I get dozens of emails and social media approaches every week from people looking for sponsorship of their website, business, television show, documentary, education, or whatever. My issue with this isn’t that they are contacting me – I’m happy to hear from any of you! – but that so many seem to have a misguided notion of what sponsorship is.

In the case of website, television, and documentary “sponsorship”, 99% of the examples I see aren’t sponsorship at all. Offering banner ads, product or logo placement, acknowledgements of support, backlinks, etc does not equate to a sponsorship, but a media buy. (And “sponsoring” the telecast of an event is not the same as sponsoring the event – it’s also just a targeted media buy.) I’m not saying these investments don’t have value, but it really is an entirely different animal.

A sponsorship is a collection of benefits and entitlements that provide a brand with an opportunity to get a marketing result. The way they get that result is through leverage – proactively doing things with the benefits to achieve specific objectives. Leverage could include adding value to their target markets’ event or brand experiences, promotions, involving their staff, integrating with other media activities, creating social media platforms, and much much more. Sponsorship is mutual and about nurturing relationships, and has both the emotional weight – people really caring about what is being sponsored – and the critical mass to be a catalyst for other marketing activities.

A media buy is an outbound communication strategy. It is buying time or space in which to showcase a brand or brand message. Media buys are what they are, and are not leverageable. If you can’t imagine a company running an ad or embarking on a PR campaign or developing a staff program or creating a social media hub around what you’re selling, it’s not sponsorship.

As an example, I was recently approached by someone looking for “sponsorship” of their website. They were offering banner advertising, links, branding all over the site, and participation in the e-newsletter. That may well be a valuable investment, for the right brand, but it’s not leverageable. Seriously, can you imagine any brand taking this up and then running a series of magazine ads themed around their activities on that website? Embarking on a social media campaign? Creating a staff program? Me neither.

Of course there are exceptions, but not very many.

And for all you little companies with great ideas, but no cash, again, that’s not sponsorship. You are looking for a financial backer – an investor, silent partner, or white knight – who will provide some cash in return for (probably) an equity position. And people looking for someone to “sponsor” their educations are looking for benefactors.

Before your organisation looks for corporate sponsorship, you need to ensure that what you are offering really is sponsorship, and the easiest way to find out is to ask yourself whether it is leverageable or not. If it’s not leverageable, it’s not sponsorship, and it’s time to take a different approach.

If you’re really selling a media buy, then those are the sales channels you need to use. If what you really need is a backer, your first call should be to your accountant. Don’t seek sponsorship if that’s not what you’re really selling, or you could waste a lot of time and effort going through a very tough process that is destined to fail.

Developing your sponsorship offers and sponsorship sales are two very big subjects - closely linked, and together, the key to increasing your sponsorship revenue. To do these subjects justice, we need more time than the standard 60-90 minute webinar, so have broken it into two webinars that work very well together. You are also welcome to register for just one.

For complete information on both of these webinars, click on the registration link, below, or download the full PDF brochure.

21 July – Best Practice Offer Development: Who to target, what to offer

This 90-minute, live webinar will take you through the mindset and process for developing compelling, value-packed offers that will capture potential sponsors’ attention and differentiate you from the competition. There is no guarantee a potential sponsor will say “yes”, but using these techniques will considerably increase your chances. This is a perfect compliment to Best Practice Sponsorship Sales on 4 August. Topics include:

• Creating a well-targeted hit list
• Prioritising: Who are your most promising prospects
• Getting the background information you need to create a great offer
• When to contact the sponsor and what to say
• The critical importance of getting to the big ideas
• The creative offer development process. Note: This process will be delivered in case-study form, enabling participants to see an offer develop
• Creating a benefits list that works

4 August – Best Practice Sponsorship Sales: Turning your sponsorship vision into revenue

This 90-minute, live webinar will show you how to formalise your offer, get it to the right person, follow up, negotiate, and close the deal. This webinar is the perfect compliment to the Offer Development webinar on 21 July, covering topics such as:

• What must be included in your proposal
• Proposal “extras” that can make a big difference (and what to avoid)
• Structuring your proposal for maximum impact
• Making it easy for the sponsor to sell the offer internally
• Pricing your offer correctly
• Protecting your creative ideas
• Getting your offer to the right person (and who to avoid)
• Must-know negotiation tips, tricks, and what you should never do
• Valuing in-kind sponsorship
• Formalising the agreement

Both webinars are offered twice, to accommodate different time zones. Below are some indicative times. Please be sure to check the time and date in your region. I recommend http://everytimezone.com. Please indicate your preferred session when you register.

By very, very popular demand, I’ve created a ten-minute tutorial about how to create a sponsorship proposal that will make your offer stand out, increase your value to potential sponsors, and dramatically shorten your odds for a “yes”.

This is actually tutorial #3 for the Power Sponsorship YouTube Channel. Check it out for:

• Sponsorship Proposal Basics in About 10 Minutes
• Ambush Marketing Basics in About 10 Minutes
• Sponsorship Measurement Basics in About 10 Minutes

(Noticing a theme, here?)

I hope you enjoy them all. To kick you off, here is Sponsorship Proposal Basics in About 10 Minutes.

I see a lot of proposals from non-profits and I interact with many in workshops. Something that is both counterproductive and alarmingly consistent is the use of seemingly positive terms that are, in fact, big red flags to sponsors. Below, I’ve outlined three of the worst that you can use in a sponsorship proposal.

“Tax advantages” and “Your sponsorship is tax deductible”

There are no tax advantages to sponsoring a charitable organisation. Sponsorship is a marketing investment that is deductible at 100% as a business expense. You are not talking about a donation, but even if it were a donation, it is still only deductible at 100%, so the net effect is the same.

If you include one of these terms in a sponsorship proposal, a cluey sponsor will think you don’t understand that sponsorship isn’t a donation, but a marketing investment. Just leave those terms out of the proposal.

“Corporate Social Responsibility”, “CSR”, and “Triple bottom line”

Corporate Social Responsibility and triple bottom line reporting has nothing to do with how a company spends its money.

CSR is solely about whether a company makes its money in an ethical sustainable way. If they make money in a socially responsible way, that box is already ticked. Writing cheques to charities does not tick it more. If they do not make their money in a socially responsible way, there are no amount of cheques to charities they can write that will tick that box.

Instead, concentrate on how sponsoring your charity creates a powerful marketing platform for their brands and increases both relevance and resonance with their target markets.

“Help”, “Support”, and “Assist”

If you’re trying to lay on the guilt or look needy, and not like a potential marketing partner, this is how you do it.

Corporate sponsorship is not free money. It has nothing to do with helping or supporting your organisation, as deserving as you may be. It is an investment that companies make with marketing money. It needs to achieve marketing objectives, which are defined as changing their target markets’ perceptions of their brand and changing their target markets’ behaviours around that brand.

And while sponsoring charitable and community organisations with a portion of marketing funds may be a mandate for some companies, sponsoring your specific organisation is not. You need to make a business case about why sponsoring your organisation will help that brand achieve their objectives and connect with their target markets in a meaningful way.

Use terms like “investment”, “partner”, and “marketing platform”, but be sure it’s not just lip-service. If you aren’t prepared to be a real marketing partner, stop looking for sponsorship and concentrate on filling out grant applications.

If you want more information and a step-by-step process for raising more sponsorship (including a special section for charitable and community organisations), I recommend The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit 3rd Edition.

I get more questions about sponsorship pricing than any other aspect of sponsorship. I wish there were an easy answer – a magic wand I could wave – that would make the right number appear out of thin air, but I’m afraid it’s just not that simple.

That said, it’s not rocket science, either, and there are some definite rights and wrongs.

Getting sponsorship pricing wrong

First off, don’t try to add up the value of each of the benefits, as sponsorship really is a case of the whole being worth more than the sum of the parts. You’re not selling benefits, you’re selling marketing opportunity, and a comprehensive opportunity is going to provide a valuable platform for sponsors – much more valuable than the sum of the benefits a la carte.

Trying to price as some derivative of the potential equivalent media value of the logo exposure is also not going to work. Equivalent media valuation was debunked almost 20 years ago and only the industry’s dinosaurs put any stock in that as a measurement tool. Given its lack of credibility, basing your pricing on media equivalencies is building a house on very shaky foundations.

Finally, if you’re looking for some kind of formula, you can stop now. There is no formula for pricing. Anyone who says there is a formula is trying to sell you their formula.

Getting sponsorship pricing right

There is no formula, but there is a methodology, and here are the basics…

First, calculate your baseline fee. This is NOT what you’d charge for a sponsorship, but the keep-your-arse-out-of-a-sling number – the number that keeps you from selling too low for it to be worth it. This is the number for everyone who has ever sold a sponsorship for less than it cost to deliver, or not enough more that it was worth the headaches – and we’ve all been there.

The starting figure I like to work with is:

3 x (cost to deliver benefits + cost of sale + cost of servicing) = baseline fee

I generally also do the red zone fee, which is the fee at which you may be getting into the not-worth-it territory:

2 x (cost to deliver benefits + cost of sale + cost of servicing) = red zone fee

Note: For both of these, the “cost of servicing” is your budget for adding value to the relationship – providing extra benefits, sponsor training or networking, or other extras. Best practice is to budget at least 10% of the gross value of the sponsorship – including any in-kind – for servicing. For this exercise, put your starting cost of servicing at 10% of the cost to deliver benefits plus the cost of sale, as it will grow appropriately as you multiply your baseline fee. If required, you can make minor adjustments later.

Then you apply market influencers to your baseline fee. These include:

• What the market will bear – You need to do some research, use your network, and if you are inexperienced, get feedback from trusted colleagues outside of your organisation.
• Lead time before the event – Short lead time doesn’t give the sponsor long enough to implement the leverage plan that will turn the opportunity you’re selling into the results they need.
• Other activities in the marketplace that may be sucking up sponsorship money (ie, Olympics, World Cup).
• Uniqueness of what you offer and its position in the marketplace.
• Issues or trends that make what you do more or less appealing – For instance, if there has been a string of scandals in a particular league, the price you can charge for a team sponsorship may be lowered as a result of the perceived risk.
• Economic situation and trend.

You will also be able to charge more if you provide creative leverage ideas to the sponsor and if you are creative with the benefits you provide. Sell only logos on things, tickets to things, hospitality, and some kind of official designation and you commoditise yourself – reducing the amount you can charge.

There is more to it than that, but you’ve got the basics. For a whole step-by-step on offer development, pricing, and the whole sponsorship sales process, check out The Sponsorship Seeker’s Toolkit 3rd Edition.