How To Write a Successful Event Sponsorship Proposal

Do want to attract more sponsors to your event? Download your own event sponsorship template using the form, and then read this blog post to learn how to use it to craft the perfect sponsorship proposal.

A huge number of events rely on sponsors to cover their costs and make them viable. Probably, yours does too.

Breaking even or making a profit can be extremely difficult without them.

Whether you’re running a small networking evening for 50 people and need a sponsor for £200-worth of drinks, or you need a 7-figure festival headline sponsor, the principles for a winning sponsorship pitch are the same.

Quite simply they can be summarised like this: show the value of your event to the sponsor, and build credibility with them so they trust you can deliver on those promised benefits.

The key ingredient in this process is showing that the audience at your event are potential customers (and advocates) of your target sponsor, and that you will definitely be able to get that audience in front of your sponsor.

If you feel you can do this for your event and a handful of potential sponsors, the next step is to get in touch.

How do you approach sponsors?

The only way to successfully get new sponsors committed to an event (whether it’s a new concept or a long-running success), is to have a conversation with them.

Using a combination of Google and LinkedIn, you should be able to quickly find and contact the right person at your target company to have an initial conversation with. If you’re not sure how to do this, we have some great guides for you to follow:

The second part of a successful sponsorship pitch is to support your conversations with a really great event sponsorship proposal.

While no sponsorship proposal or pitch deck can take the place of a good old fashion conversation, having the right introduction or follow-up, in the form of a pdf or ppt sponsorship deck, will play a pivotal role in your success.

Your sponsorship pitch deck will generally be used in 3 ways:

As the first contact with you and your event.
As a follow-up and reminder of the key points discussed in your conversation
By your contact to pitch the sponsorship internally to their colleagues

Scenario 1 is not ideal – you don’t really want to cold email potential sponsors your pitch deck as they’re unlikely to bother even reading it. However sometimes you have no choice, it can work as an icebreaker and a way to summarise the value of your event.

Scenario 2 is best, because it doesn’t introduce any new information, but helps remind your potential sponsor of the key reasons why they should be sponsors of your event.

Scenario 3 is a mixture of the first 2. It will be the first time everyone else has seen the key information about your event, but it provides a nice structure and talking points for your advocate within the sponsor company. It would be better if you could pitch it to them all in person, but if that’s not an option, this is a nice fallback.

In all three use-cases, it is important you include all of the most important and value-highlighting facts about your event in the sponsorship proposal – but nothing else.

This is not the place to include everything you can possibly share about your event.

Don’t provide a potted history, a full programme or a lengthy market overview.

These things may well come up in conversation, or they can be looked at on your website, but the event sponsorship deck isn’t the right place for them.

The event sponsorship proposal – in the form of a pitch deck or pdf – should be short, sharp and supportive of your overall sales pitch. Nothing more, nothing less.

To help guide you through the creation of a great pitch deck, we’ve compiled an event sponsorship template with a completed example. Don’t forget to download it using the form.

Download our guide to The New Rules of Event Sponsorships for more information.