The secret to successful sponsorship proposals is to invest the time to get to know your prospects and what they want. You need to do your homework!
If you are seeking to land a major sponsorship, the odds are you will have to work hard to get it and provide good value for money to the sponsor. If you are not prepared to work hard with your preparation, then don’t waste your time! Easy money doesn’t come along even if you have a good cause. Sponsors want to get their hard-earned money’s worth. You need to put a convincing business case to them – and then honor your promises by providing them with good commercial value for their investment.
You need to develop a tailored sponsorship package for each individual prospect. This will get your foot in the door.
As a former corporate affairs manager, I used to get dozens of these standard offers every week. They wasted so much of my time because those sponsorship seekers had made no effort to find out what we actually wanted from our sponsorship commitments.
In essence, you are selling a marketing product and you have to show your value by knowing what your customer (sponsor) wants, work out what you can do to match their needs and develop a proposal that competes strongly with all of the other groups who are chasing sponsorship.
Kim J. Harrison has authored, edited, coordinated, produced and published the material in the articles and ebooks on this website. He brings his experience in professional communication and business management to provide helpful insights to readers around the world. His wide-ranging career includes roles as a corporate affairs manager, consultant, author, lecturer and business manager. Kim has received several international media relations awards and a website award. He has been quoted in The New York Times and various other news media, and has held elected positions with his State and National PR Institutes.
