If you are currently looking for sponsorship for your band here are a few pointers taken from Simon Tam (Music Think Tank) to help you along:
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The Format:
- Cover - Make it distinctive. You might consider adding something like “2012 Sponsorship Proposal Prepared Especially For [the company]”.
- The Call Out (optional): The second page can be for a large dramatic image/photo or some of the major “bragging rights” stats. Artists can typically use this page as the “one sheet” – a one page descriptor of who you are, major stats or accomplishments, or press excerpts/testimonials from other sponsors.
- The Partnership: This is where you want to focus on the main benefits for working with you. What are the main ways you and the sponsor are a good fit?
- The Fact Sheet: The nitty-gritty details of your event, tour, or organisation that they are sponsoring. Cover all of the major who/what/when/where/why questions, such as as “What is the event?,” “Where does the event take place?,” “Who is involved?,” “Why should I be sponsoring this event,” etc.
- Key Marketing Information: Discuss your niche market, the demographics of your audience (and who you are targeting), how you will be messaging your brand/event along with their company, and talk about successes with past sponsorship campaigns.
- Co-Branded Marketing Opportunities: You’ll want to send 3-6 custom, creative pitches to the company that allows for them to visualize working with you. This should play directly off of your niche market/their target audience. The more custom the idea, the higher the asking price that you can fetch. It also helps you stand out from other sponsorship opportunities that only offer logo placement. Marketing folks love creative ways to showcase their brand, especially to an interested audience who they might never be able to reach in any other way. If there is also a “viral” component to one of the ideas, that’s even better.
- The Benefit List: List all of the benefits that the company gets from sponsoring you. Put your emphasis on the more custom, creative options and less on the generic commodities that typical sponsorship packages offer (such as logo placement). This is your formal offer so make it as clear as possible on what they can be expecting in return from their sponsorship dollars or in-kind gifts. If you’ll accept a payment schedule, include that as well.
- The Sponsorship Agreement: The sponsorship agreement should be easy to complete and return. Details such as a self-addressed and stamped envelope are good. Add an extra bit of professionalism by having this portion printed on NCR (carbonless copy) paper where they can tear off a copy for themselves and send one to you. You can also do things such as adding a QR code or link to a digital version of the agreement.
Simon Tam is owner of Last Stop Booking and author of How to Get Sponsorships and Endorsements. Simon’s writing on music and marketing can be found at http://www.laststopbooking.com. He is on Twitter @SimonTheTam
