The good old way
So you’re organizing an event and need sponsors? Take a pen and write down the first ten names of companies that you might think they would be interested to sponsor your event. You see? It’s not that difficult. You’ve probably even found some additional names without spending to much thinking on it.
Now take your list again and write the name of a contact person next to the name of the company. If you have a contact person, then we can suppose that you also know how to reach out to that person. So next to that name, write the email address, phone number or other way you may contact them.
Some companies will remain blank as you don’t have any contacts there. But if you think twice you should easily be able to find someone who knows someone there. Reach out to your contacts and you’ll be surprised, these people should be able to help you fill in the last gaps.
LinkedIn can also be a helpful way to reach out to the right people. If you need the contact details of key people within a company, you may as well try Data.com.
Now you can start contacting these people. SponsorMyEvent helps you contact sponsors by letting you import their email-address so that we can send a tailor-made proposal to that sponsor. The content of the mail can be customised by you so that you can personalise each email. But sometimes it’s also preferable to call the sponsor prior to sending an email so that the mail doesn’t arrive out of the blue. It’s up to you to decide what the best approach for you and your event.
Leverage your network
No, we’re not speaking about Facebook (that comes later), we are speaking about your contacts, the people you know. Let as many people as possible know about your event and ask them for help. Not everyone will lend a helping hand, but your efforts will be rewarded if from ten friends at least one gives you a promising contact. You really have to be a sales person to find most needed contacts. This will pay off.
Add the new contacts to your list and contact them just as described above.
Share it!
Of course you should not leave the social-networks aside. Use them to your full benefit. You have an event profile on SponsorMyEvent that you can easily share on various social-networks from within SponsorMyEvent. You can also copy the URL of your event profile and manually share it with your contacts and by adding a custom message. No matter how you contact your prospects, never forget that you want something from them. So be polite, concise and don’t waste their time if they make it clear that they are not interested.
As with everything that you share on social networks, you should be active in promoting it. Ask friends to share it so that you can maximise the outreach. In certain cases it may also pay off to run ads (i.e. on Facebook or on Google Ads). Depending on your targeting this will not cost a lot but might bring some valuable contacts.
