Tag: sponsorship tips


Our Top 4 Tips for Uncovering Sponsorship Assets 11th July, 2018

Over the years we have helped countless rights holders and sponsors come together effectively to great mutual benefit. However, that road isn’t always as smooth as it should be – particularly when it comes to sponsorship assets.

There have been many instances where we have witnessed rights holders only offering basic assets to potential sponsors, as opposed to its full armoury of options. Most commonly this translates into a focus around a logo and whilst this still does hold importance to a would-be sponsor, to get real value out of a partnership it is crucially important to ensure all potential assets are made available.

Allow us to put this into context for you. Imagine a fully-stocked supermarket that only sells items in the very first aisle to customers and blocks off the rest of the store. This will inevitably reduce the supermarket’s revenue and narrow the customer’s shopping potential. The same logic applies in the world of sponsorship.

The major problem with only offering some of the potential assets to a sponsor is that it’s impossible to know exactly what a brand requires to make the most of their sponsorship when reaching out before qualifying the lead.

As you may imagine, the chances of understanding exactly what a sponsor desires is increased simply by doing your homework and regular research, but there is still no better way to truly understand a brand’s approach than by speaking with them directly.

However, it is admittedly difficult to uncover all possible assets without previous sponsorship knowledge when you’re fully immersed in your own day-to-day tasks. So Slingshot is here to help with our top four quick tips for uncovering sponsorship assets…

1) Get into the brand’s mindset
Figure out exactly why a brand would want to be a sponsor and work out what you can specifically offer them that they’d simply be unable to get elsewhere.

2) Brainstorm with colleagues
Never tackle this sponsorship conundrum on your own! The more minds the better because, as with any ideas session, everyone thinks differently – which can be key to thinking outside of the box and uncovering assets which aren’t just a bog standard logo placement.

3) Travel the customer journey
Remember that sponsors ultimately want access to your audience. So travelling through the customer journey and understanding all possible touchpoints a sponsor can utilise to engage with your audience will showcase multiple key assets.

4) Check out the competition
Last but not least, try and get hold of your competitor’s sponsorship proposals to see what they are offering and how it differs to you. It may just spark a new idea or illustrate ways for you to improve your own platform for sponsors both now and in the future.

Case Study: Outlook Festival Knowledge Area

Back in 2015, we utilised our expertise of uncovering sponsorship assets to continue pushing the boundaries of the traditional festival model. We created something which added to the consumer experience and attracted brand integration at the Outlook Festival.

Named the Knowledge Arena, it was here we created workshops led by artists where guests could create their own music at the festival. This forward-thinking rights holder maintained focus on the consumer, leading to greater engagement and sparking brands’ interest in being involved with connecting to the audience in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Key takeaways

Any rights holders looking for sponsorship must think strategically before approaching a brand. Think carefully about the plethora of assets you can offer, particularly ones which resonate with certain target brands.

Once all assets have been uncovered, the goal then becomes ensuring these are effectively and aesthetically communicated in the best way possible to potential sponsors – and at the right price.


“How Long Should My Sponsorship Proposal Be?” 9th March, 2016

I am asked this everywhere I go – it seems to be the thing that most people think is holding them back from securing that perfect partner.  As much as I’d love to provide a one-size-fits-all solution, unfortunately (much like most of sponsorship) this is not the case and the answers vary with each sponsorship platform.  The golden rule is to keep it as short as possible, but still retaining all the information a prospect absolutely needs to know.  As most people are not quite sure what information a prospect absolutely needs to know, I’ve created some tips to help you when creating your sponsorship proposal:

  1. Keep it short, sweet and concise. Sponsorship proposals are not the latest Grazia or best Faulkner – put simply they aren’t interesting and regardless who you send it to in whatever format, people are not desperate to read them.  Sponsorship proposals are just not exciting regardless of how exciting your actual property or opportunity is.  Rather than accepting this, people overcompensate the boredom by writing excessive copy hoping to draw people in.  This is simply not the case – mostly because you aren’t a copywriter and even the best copywriters in the world are unlikely to make your sponsorship proposal a page turner from copy alone.  Therefore, don’t try and make your proposal exciting just by writing more about it.  In our digital age, if you can catch their attention and imagination – they will Google you.
  2. Following on from above – make sure whatever they Google is good.
  3. A picture says a thousand words. If you have great imagery – use it in the best format possible which is typically in a landscape format.  Saying this, don’t fill the entire proposal with a load of the same pictures – if they want to look at pictures of an event or people at an event, they will go on Facebook.
  4. Put a price on it. Don’t waste people’s time.  If you are going to go to the effort of sending a sponsorship proposal, make sure everything that the buyer needs is in there and this includes how much you expect from them in return.
  5. Be professional. I estimate that over 95% of all sponsorship proposals in the world are done by the person looking for the investment.  You are often the Founder, Marketing Director, Event Manager or Sponsorship person.  It’s not your fault you are not a graphic designer, you have other important skills.  But it is important to recognise you are not a graphic designer.  People like things that look good.  You wouldn’t try out the new restaurant in town if they handed you a hand-drawn flyer made out of copy paper and crayons so how can you expect someone to part with budget when you won’t even invest on your own sales collateral?

In terms of a litmus test, I recommend taking your sponsorship proposal to a brutally honest friend and asking their opinion.  They don’t need to work in marketing to have an opinion – they just need to not worry about hurting your feelings.  Listen to them.  They will definitely help.

Failing getting a friend’s sign off, get some actual professional help.  Speak to a sponsorship agency for feedback and/or hire them to put together a proposal for you.  Slingshot obviously does this, but there are also many other agencies who can help too.  It is such a shame to see people fail at securing sponsors for their event because of a bad proposal, but not a bad property so don’t go it alone!

If you are interested in having Slingshot review or create your sponsorship proposal drop us an email: [email protected]


Sponsorship Predictions 2016 1st February, 2016

Sponsorship has undergone a seismic shift in communications and it seems that everyone is finally catching up. This means great things for our industry – realising that sponsorship is more than a logo opens up a whole world of opportunity for industry growth this year.

Every January I like to start the year off with a handful of predictions for what I think will be in store and this year is no different. To gauge my predictive power, you can read last year’s sponsorship predictions here.

2016 trends:

  1. Sponsorship spend will continue to surpass advertising spend. Forecasts by GroupM project ad spending to increase by 3.8% while sponsorship spend is set to increase by 4.1%.
  2. People will continue to talk about engagement, but not truly deliver it. Attend a sponsorship conference and you are likely to hear ‘engagement’ being the key point of discussion; however, the activation strategies continue to remain the same.  Just because you call something engaging, doesn’t mean it actually is.
  3. Growth in non-sport sponsorship markets.  At Slingshot we have seen a new appetite for commercial innovation among governments and venues. This is quite exciting when compared to basic naming rights deals – allowing significant creative impact to make a real difference.  We think this is the year that naming rights will take on an entirely new meaning.
  4. Online will become more prominent with spend complimenting onsite sponsorship activation.  Online sponsorship is becoming more robust and clients have become more educated on how this drives brand ROI.  Slingshot have recently partnered with technology ticketing firm Billetto to be the first to introduce this concept across thousands of events in the UK and Europe – read more here.
  5. Brands take on the challenge of becoming rights holders.  Personally, I find this quite exciting – brands revolutionising the space, creating events themselves, and securing brand sponsorship to fund their actvity.  Initially launched with Vodafone Firsts many years ago, the concept is becoming mainstream and even smaller brands are understanding that if commercialised correctly, this is a cost neutral way to radically build your brand.

We wish you a successful 2016 and be sure to watch out for Slingshot – it’s going to be a big year for us


Slingshot Sponsorship Launch Full Day Training Events in London 12th January, 2015

Slingshot Sponsorship is delighted to announce that they have expanded their popular Slingshot Sponsorship Bootcamp training to also now provide full day, in-depth Sponsorship Sessions held each month in London.  The sole aim of the Sponsorship Sessions will be to provide teams the necessary tools to increase their commercial capacity within sponsorship for their event, charity, start-up, association, sports team, or online network.

Most organisations fail to reach their full sponsorship potential due to common pitfalls.  By working in a small team, industry expert Jackie Fast (MD of Slingshot Sponsorship) will create a tailored training programme for each attendee in order to help pinpoint challenges and create strategies and tools to overcome them.

Jackie Fast commented: “Unfortunately, typical sponsorship training and education often fails to address the different challenges organisations face when tackling sponsorship.  To be successful, one needs to really question these variables in order to recommend the right sponsorship strategy.  The Sponsorship Sessions allow us to do this by working in very small groups with a format that encompasses absolutely everything teams need to learn to truly develop commercially.  The success we have had with our training programme has even shocked me – having helped raise £1.27m additional sponsorship revenue for our attendees in the last three years alone.  Having kept our Bootcamp under wraps previously, I am absolutely thrilled to be bringing this training scheme out to the masses!”

The Sponsorship Sessions combine the need for high level training at the cost of attending a sponsorship conference (£219/ticket) – ensuring that attendees walk away with a clear direction on how to build the right sponsorship programme for their own organisation.

Previous Slingshot Sponsorship Bootcamp attendee Charlene Asamoah, Corporate Fundraising Manager from Parkinson’s UK commented: “It was absolutely amazing bringing Slingshot Sponsorship to Parkinson’s UK and I truly believe it was one of the best things I have done whilst working here.  Our entire team have changed dramatically and it’s all for the better!”

The next Slingshot Sponsorship Session will take place on Thursday 22nd January.  More information on the agenda and booking can be found here.  Or please contact Slingshot directly at [email protected]

To read some testimonials from previous Slingshot Sponsorship Bootcamp attendees click here.

What Can I Sell? Top 5 Tips to Uncover Sponsorship Assets 10th August, 2011

We have been doing a lot of Slingshot Sponsorship Boot Camps recently to gear up for the start of September.  As such, I thought I’d start a blog series following what we discuss and some tips to think about when constructing your own sponsorship proposals.

Assets are typically a problem area for rights holders.  Being submersed in their own product, sometimes it’s difficult to uncover something that you see on a daily basis, so these top tips and questions should help you uncover opportunities you haven’t thought of yet!

1.  What communication tools do I have?

Although I am not a fan of badging (plastering logos on any and everything you have), communication to your audience is what the sponsor is after so you need to look at all opportunities to integrate sponsors within those communications, although bearing in mind that engaging communications are better than logos.  Communication can include everything from:

  • Email newsletters (to read more on how, check out my blog post on the DMA Email Blog: Email Sponsorship: How to do it and why?)
  • Printed communications
  • Promotional advertisements
  • Online display
  • Events

2.  Who are your super stars?

Do you have anyone within your company or anyone your company works with that could potentially be an asset to a brand?  If so, and they are willing, you could work with these leaders to provide benefits to your sponsor by speaking at their events or promoting their brand.  Some ideas of unusual super stars could be:

  • Talent or brand ambassadors
  • Politicians
  • Highly successful CEOs who could act as mentors/speakers
  • Musicians/artists

3.  Social media

If you are using social media and have a regular engagement with your audience, this is a great platform for brands to run competitions or promotions.  Typically the audience is younger and more technology friendly so keep the audience in mind when including social media assets within your sponsorship offering.  Social media is a great way for you to add value to a sponsor without much cost, but don’t underestimate the importance of having a ‘working’ social network.  Just tweeting or posting competitions is not enough – you must have a social media strategy which is engaging, both for your property and also for your sponsors.  More about how to integrate sponsorship with social media, read my guest blog post on Content and Motion’s Blog Social Media & Sponsorship: Can Facebook & YouTube Ever Become Co-brandable Assets for Brands?

4.  Partnerships: are there other partnerships that you can leverage for your sponsors?

Media partnerships can be great opportunities to provide content for promotion.  When this works well and everyone is working together these partnerships can be extremely successful.  Integrating these opportunities for your sponsors can add significant value and should be considered, especially if your property does not yet have a large audience.

5.  Extras

Any additional events that you could include, not only add value to the sponsor, but also to your property.  Extras can include providing a Sponsors Lunch or Sponsor’s VIP Reception.  These types of events allow sponsors to network with each other and often uncover other partnership opportunities that can be built around your property through brainstorming synergies.  Especially if these extra events are timed so they coincide with a lull in your marketing schedule, they provide an added opportunity for you to continue building your relationship with your sponsor throughout the year.