facts about your event. This can be done in a dynamic way that provides information and not distraction.

You can perfectly integrate short statements of key players in-


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volved in the planning of the event. If you already have key par-ticipants, include them as well. Don’t go for lenghty interviews, limit it to short statements that bring an added value to your vid-eo. Again: keep it meaningful.

Don’t go for a 10 minute video. Nobody will watch to the end! We discovered that most people switch off within the first 30 sec-onds. So you have let’s say 15 seconds to capture the attention so that people will watch it till the end. I would not exceed 1-2 minutes in length unless your video is really super-interesting and goes into detail that sponsors are sure to watch. Another possibility is to split it into two complementary videos: one which is a global teaser for your event and a second one that spe-cifically covers the sponsorship opportunity.

I often see obvious copyright in-fringements made by amateurs (and also professionals) produc-ing videos. It’s impossible to go into all the details without dou-bling the length of this book, but some basics should be taken into consideration:l check every single piece that you use in your video to make sure

you have the rights to use it.l footage that has been made by a videographer is under

copyright. Ask for a written permission before using it.l statements: have an email that clearly allows you to use the

statement from the people you plan to integrate into your vid-eo.

l music: I’ve never seen so many copyright infringements as with


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MISTAKE The Description - “Don’t: Great concert in Cactus-Town”

It seems that many organizers don’t know how to describe their own event.But how do you want a sponsor to fall for your event if your event description is not well crafted? Take your time and write down what makes your event special. Be short and concise. Provide all necessary information like the expected audi-ence, location and also maybe prior editions of the event.

3music. Every music you will find is somehow copyright protected. Never ever use any music you’ve downloaded from iTunes or somewhere else without making sure you have the explicit rights to use it. If you have doubts you should head for royalty-free stock-music that can be found amongst others on istock.com. The prices are affordable and you will not risk any legal troubles.

Publishing the video is easy, mak-ing it visible less soThanks to Youtube (or Vimeo if you pre-fer), it has never been easier to make your video(s) visible to the world. Embedding the video on your own site or on other places is done with a few clicks and you can easily share it on your social networks. Do we really need to discuss that? I don’t think so.

It’s more difficult to make it popular. Don’t expect it to be found just because you’ve published it on YouTube. You have to market it! Share it, send it out to sponsors, integrate it on your profile on SponsorMyEvent and make sure that you invite as many people as possible to watch it. Ask your friends to share it so that it could even go viral . Nothing comes for free and in this case it means work for visibility. A very simple equation which is often forgot-ten.


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PART3:The power of sponsor-packagesThe bad news is that many ambitious event organizers with bril-liant events spoil their chances to catch sponsors because of a bad presentation of the packages.

Many events that we see at SponsorMyEvent.com for publication are initially put on hold because either the spon-sor-packages are not filled in at all, or not in a way that makes the event attractive to spon-sors.

Sponsor-packages, basically, what the Event-Organizer pro-poses to the Sponsor in return for money (“you’ll give us mon-

ey, in return we’ll put your logo on our flyers…”). But quite of-ten, sponsorship is also organized as an exchange of services or goods (“beer for visibility”).Depending on the event size, there are usually two kinds of spon-sor-packages:l single itemsl complete packages

SINGLE ITEMSSmaller event organizers often only have a handful of options to highlight to their sponsors. Very often flyers are sent out, posters hung somewhere, internet-sites published etc…


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MISTAKE The sponsor-packages - “Don’t: We just need maybe $500?”

I understand that not every organiz er is familiar with the concept of sponsor-packages. But they should be! Very often, I see event organiz-ers who try to organize quite prom-ising events but when it comes to collecting money, they simply have no clue how much money they need and on the other hand what they can propose to potential spon-sors.

The art is to make the spon-sor-packages so compelling and attractive that sponsors immediate-ly see the ROI in each package. Yet the package-design has to be so well balanced that they are inter-esting for various kinds and sizes of sponsors.

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All these are single items that can be pro-posed to potential sponsors. A typical item should contain the following details:l Name of the item (i.e. logo on flyer)l Available slots: that means how many

sponsors can “buy” this item (i.e.: you have space for 5 logos on the flyer, so the number of slots would be 5)

l Price: what a sponsor has to pay for the item (i.e. $200 for the logo on a flyer)

l Audience: the amount of people who will see this item (i.e.: flyer is printed 1,000 times and distributed to 500 house-holds and in addition distributed at local events … in this case the audience would be 1,000)

l Description: more details about the item, like size of the flyer, visibility, important informations that you want to give about your item

When defining your items, you should always keep in mind, that you want to sell something. Sponsors are clients who very care-fully choose the events they want to invest in. Therefore it’s abso-lutely necessary to define your items in the clearest way possible.

COMPLETE PACKAGESBigger events usually don’t feature single items such as those described above. Instead they bundle such items into packages, often called “gold”, “silver”, “bronze” or similar.

Usually a package contains several single items that are bundled together in the most attractive way. The organizer should put together items that are complementary so that the sponsor sees


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the benefit of this package right away.

Of course you shouldn’t forget the psychological aspect of the packages; a package that contains many different items stands for great value for money. In addition the packages should be defined in a way that sponsors are incited to hopefully chose a package which is a bit bigger, simply because there are items in that they really want to have.

The advantage of this bundling is that the organizer has the pos-sibility to create packages that are most attractive to sponsors. And of course it leaves a bigger impression to see a “gold pack-age” that includes “logo, banner, rollup, mention in blogs etc…”, instead of only a single item “logo on flyer”.

If carefully crafted, sponsor-packages give the event a touch of professionalism and show that the organier has sufficient knowl-edge about the sponsoring industry and cares about the spon-sor.


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PART4:Artwork - wrap your informationWe don’t want you to spend hundreds of dollars hiring a designer for a custom-made logo for your event. But please, don’t let your event stand naked. We at SponsorMyEvent see way too many events popping up without any logo or visual at all. That’s a wast-ed opportunity, especially as the logo will the first thing your spon-sors (and others) will see.

This is the same about what has been said about writing a descrip-tion and producing a video; no-body expects you to be the best designer in the world but there are so many possibilities to create artwork that at least looks decent - even for people who are the least creative people on the planet.

We suggest having a look at Canva.com. I can’t think of an online design-tool that’s easier to use then Canva. Canva comes with a huge list of premade designs that can easily be adapted to your needs. Various formats help beginners to create a decent looking design in a few minutes that can be used on various occasions, from social networking up to print. And the prices are more then affordable, $1 for a complete premium design, including stock-photo really is a bargain, other designs are completely free!

Depending on the size of your event, it might be interesting to have real logo designed. 99designs.com is a marketplace that


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MISTAKE Answering to sponsor-requests - “Don’t: no answer …”

One should think that every organ-izer is overwhelmed if a sponsor is showing interest. This is not always the case. Many times I was blown away that serious requests from bigger sponsors simply remained unanswered. Is it simple laziness or maybe also a bit of stubbornness? Simply not answering a call is a complete no-go. An organizer can disagree with a sponsor or even refuse them, but no matter what, an answer is a must. And any an-swer has to be made in a way that ensures doors for a sponsorship on other occasions remain open.

5connects you to designers around the world for affordable prices. They also have ready-made logos for $99 which you can be adapted to your needs.

Again you should also look around if you can find someone around you who can help you out with some artwork or de-sign-skills.

No matter how you choose to do it, you should know where you want to use the artwork and how. Making a small image and blowing it up then later to a full for-mat image on Facebook or even worse for print doesn’t work. You’d be better off making various versions of one design in a range or sizes so that you have it ready for all occasions.


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PART5:Shout it out loud!Why craft an award winning description, a gorgeous video and a brilliant logo if no sponsor ever gets to know about your event? This would be nothing but a terrible waste of ressources! You need to shout it out. And you need to shout it out loud!

We at SponsorMyEvent propose incoming events to matching sponsors, but naturally we cannot (yet) have a decent number

of sponsors in all corners of the world. So you need to be proactive as well. That’s why within SponsorMyEvent we have created powerful tools that help you to promote your event to sponsors which are not yet on SponsorMyEvent. But keep in mind that this tool cannot completely take away your work. And your work is to get in touch with sponsors.

We are often asked from organizers what they can do to reach out to sponsors. There are in fact numerous ways and not every way may apply for every type of event. But still there are some common channels that no organizers should leave untested.

THE GOOD OLD WAYSo you’re organizing an event and need sponsors? Take a pen and write down the first ten names of companies that you might think they would be interested to sponsor your event. You see?


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It’s not that difficult. You’ve probably even found some additional names without spending to much thinking on it.

Now take your list again and write the name of a contact person next to the name of the company. If you have a contact person, then we can suppose that you also know how to reach out to that person. So next to that name, write the email address, phone number or other way you may contact them.

Some companies will remain blank as you don’t have any con-tacts there. But if you think twice you should easily be able to find someone who knows someone there. Reach out to your contacts and you’ll be surprised, these people should be able to help you fill in the last gaps.

Now you can start contacting these people. SponsorMyEvent helps you contact sponsors by letting you import their email-ad-dress so that we can send a tailor-made proposal to that spon-sor. The content of the mail can be customised by you so that you can personalise each email. But sometimes it’s also prefera-ble to call the sponsor prior to sending an email so that the mail doesn’t arrive out of the blue. It’s up to you to decide what the best approach for you and your event.

USE YOUR NETWORKNo, we’re not speaking about Facebook (that comes later), we are speaking about your contacts, the people you know. Let as many people as possible know about your event and ask them for help. Not everyone will lend a helping hand, but your efforts will rbe ewarded if from ten friends at least one gives you a promising contact. You really have to be a sales person to find most needed contacts. This will pay off.


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Add the new contacts to your list and contact them just as de-scribed above.

E-MAILYou may even already have a list of sponsors from past events. In this case you can import the list to SponsorMyEvent and shoot out emails to these sponsors. But remember that it might be useful to customise the proposals for each sponsor or at least for groups of sponsors. The better you prepare and customise these mail-outs, the higher the return will be.

SHARE IT!Of course you should not leave the social-networks alone. Use them to your full benefit. You have an event profile on Spon-sorMyEvent that you can easily share on various social-networks from within SponsorMyEvent. You can also copy the URL of your

event profile and manually share it with your contacts and by adding a custom message. No matter how you contact your prospects, never forget that you want something from them. So be polite, concise and don’t waste their time if they make it clear that they are not interested.

As with everything that you share on social networks, you

should be active in promoting it. Ask friends to share it so that you can maximise the outreach. In certain cases it may also pay off to run ads (i.e. on Facebook or on Google Ads). Depending on your targeting this will not cost a lot but might bring some valua-


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ble contacts.

Sponsorships are often come to life out of interaction between the organizer and the sponsor. Thus SponsorMyEvent helps the negotiation-process by providing an internal messaging system and the possibility to create tailor-made proposals for spon-sors. Never forget that you are in a sales cycle. You want to sell your product (your event) to a client. So please apply the same sales strategies as you would apply when selling something else. Therefore it can be nothing but useful to read some tutorials about how to sell. You will find countless resources on the inter-net that will help you to become your personal sales-champion!


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WRITTEN BY Peter Poehle, CEO SponsorMyEvent.com

SponsorMyEvent.com, the leading sponsorship-marketplace matches event-organizers and sponsors, provides features that allow organizers to find and manage their relationships with sponsors.

Organizers and Sponsors are given a true 360° solution for sponsor-ships. The result is a solution for all event-organizers whether they already have a pool of po-tential sponsors and want to manage their relationship with them or if they need to find new potential sponsors.

MEDIA-PARTNEREvent Industry News (EIN) is an online event magazine that provides the latest news to the events industry.

EIN is read by organizers, promoters, event management and production companies, suppliers, experiential agencies, the corporate sector, local government and organizations that host exhibitions and conferences.

These events can be any-thing from a regional con-ference or major outdoor festival to a local authority event or awards ceremony.

how to find sponsors - sponsormyevent · ductions). this all-purpose video can also serve you well...

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