Tip #1: Write a relevant initial proposal - This is not the final customized piece (which comes after you have already established interest). The initial proposal communicates the most relevant information up front; which quickly established whether a partnership is realistic. SponsorPark has developed a proposal template that walks you through this information.
One point we need to pause to dig into a bit is the fact that what was mentioned in this first tip is an initial proposal. There are certain key pieces of information you must consider and contribute before you get to the “fun” part of customization. It’s like building or redecorating a room – you have to consider the basics of where you’re putting an outlet and framing up the room which is all essential before you can consider what color you want to paint the walls or what kind of decorative theme you’ll be portraying. Another reason we are stopping to highlight the initial proposal is because if you use connection resources such as SponsorPark, you are not likely going to customize a proposal until a connection has been established – and you aren’t able to establish this connection until you have outlined the core reasons why your opportunity is a good fit. Since the information included in an initial proposal is critical, we believe making it a best practice to start off writing any proposal with the steps I’m highlighting here is still quite valuable to any reader involved in the proposal writing process – regardless of your affiliation with SponsorPark. All of the elements of an initial proposal you will find in a customized proposal – you’ll simply add to it. A customized proposal caters to a unique company or brand, and it could not be passed along to another without major changes. There really is no such thing as a “cookie cutter” or “one size fits all,” proposal – and we uphold this wholeheartedly, but with sponsorship getting more and more competitive, it’s more important than ever to write an foundational overview of both quantitative and qualitative reasons why you are a good fit for a sponsor. Establishing the details of your target audience and breaking down the kind of exposure you’ll have access to on their behalf, the history of what you’ve done in the past and how popular your opportunity is will all set you apart from the proposals who didn’t take the time to do establish this essential piece. Before you go to all the work of customizing a proposal, you need to pull together all the valuable information about your sponsorship opportunity that a sponsor is going to want to know, and organize it in a clear and concise manner communicating in the language of your anticipated reader. When a potential sponsor reads this kind of proposal, they’ll breathe a sigh of relief having their crucial questions answered quickly. This kind of care communicates that you are thorough, reliable, and understand that this is mutually beneficial – you realize they need to know upfront the foundational pieces of who you are and what you have to offer before you get to the fun part of making the experience unique to them. You have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.
When we were in the market research phase of our development, one of our valuable contacts at a large, widely known corporate entity gave me an interesting piece of information. “I can’t tell you how many intelligent individuals sit across from me at my desk and pitch me their sponsorship request with little to no understanding of what I HAVE to know before we can take the conversation to the next level.” He continued on; “Occasionally I would graciously tell them it sounded like they had an interesting concept, but to contact me again once they had put together a more complete proposal. Nine times out of ten they would stare blankly at me, until they finally asked what information I wanted them to include. I gently responded, ‘well, I’m not going to coach you on how to take my money, but if you can figure it out we can talk customization after you get me this first round of information.’” Now, I realize that sponsors have to realize that sometimes they have to offer direction for what kind of marketing support they’re after before you can customize the packages and benefits to their needs, but you don’t have to know these things in order to write a first level, initial proposal. And this initial proposal will indicate either that yes, this appears to be a potential fit – let’s dig deeper and talk about customizing; or absolutely not – there’s no reason to waste each other’s time in another meeting. If the essentials match, you are able to move forward confidently, knowing that both parties can intelligently explain why this partnership is a good one. Or, they don’t match up, and you can also walk away knowing you put your best foot forward.
In regards to the specific information you ought to include in your proposals, we just finished the blog series on: “Elements of a Sophisticated Proposal,” so the substance of an informative, relevant proposal has already been established – reference our previous blogs for a deeper understanding of what you should include. I highly recommend educating yourself and doing the appropriate research on what to include in a good proposal before you write one in order to be even remotely competitive. Just to recap, the following elements are what we consider critical to include: a description of the opportunity, dates, target audience information, event analysis, media exposure, your reach (or the quantified number of your audience), the packages and benefits (open to customization), current sponsors, dates, and contact information. Again, all of this can be more deeply studied in previous blogs, and there are other great resources out there as well which help you consider content and phrasing.
The “template” for an initial proposal is what we walk you through on the SponsorPark website. We took the time to inventory from various levels of corporate sponsors what it is they needed to see upfront in a proposal. We compiled the lists, compared and contrasted them, researched what we saw in case by case scenarios, and used this information to create our own proposal template. Again, this is all what sponsors indicated to us was of critical importance to review before they could move on to the next step of discussing customizable benefits and activation strategies. So we mean it when we say that we’re truly using our resource to get you in touch with the most appropriate potential sponsors; we want to equip you and connect you!
In closing, what I recommend in order to be competitive in sponsorship is to really spend some time in writing your proposal. It takes more time in the beginning, but it’s sure to turn heads more effectively once it is complete. If you do the first steps right and complete a high quality, relevant proposal, you’ll appear much more efficient, and know much more quickly who’s interested and why.