Fundraising day

The Seven Deadly Sins of Sponsorship

By Chris Baylis of The Sponsorship Collective

About MeChris Baylis is the Managing Director of The Sponsorship Collective, a boutique marketing firm focused exclusively on:

• Sponsorship strategy

• Inventory building and asset valuation

• Sponsorship coaching

Chris is a sponsorship expert and has managed the entire spectrum of the sponsorship process, from multi-million dollar campaigns to local event sponsorship….and everything in between.

sponsorshipcollective.com/AFP@CPBaylis

sponsorshipcollective.com

Goals

• Uncover seven of the most common and expensive mistakes made in sponsorship

• Expose how each of these deadly sins manifests

• Identify solutions and best practices for each of the deadly sins

• Some tricks to help you combine steps and implement templates


Let’s dive right in…


Deadly Sin #1Thinking of Sponsorship as Philanthropy


Common Manifestations

• Focusing on the cause vs marketing outcomes in a proposal

• Trying to sell sponsorship to CSR or Foundation staff

• CSR proposals containing “logo placement”

• Using words like support and donation

• Tax receipting sponsorship


The Solution

• Know and define your audience

• Track your web traffic

• Define your social media followers and their interests

• Determine the interests and buying power of your audience and ask “who cares about this audience” or “who cares about who you help”


Yes, but how will this open more commercial bank accounts?


Deadly Sin #2Lack of Sponsorship Valuation



• Tiered sponsorship packages

• Doing what you did last year

• Starting with how much money you need

• Shoulder shrug method


The Solution?

• Make a list of every single asset you have to offer, without exception

• Look at how much it will cost your sponsor to get the same exposure elsewhere

• Determine the value of your tangible and intangible assets

• Don’t forget to add a “bump” to the tangible items based on the value of your brand

• Look to newspapers, digital media, social media advertising, a cross section of similar properties


Valuation Case Study

• Two identical properties, different geographies…same sponsor!

• Property A is giving away space for product and samples as a “value add”

• Property A is afraid to charge for this as they fear they will lose the sponsor

• Property B did a valuation and that same asset, to the same company for the same property goes for…


$50,000


Deadly Sin #3 In-Kind “Sponsorship”



• Getting products or services for free or “in-kind”

• Getting products or services discounted

• “Adding value” to an event only if you can get it for free

• Not charging people for giveaways, samples and product placement

• Going to wine companies as wine sponsors, food companies for food sponsors etc.


The Solution?

• Run everything through your valuation calculator!

• The power is your audience! Wine, food etc. are tools to put people in front of that audience

• Would you rather free stuff or free stuff and $78,000?


Deadly Sin #4The Proposal First Method



• E-blasting sponsorship packages and “one pagers”

• Writing emails longer than 2 sentences

• Not meeting your prospects at least twice before submitting a proposal

• Giving your board a sponsorship package with values and levels

• Bringing anything but my patented sales technique with you to prospecting meetings


The Solution?

• Talk to your sponsors

• Understand that the only reason for the first meeting is…to get the second meeting!

• Bring my top secret weapon to your first meeting

• Use my top secret e-mail template


Steal My Email Template(my most controversial slide)


Steal this Template!

Hey Dave,

I saw on LinkedIn that you are involved in X, I would love to connect and ask your thoughts about a cool project I'm working on. Are you free tomorrow at 3:00?

Chris

(no title here, just my name)

…why does this work?


Why Does This Work?

So short , they can't help but read it

You flatter them and ask for advice

You give them a date and time, changing the decision from yes/no to whether or not the time works

It isn't a 20 page proposal!

It’s focused on them, not you


When You go to the Meeting, Bring the Following…


When You go to the Meeting, Bring the Following…

Nothing


The Following Things are not Examples of Nothing:

One pagers

Proposals

Annual Reports

Buckslips

Infographics

Leave behinds

Bookmarks


“When someone hands you a flyer, it's like they're saying here you throw this away.”

~ Mitch Hedberg


Here’s What Else it Does:

You tell your prospect that you don't care about them or their

needs

You care about telling them something vs hearing something

You have assumptions about what they want and what they

can do for you, and what you can do for them

Most importantly, it robs you of accomplishing the only goal of

the first meeting: to get the second meeting!


Never go in Proposal First!

The tale of 10,000 sponsorship proposals!


Deadly Sin #5: No Activation Strategy (or Budget)


What is Activation?


What is Activation?

• Doing what you said you would!

• It is your responsibility to ensure that your sponsor gets everything they paid for

• Tickets? Ads? Logo placement? Press? Not only do you have to deliver but you are going to send them a report proving you delivered



• Not planning at least 10% of your budget for activation expenses

• Not charging for this as part of your valuation!

• Not coaching your sponsors to invest money in activation

• If they have 10K to spend, don’t sell them a 10K package! Make sure they can activate properly

• Ambush marketing


The Solution?

• Get to know the needs of your sponsors

• Plan for the expense in your valuation and charge your sponsors for it

• Make sure they are aware of costs for travel, print, product etc.

• Use a template to plan your activation strategy


Steal this Template!

Asset Deadline Lead

Design signage 1-Feb Elaine

Logos from sponsors 1-Feb George

Approval from sponsor 15-Feb Kramer

Place signage at event 1-May Frank

Order tent cards 1-May Estelle

Approval from sponsor 15-Feb Babs

Placement of tent cards at event 1-Jun Morty

Get names of guests from sponsor 1-May Helen

Add logo to website 1-Feb Jerry

Add logo to invitation 1-Feb Elaine

Send branded invitations 1-May George

Design ad for program 1-May Kramer

Ad approval from sponsor 15-Feb Frank

Secure booth space 15-Feb Estelle

Get names of booth attendees 1-May Babs

Design e-blast for database 1-May Morty

Approval from Sponsor 15-Feb Helen

Invite sponsor to speak at event 1-Jun Jerry

Introduce sponsor at event 1-Jun Elaine

Write speaking notes for MC 1-May George

VIP meet and greet organising 1-May Kramer

Extend invitaitons to key sponsors 1-May Frank

Deadly Sin #6 The Missing Sponsorship Fulfillment Report


What is a Fulfillment Report?


What is a Fulfillment Report?


• Doing what you said you would…and proving it!

• It gives your sponsors a tool to prove to their internal decision makers that they got the ROI they expected

• Sets you up for renewing the sponsorship within weeks of the event or end of your campaign


• Not reporting back to sponsors on their investment

• Not meeting sponsors within two weeks of your event or campaign

• Not asking for feedback or ways to improve

• Not knowing if your sponsors will be back next year

• Only talking to your prospects when you need something


Fulfillment Report Basics • Take a picture of every single thing you promised your

sponsor: logos, program ads, people…everything!

• Get a sample of everything you promised your sponsor

• Take screen shots of web traffic and logo placement, social media and earned/purchased media

• Put it all together in a report with stats from your event or program along with all of the pictures and samples and call a meeting!


Case study alert!

The tale of the texting sales rep!


Deadly Sin # 7Gold, Silver, Bronze Packages



• Any standard package with levels by any name

• Predetermined levels with predetermined assets

• The spaghetti method

• The belief that every sponsor wants a little bit of everything


The Solution?

• Build a huge inventory of assets

• Do a proper valuation of those assets

• Meet your prospects and find out exactlywhat they want

• Sell them that and only that!

• The sniper method


Bringing it all Together• Thinking that Sponsorship is Corporate

Philanthropy

• Lack of Sponsorship Valuation

• In-Kind “Sponsorship”

• The Proposal First Method

• No Activation Strategy (or Budget)

• The Missing Sponsorship Fulfillment Report

• Gold, Silver, Bronze Packages


The sponsorship proposal doesn’t make the sale……YOU DO!


Questions?


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