Having a marketing packet to attract your corporate sponsors is essential in helping them support your event or cause. And yet, marketing collateral alone is not enough! Sponsors need you to personally enroll them in the possibilities (and realities) that you and your organization are creating in the world. Yes, they may want to be associated with your project. More importantly, they want to be associated with you. That tandem is key.
In the workshops that I deliver on how to get corporate sponsorships, attendees learn not only how to create attractive packages, they also learn how to have powerful conversations that go beyond the collateral and create a relationship. Professionals who touch, move, and inspire prospective sponsors about the mission of their organization often get what they ask for.
That said, good sponsorship materials should have a few essential elements:
- Put a creative name on your packet. I remember one that was entitled ‘together we make it possible’.
- Tell stories that mean something to your prospective sponsors.
- Find a “hook phrase” that will help your sponsors to visualize your project and remember it.
- Use fewer words and more images that arouse emotion. Create curiosity through a balance good content and good design.
- Stop talking about yourself and praising your own successes. Ask your closest donors and past sponsors for testimonials. Their voices matter.
- Only make promises that you can fulfill, and by all means make them as big as you want, in line with the private funding you ask for.
- Do not assume that your sponsors know your project or organization. Marketing collateral often circulates beyond your initial targets.
- Highlight the impact your organization is having in the world. Don’t be shy.
- Be creative by specifying alternative ways of collaborating beyond the event.
- Detail the benefits to the sponsors using the language that will resonate with prospective partners.
When you follow these guidelines, your sponsor packets will generate attention, curiosity, and interest. Beyond that, it’s up to you to personally “seduce” them to fall in love with your organization.
If you a nonprofit leader who wants to excel at maintaining a high level of engagement between your nonprofit organization and your corporate partners, then this course is for you.
Silvia Bueso is a certified professional coach and an expert in The Art of Asking. She helps nonprofit leaders effectively make the ask in a way that allows them to achieve their teams’, projects’ and organizations’ objectives.