Part of the business game is attracting sponsors and partners to help your small business grow stronger roots. While putting a successful party or event together, it’s important to find the right companies to fund your promotional portion of the evening, making your party a financial success. 

Attracting sponsors and securing them is half the battle. Here’s how you can help attract sponsors to help you build your business:

Find Companies That Would Benefit From Helping You Out

Why are corporate sponsors so prevalent for your small business? Quite simply, it makes money. Done correctly, it can make a lot of money and build important connections. Done wrong, it can cost money and waste many people’s time. Know what your event will be about and plan on fulfilling and attending their needs.

Research what your demographic is and be sure to specify it clearly in your proposal — specifying your target market is vital. Why is this important? If the business you’re approaching doesn’t feel your market is worth spending a dime on, they won’t offer you that sponsorship.

Give Them What They Want

Show a sponsor that you can get them what they want and that you have the ability to make that happen, whether that’s more leads, more exposure or money. Sponsors want to know that you have some of the best business credit cards, that way they’re certain you’re a good investment. 

Show Them a Plan

Nothing postpones and derails a potential partnership like slow-dragging feet. If both parties agree that a partnership means big business and big bucks, don’t prevent the partnership from happening by not drawing up a plan. To keep the sponsors interested, put a workable and obtainable idea on the table.

• Create a compelling plan by showing your partner’s content exposure through social media like Facebook likes, content shares and retweets.
• Think about creating all forms of content for your plan: videos, email courses, printed reports, survey data.

Be sure to show them your platform. For example, if you’re going to be putting an event together for women business owners and the mailing list exceeds 200,000 let them know. When potential sponsors know the kind of exposure you can get them, they’re more likely to look at your plan with open minds and be more willing to sponsor.

Give Them Exposure

As stated by American Express, giving a sponsor exposure will sure to have them on your side in no time. Offer to shoot a video interview or record a podcast with top executives as part of your sponsorship. Instead of just trying to strike up a deal, giving them exposure opportunities at the front-end of your relationship will give you a greater chance of striking a deal with them. If you do more for them, they’ll want to do more for you.