Sponsorship Tips: The Proposal

I am always amazed at the number of sponsorship proposals that I see that lack professionalism and most importantly a strong benefit statement for the sponsor.  As weekend racers the primary focus of our efforts are the businesses in our communities.  The owners of these small businesses may or may not be racing people and have little understanding of what value their name on the side of your car can provide them.  Furthermore given the current economic state of affairs they are looking to stretch their advertising dollar as far as they can.  The key to landing a sponsor is delivering a professional proposal that explains exactly what benefit the sponsor can expect from an association with your race team.

A Professional Proposal

Remember you are out to impress.  You may have a great looking race car and an overall professional appearing team, but if it doesn’t come across in your proposal you’re not likely to get past first base.  The capabilities of even today’s most basic word processing programs like Microsoft Word mean there is no excuse for not having a clean, neat, visually impacting sponsorship proposal.  A professional proposal should include color photos and informational text.  At the very minimum your proposal should include the following elements:

A title page – This is what they will see first.  Make sure you make good use of color.  A good photograph of you and your car in action is a good idea.  A banner with you or your race team’s name and maybe even a strong benefit statement are all important elements of your title page.  I’ve used statements like ‘Racing to Build Profits’, ‘Advertising that Wins’ and others.

A letter of introduction – This is one of your first chances to impress your potential sponsor with your abilities as a communicator.  If you’ve ever heard the term or prepared an ‘Executive Summary’ that is what the introduction letter should be.  The opening letter should be an overview of what is contained in the remainder of your proposal.    It must be well written, concise and free of grammatical and spelling errors.

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