Courting The Right Sponsors For Your Event

After looking at the noble role of sponsorship in building brands last week, it’s time to lure the right sponsor on board either for a partnership with your client or solo project.

One of the best ways to avoid knocking on ‘closed doors’ is to look at companies that sponsor other events or activities similar to yours. For instance, if you are looking for sponsorship for athletics, you may want to cast your net near the likes of National Bank of Kenya, Stanchart Bank – which have a record of supporting such activities, for instance, the StanChart Marathon – and probably organizations that run their business in athletics-rich regions of Kenya.

If you are working on a long-term sponsorship, you need to look at the stability of the organisation. A company whose management is always on the move like the Chelsea coach position is most likely to leave you languishing without funds for your activity the following year.

Once you have listed the potential sponsors, look for reasons why it would benefit the potential sponsor to invest in your event. Tusker (a beer brand) might not reap a lot of brand value from an athletics event compared to Dasani (bottled water company), which will be advocating consumption of water during the races.

Having background information on the potential sponsor will go a long way in helping you to provide several levels of sponsorships to choose from. Always make sure you explain what you want at each level and why you need sponsors for each. This helps all the sponsors get value from their sponsorships regardless of the amount of money they invest in that event.

All said and done, you can now go out and look out for sponsorships. Always remember to thank them for sitting through your presentation and give them room to give feedback on their sponsorships.

Young PR Speak: Ideally in Kenya it takes three to four months to get potential sponsors on board. The more time you have to seek sponsorships, the better.