How to Create a Professional Sponsorship Proposal 7th March, 2018

When you’re looking for a sponsor for your event or company, having a winning proposal can be key to sealing the deal. But what is a sponsorship proposal and what should it include? These five key tips should help you come up with a winner.

What is a sponsorship proposal?

When you approach a brand about a partnership – whether that’s via a phone call, email or networking site – they’re going to want to know a bit about why you think you’d be a good match.

A sponsorship proposal is essentially a document which has all that information in one place, letting them know exactly what you’re offering them, the benefits of sponsoring your property, including the details and stats about your audience and assets.

Brands see many, many proposals, so making sure yours is professional, succinct and highlights the benefits of the partnership is the first step towards ensuring it doesn’t end up in the bin. After all, if you can’t create a professional sponsorship proposal, why should a brand trust you to put on a professional event?

The key is effective communication in a short space of time. Follow these five key pointers to articulate the benefits of your package succinctly.

1. Keep your sponsorship proposal to around 6-9 slides

‘How long should a sponsorship proposal be?’ may seem like a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question but generally speaking, people are busy and no one wants to wade through 20+ pages to get to the key stats. So cut the waffle and stick to the facts.

Our rule of thumb is that if you can say everything you need to say in one page – keep it to one page. This is rarely the case though, and our proposals tend to average 6-9 slides.  So keep it short, but informative!

2. Talk about them, not you

Brands purchase sponsorship because they want to get something out of it, which could include contact with your audience, increased brand awareness or positive publicity from being associated with your event.  If you spend 80% of your proposal talking about your company/event history and how great you are, it makes it difficult for a prospect to understand how they’re going to benefit, so spell out the pluses for a brand of partnering with you and tweak these for each brand you approach to show you’ve done your research.

3. Use a graphic designer

Having a graphic designer format your sponsorship proposal makes all the difference. It helps it look professional and a designer can illustrate data and facts – such as graphics about your audience demographic – in an enticing and easy to digest way. Most sponsorship proposals are sent as pdfs or as a pitch deck, but you could take it one step further and have a video made to really help your proposal stand out.

4. Put a price in your sponsorship proposal

So many people fail to put in the investment of their sponsorship in hopes that someone will ring them back to ask. While in principal this makes sense, it almost never happens in practice. Don’t make people work too hard to sponsor you, give them all the information they need straight away.

5. Use testimonials

Credibility is often an issue for sponsorship opportunities that don’t have broadcast backing. People want to know they’re going to get return on their investment, therefore it’s a good idea to ask your network and previous sponsors to write some quotes on how sponsoring your event helped them achieve their goals.

If you’re looking for professional assistance to create a sponsorship proposal drop us a line at [email protected] to see how we can help.

LATEST BLOG POSTS FROM THIS AUTHOR