How To Get Big Sponsorship Money for Your Band, Tour, Event or Production

By Thomas King
Posted Sunday, February 6, 2005

Touring is a bands greatest opportunity for success. But, touring can be very expensive. Getting your tour, band or event sponsored is critical to your success. Sponsorship can off-set production, travel, promotion and virtually any of your expense. The right sponsor can also significantly augment your advertising, publicity and promotions. But, getting sponsorship participation can take a lot of effort and commitment on your part. You will need to prove to potential sponsors that your opportunity will deliver a good return on investment for them.

The following is a step by step procedure we have used at Multimediary Entertainment Marketing to secure hundreds of thousands of sponsorship dollars for numerous tours, events, artists, television programming and feature films. We have done this for several major record labels and both signed and unsigned artists. Now we want to share our knowledge experience so you can do this on your own.

Create an Introduction Letter

The first step in securing sponsorship dollars is to craft a professional introduction letter highlighting the features and benefits of the opportunity you are offering. Some of these features and benefits might include inclusion in advertising, product sampling, banner display and more. After you have given a brief overview of the opportunity close the letter by asking their permission to send them a more detailed presentation. The introduction letter is the most critical part of the sponsorship success equation. If well crafted, it will get your foot in the door.

Demographic Analysis

Understanding your audience is critical. Potential sponsors will want to know who you are reaching. The best way of gathering this information is right at you finger tips. Call radio stations you think should be playing your music. Ask for an account executive and ask this person to fax you their Tapscan, Scarborough or Prism demographic and qualitative information. In all likelihood you will now be armed with a detailed overview of what your audience looks like and can match this up with potential sponsors. You will also have a great hit list of companies to start hitting.

Creating Your Sponsorship Presentation

No that you have your introduction letter and demographic profiles you are ready to begin creating your presentation. The presentation will seal the deal with sponsors only if it contains all the information they will need to make an educated decision on your opportunity. The presentation must contain the following elements:

1. A Two to three paragraph overview of your opportunity

2. A detailed overview of tour routing, markets and venues

3. An overview of what type of public relations and media support you expect to have and how the sponsor will be included

4. Your audience and demographic profile

5. Tour partnership deliverables or what the sponsor will receive for their investment

6. The total investment you are looking for from your sponsor and the return a sponsor can expect

Now that you have all of the pieces of the puzzle you are ready to go out and shake the trees for sponsorship dollars. With effort and consistency you will land a sponsor. Always deliver on what you promise to retain your sponsors year after year. Under deliver and they will promptly kick you to the curb. Our philosophy is to always under promise and over deliver. With this philosophy you will be assured ongoing solid sponsorship participation for years to come.

Multimediary Entertainment Marketing can get your tour, band or event on the right track by providing you with the following:

• An Introduction letter that garners results

• An accurate Demographic Analysis extrapolated of 5 major markets

• Sponsorship Value Analysis to determine the worth of your opportunity

• Sponsorship presentation in Word and PowerPoint

• Press Release creation announcing sponsorship opportunity

• Press Release distributed to all major markets announcing your opportunity

• We will also include your opportunity in the Multimediary Entertainment Marketing Newsletter which goes out to over 1500 Corporate Brand Managers monthly

• Professional Sponsorship Contract/Agreement you can use to seal the deal

• One-hour Professional Consultation to ensure you’re going in the right direction

For details and pricing please visit our website at: (http://www.multimediary.com/sponsorship.html)

About Multimediary Entertainment Marketing and Thom King

Multimediary was founded by Thom King in late 2001. Multimediary has worked with Virgin Records, Capital Records, and Universal, Warner Brothers, Lions Gate Films and several other major and independent record labels and entertainment production companies. Multimediary has also worked with several consumer brands including: Lifestyles Condoms, Miller Beer, Red Bull, Monster Energy Drink, Dr. Martins, Snapple, Honda Motor Company, British Petroleum, Adidas and more.

About the Author
King started his career in the broadcast industry where he most recently worked as Regional Vice President of Sales for a division of Clear Channel Worldwide. King was instrumental in helping Clear Channel capitalized on unique opportunities by converging radio, outdoor, venue, and interactive assets into fully integrated campaigns. King parlayed his over 20 years of cutting edge marketing experience to form Multimediary.