Securing sponsorship is undoubtedly one of the toughest jobs on any race director’s plate. And finding and approaching sponsors, in particular, is probably the toughest bit of it.

Where do you even begin looking for good sponsor prospects? How do you know which person to contact? What do sponsors really want? And how do you make that first approach to maximize your chances of success?

We’ve got some awesome tips for you on all those burning questions and more from today’s guest, Teresa Stas. Teresa is the CEO of event sponsorship consultancy Green Cactus, she is also the author of “Sell Your Event!: The Easy To Follow Practical Guide To Getting Sponsors”, and she has spent her entire career helping events of all shapes and sizes land long-term sponsorship relationships, including Hood to Coast, the world’s largest relay race - now also a growing international relay race franchise. 

In this episode:

• Selling sponsorship = selling an audience
• Figuring out your event's audience 
• How your audience's interests can guide your sponsor prospecting 
• Understanding your audience through surveys, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, marketing personas
• Putting together an introduction deck (not a sponsorship proposal!) for your event
• Where to look and what to look out for when prospecting sponsors
• In-kind sponsors, sustainability sponsors, media sponsors
• Finding the right contact person inside each sponsor organization
• Cold-calling vs cold-emailing sponsor prospects
• How to cold-call and cold-email sponsors
• Following up on your initial cold/email to sponsors
• Making the most of sponsor rejections

Resources:

• Make sure to visit https://www.greencactusca.com/resources for additional free resources from Green Cactus to help you with your sponsor prospecting.

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Racecheck, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

RunSignup are the leading all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Find out more at https://runsignup.com/.

Racecheck can help you collect and showcase your participant reviews on your race website, helping you more easily convert website visitors into paying participants, with the help of their Racecheck Review Box. Download yours for free today at https://organisers.racecheck.com/.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about sponsor prospecting or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.