cost and other nuts in looking for sponsors.: Grassroots Motorsports forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

Subscribe get a full year for only $23.95 Sample Free Test Drive—no strings attached

June 25, 2009 4:36 p.m. ckosacranoid HalfDork

i have been thinking today......that might not be a good thing....anyone have some way to put out a fire if needed...

there is lots of articals in the zine about getting sponors and such. here is the thing i keep having trouble in doing how do you figure your budget out to find how much to ask said sponors to help cover. thats the big thing i keep having trouble with.

mey be i work it this way from when i ran the local demo derby a few times and i can get an idea of where to go from here in a bit bigger area. car $100 would get about get anywhere from $25 to $50 from local buiness to cover the cost of getting things for the car and i always would get them pics of the car after the event. it ran about $200 to $300 to prep the car to wreak it though. things we would need would be chain, bolts, hoses, clamps, boat tank among other things.

i guess what i looking for is any idea of how to work something out to say run a season of autocross with 6 events to work for. the car would need to be on trailer or dolly to move it. this is just something to work out for costs. things to add up. i can see these costs being needed. gas with car and tow car...Car $20...towing $60 entry fee $50 food for event(bring things with) $30

this is accounting for a local event to drive to and from. but how would you go about fiigureing out how to come up with the money to cover the season and asking sponosrs for how much though. thats the big thing i keep running into. anythoughts would help to work out something for next year or even getting to one event this year....beeing broke sucks and only working one day a week is even worse...sigh
June 25, 2009 8:37 p.m. Kramer Reader

First of all, make a marketing proposal that details you, your car, and what you're doing with it. If you need the sponsor's money to make it to the events, you probably won't get sponsored. But if you are racing with our without the sponsor, they'll know you're serious. For each sponsor, create an image of how the car will look. Give three options: One for a small decal (say for a $50 deal), one for a big decal ($200), and one for the entire car ($1000). Show them the photoshopped images and the price, and offer to become a "salesperson" for them, by handing out flyers/catalogs/swag. Also, give a thorough update after every event, with professional pictures (no copyrights, and high res--they may want to use these for other marketing) and honest feedback about the job you're doing of selling their product.

If you get a sponsor, but don't go thru with all of your events and marketing, you'll be dropped like a dirty shirt. If you only go to the local Big Boy every weekend, you probably won't get crap. If you only attend autocrosses in one region, and there's only 100 other entrants, you're not doing much for their company.

If you give the company a good return on their investment, you may get a sponsor. Right now, you may have to offer 100 individual, personalized proposals before you get one good sponsor.

This is the advice I gave a fellow NASA member, and my (now former) company gave this guy lots of money. Probably more than most other NASA racers. He still spends more than what he got, so he's not ahead, but he now has one of the nicest cars on the track. GRM even did a few blurbs about him, and he now has even more (albeit smaller) sponsors.
June 25, 2009 9:03 p.m. ww SuperDork

In this economy? Good luck. You're not the only one that's broke. Most companies are cutting back on marketing & advertising budgets to save money as well. As mentioned, you're going to have to have a very professional presentation and be able to quantify what they're getting in return for their "investment" in your "marketing service".
June 25, 2009 10:17 p.m. Keith SuperDork

One of my sources at Mazda told me their motorsport budget was cut by 45% this year. Ouch. Well, at least they're not bankrupt...
June 26, 2009 9:12 a.m. Duke Dork

You also have to understand what their market is.

1500 local citizens from all walks of life saw your car at the County Fair demo derby. 100 local car nuts who already buy their stuff from somewhere are going to see your car at an autocross.

Which one of those markets is more valuable depends utterly on what they're trying to sell.
June 26, 2009 10:20 a.m. CivicSiRacer Reader

Having sponsors myself I will reiterate what someone said. Always be truthful with what you are doing and don't expect freebees from your sponsors. You are working for them not the other way around.

I try to tell people who ask me for sponsorship help (writing their proposals and resumes) is introduce yourself, tell them what you have done to receive said sponsorship (winnings, trophies, car shows, magazines, etc) and tell them what YOU CAN DO FOR THEM in return for their help.

But I agree most places are cutting back on costs where ever they can especially marketing and sponsorships. You might have to bend over backwards for them, but it's a start. $5 sponsorship is better than none.
June 26, 2009 10:25 a.m. Kramer Reader

Oh yeah. And my number one piece of advice:

Make the company feel as if they're getting double their money's worth.
June 26, 2009 12:26 p.m. Duke Dork

And number two piece of advice:

Make sure all of your correspondence is written with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, no matter who you need to proofread it for you.
June 27, 2009 11:42 a.m. CivicSiRacer Reader

Duke wrote: And number two piece of advice:

Make sure all of your correspondence is written with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, no matter who you need to proofread it for you.

Ah yes that is a major thing. I've had people proof-read their sponsorship propsals with so many grammatical errors I marked it up like a 2nd grade teacher with a RED SHARPIE.

Even simple things like SPONSORSHIP (seen sponsership, sponsarship, sponsers, sponsars) people spell wrong. How is anyone going to even think of sponsoring you if you cannot take the time to spell it right. They would be thinking you cannot even spell it right, how are you going to treat our company?
June 27, 2009 12:31 p.m. suprf1y Reader

Duke wrote:

And number two piece of advice:

Make sure all of your correspondence is written with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, no matter who you need to proofread it for you.

Excellent advice.
June 27, 2009 6:10 p.m. MadScientistMatt Dork
I weed out sponsorship requests at work before passing the more promising ones on to the boss for rejection (well, a few do get approved, but the budget's pretty tight). Here are a few tips I could share.
1. As Kramer said, the most important thing is to sell the sponsor on what you can do for them. Which is advertising. The biggest thing is a list of events you'll be attending, who sees the car there, and how well you've done. Bonus points if you have a track record of getting media coverage.
2. Another one that needs restating is to keep the appearance of your letter professional. Good proofreading goes a long way. The guy who sent me a well formatted PDF really impressed me... Until he said he'd be running a competitor's product. Proofreading is more than spelling and grammar.
3. If you want to come up with an extra $100 for your budget, it's easier to talk a sponsor into a $100 discount on a large order, tougher to convince them to give you $100 worth of free parts, and toughest of all to get $100 cash.
June 27, 2009 8:54 p.m. Hal HalfDork

Only ever did the sponsorship thing once a long time ago on a car I drag raced. But my advice is to start out small.

I told the local speed shop I would put their stickers on my car if they gave them to me. Normally they sold them for $2 a piece.

Went to the strip and lost in the final round for the class. When I went back to the shop on Monday to tell them how I did, they had already heard and decided to give me a larger set of stickers.

By the time I quit 2 years later to go to college they were giving me about half of the parts i needed. Never did get any cash but free parts was fine by me.
June 30, 2009 3:01 p.m. ckosacranoid HalfDork

hey, parts and little things always helps. and thanks for the advice guys, i was looking for something to put things in the right way to under stand what needed to be done and how to go about it. thanks again.