So you want to be sponsored?

I know, I know, you are the next KVD and you want a company to pay your way so you can show the world how great you are. Let’s face it, there are thousands of anglers around the globe that are making that statement or a slight moderation of it to potential sponsors every day. So there’s the problem. Now what are you going to do to separate yourself from the rest of the pack?

Let’s dive in on the problem. If you have or ever thought about sending an email like the ones you are about to read – then you need to rethink your strategy big time!

Actual sponsorship request samples – names changed to protect the innocent!

Hi, my name is John Q. Public, I fish Future Pro Tour. My partner is Mike J. Doe. We had our first tournament at Lake Berryessa a few weeks ago. I’m looking for sponsors to help with gas or tackle to use. I would put any logos on my boat. I have a Ranger 2008. Any thing would help out a lot. We would appreciate anything we can get. Thank you for your time!
John Q. Public

I was seeing if you were accepting any resumes for pro or regional staff. I am new to the whole sponsorship thing but i know I can help you generate sales for you. I will fish Bass Weekend Series and FOM with one other being a BASS Southern Open. I want to move to the Opens soon and work my way up from there. Any questions feel free to contact me (555) 555-1234 or by email. Thank you for your time and hoping to here from you soon.
Joe Sample

No offense to these individuals – but, really?  Do you really think you are the first person to send this email?  If not then what makes you think a sponsor is going to pick your email out of the dozens or even hundreds that they get?  This is not putting you in position to get a reply. You need to make a sponsor want to reply because they just can’t do business without having you on their team!  Neither of these two emails even remotely have that effect on the reader.  I’ll stop here, but I can go on for an hour on why these emails are just a waste of the writers and the readers time.  From here on we’ll look at what you should do not what you shouldn’t do!

Types of Sponsorships

Before you can even consider looking for a sponsor you should have a pretty good idea what types of sponsorships exist. In actuality, there are an infinite number of sponsorship types but, lets just cover a few. Product sponsorships, incentive sponsorships and cash sponsorships are the basics but, any combination of the three are possible along with others.

Product Sponsorships
A product sponsorship is a basic agreement between a company and an angler that provides the angler with product for promoting the sponsors products or service.

Incentive Sponsorships
An incentive sponsorship is a detailed agreement between a company and an angler in which the angler receives cash or product based on milestones or goals set within the agreement. Examples of milestones could be;

a) Winning a tournament
b) Being featured in an article in a regional magazine or newspaper, in which the sponsors product or company name is mentioned
c) Finding a retailer to carry the sponsors product
d) and many more

Cash Sponsorships
An agreement between a sponsor and an angler for an amount of money to paid to an angler by the sponsor and an outline of what the sponsor receives in way of promotion from the angler. This is the type of agreement that most of the biggest names in the sport have with their sponsors.

So how do you get one of these deals?
The first thing you have to do is figure out what you can do for the company. We all know what companies want, sell more of their product, make more money and get more exposure. You need to figure a way to help the company do one or all of these things in a way that goes beyond putting their logo on your shirt, truck or boat.

For this article we’ll use a fictitious company called ABC Baits. ABC Baits is a bait manufacturing company that sells crankbaits, walking top water baits, poppers, rip baits and some other specialized baits. A typical bait company like Strike King, Lucky Craft or Jackall.

So how do you get ABC Baits to Sponsor you?
ABC Baits gets hundreds of emails like the one’s you just read. Sending them another one of those letters or emails is going to get you nowhere. So lets think outside the box for a minute here. Keep in mind the three major goals for ABC Baits – sell more product, make more money and gain exposure for their products.

Improving Sales
Every company might have a different way to increase their sales. With ABC Baits they’ll want more tackle shops to carry their products, retails shops is critical to a bait company. A tackle shop might want to utilize your eyes and ears to their customers. After all, if you are looking to get sponsored you are probably on the water quite a bit more than the employees at the bait shop so they might not know what is working on the water as well as you. That information is critical to a tackle shop. No matter what type of company you are considering approaching figuring out what is critical to their sales and profit making ability is essential. You’ll need to think like the business owner and ask yourself – what would I like from my sponsored anglers, and then find a way to give them that.

Back to ABC Baits, to help them sell more product there are so many angles we can’t cover them all in this article but, the simplest and most effective one might be simply helping them get local shops and then keeping the local shops informed on new products, new colors and more. Let’s say ABC Baits is in Des Moines Iowa and you are in Lubbuck Texas. Perfect this opens the doors for you to try and help them in the big Texas bass fishing market. You can work on the local tackle shops to bring the baits into the stores. If you travel a lot you can make sure to stop in the local shops during your travels and talk to them about ABC Baits and educate them on why they should be selling them. Keep in mind, most tackle shops aren’t going to order up hundreds or thousands of dollars in baits because you said so. So you’ll need to understand the local fishing areas, the baits, the company, the pricing of the baits and what the shops profit margin is going to be. You’ll also need to know of any successes ABC Baits has had in local tournaments, national tournaments and more. This is a good reason that you better make sure you like ABC Baits before you even think of approaching them.

Gaining Exposure
With today’s technology we all have the ability to put our opinions and beliefs out on the web in many ways. There are hundreds of fishing message boards that you can get the ABC Baits some exposure on. However, you’ll need to be smart about this as most don’t allow blatant advertising on their sites. So you’ll need to work ABC Baits into answers to other peoples questions or even questions of your own such as “Have you guys seen this crankbait? What do you think?” Keep in mind, all the responses may or may not be positive but, exposure is exposure.

YouTube.com is another great avenue for you to get the bait some exposure. With a simple camcorder and a little computer experience you can make ABC Baits a few videos showing how to fish their crankbaits, rip/jerk baits or top water baits effectively. Post these videos onto YouTube and spread the word and you’ll be increasing their exposure.

Facebook is another great resource for you to use to spread the word on ABC Baits. You can post pictures of fish you’ve caught on the pages. Join fishing groups and post about the baits and spread the word around the fishing world that way.

It’s really tough to get an article printed in an industry publication as they all have writers they deal with on a day to day basis. However, writing an article or two and sending them to the publications for their consideration in their publication could potentially work out. This is the one place where being a better angler can help in the process. Articles that are more likely to be picked up include how you use ABC Baits to catch better fish or technique specific articles where you utilize ABC Baits in the descriptions of how to perform the technique.

If the article doesn’t get picked up by a publication then you can do a number of things with it. You can add it to a blog or post it to an article archive website for others to use on their websites. A good example of an article archive website is http://ezinearticles.com.

The Basic Stuff
Of course, just because you can’t really land a deal promising logos on shirts, boats and trucks doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mix it into your presentation. All of those will increase the exposure for ABC Bait company but, making that the center of your presentation really limits your success rate.

First Contact – Presentation
It’s always better if you know the owner, marketing person or pro-staff director of a company but, if you don’t you’ll need to make contact somehow. Sending an email or letter can be effective, but, you better get to the point early and then keep their interest throughout or you’ll have a tough time being successful.

As for starting the email or letter, don’t start by saying you are looking for a sponsorship. Start by telling them you want to help them make money, gain exposure or both. Be very descriptive and precise about what you want to do FOR THEM. After all, they already know what you want as soon as the open the email or letter. You have about 30 words to gain their interest before that letter gets discarded or the email gets deleted. So use it wisely, let them know you want to help them.

Almost the whole letter needs to be about what you want to do for them so again be very specific (the more specific the better), think outside the box and offer them something they can’t do for themselves because of time, location or other reasons. Be sure to leave what you want from them until the end. Let’s face it we all WANT something, even ABC Baits wants something, like more sales and more exposure, and you need to feed those wants for them before even thinking about asking for something in return. It’s really hard to stop reading an email or letter that is about how you are going to help them. On the flip side, it’s really easy to stop reading an email or letter telling them what you want from them, as we’ve covered already, they get lots of those!

The Results
If they respond negative you’ll need to keep your head up and keep trying. With the bad economy, many companies may not be able to afford another pro staffer. Even if you get turned down you are at least making contacts and if and when that company is ready to work with pro staffers they will already know what you have to offer.

If you get a positive response you’ll need to work with the company to lock down a contract. Even if its not a very formal contract have something in writing so that both yourself and the company know exactly what to expect. Keep in mind, after you get sponsored you better remember to live up to your end of the deal.

Summary
Separate yourself from the others by thinking outside the box, offering potential sponsors what they want and need. So many potential pro staffers are great at asking for what they want but, not very good at explaining what they can do to help the sponsoring company. By explaining in detail what you can do to help you’ll gain the upper hand. I’d say good luck, but there is no luck in this, it’s about research, effort, using the right approach and understanding the business of your potential sponsors.