How to Get Sponsors for Your Rodeo
Sell sponsorships online to maximize your sponsorship dollars and sponsor exposure. Sponsors are a key revenue source for your rodeo. You need to create your rodeo sponsorship packages, market them, and close deals. We’ll cover everything you need to do to get rodeo sponsors.
- Why are sponsorships for rodeos useful?
- How do I price my rodeo sponsor packages?
- How do I get rodeo sponsors?
- How can I sell rodeo sponsors online?
Why Are Sponsorships for Rodeos Useful?
Sponsorships are designed to be beneficial for your rodeo and your sponsor.
You’ll receive money, products, or services to support the rodeo. In exchange, you can offer sponsors marketing opportunities, comp tickets, and other value propositions specific to your rodeo.
Sponsor Benefits for Rodeos
It takes a lot of resources to put on a rodeo, and all too often people rely heavily on the revenue from ticket sales. Often a rodeo requires more money than the ticket sales on their own can generate. Even if you have enough revenue to cover your operating expenses you may have projects that you need money for like new bleachers, or other equipment.
When ticket revenue doesn’t cover all of the expenses for a rodeo, sponsorship revenue can make the difference. Even an in-kind sponsorship can help a rodeo like a local restaurant providing catering for your VIP tickets. If a company is able to provide something that you would have otherwise paid for, that saves you money in your budget.
When there’s more room in your budget, you can comfortably operate, offer more scholarships, or even pay for more entertainment (e.g. fireworks, drone show, etc.).
Benefits for Rodeo Sponsors
The companies you talk to about sponsorship each have their own reasons for considering a rodeo sponsorship. Most of the time, these interests center on driving more attention to their business and making more sales. Although, you may find a sponsor or two that are just looking for ways to engage and support local communities.
All sponsors are looking to benefit in some way, so consider what your potential sponsors are most interested in. With all of that information you are able to create attractive rodeo sponsorship packages.
Since most sponsors are interested in marketing opportunities, consider the following benefits you can offer:
- Logo or offer placement in receipt emails
- Logo or offer placement on website or purchase path
- Banner in your arena
- Logo on flags
- Social media posts about sponsor
- Logo on fliers
- Advertisement in the rodeo program
- Advertisement read by announcer
- Logo on rodeo advertisements
- Branding on a rodeo photo backdrop
- Rodeo swag
- Comp tickets
Think about what makes your rodeo unique to identify other benefits you can add to make your rodeo sponsorship program better.
Streamlined Sponsor Benefits Delivery
Delivering on all of your sponsor benefits helps ensure sponsor satisfaction and makes renewal conversations easier.
Depending on your sponsor packages and how many sponsors you have, there can be a lot of details to keep track of. Rodeo Ticket offers software that streamlines and automates some of the key benefits you may offer:
- Autogenerated Comp Tickets – For each sponsor level, determine whether and how many comp tickets to offer. Now, an autogenerated, unique promo code will be sent to your sponsor whenever someone pays for a sponsorship in those levels.
- Automated Logo Inclusion – Automatically include sponsor logos on your Rodeo Ticket marketing page and in your email footers. It’s easy to deliver on logo placement with these tools. You can even decide which sponsors to feature on your tickets.
- Sponsor Offers – Let your sponsors offer a deal to your attendees. Sponsors can submit a deal on their products or services that is marketed directly to your audience and linked from your Rodeo Ticket marketing page. You can even track views to sponsor offers.
How Do I Price My Rodeo Sponsor Packages?
Pricing your rodeo sponsorship opportunities depends on a few things; your rodeo size, sponsorship benefits value, and your wants and needs. Each of your sponsorship types will have their own pricing. For example, a title sponsorship costs more than a corporate sponsorship because there are more benefits offered with a title sponsorship than a corporate one.
As you’re determining your pricing, consider offering a discount to companies that agree to a multi-year deal. Multi-year deals help you secure sponsor revenue long-term, which means it’s easier for you to grow.
How Do I Get Rodeo Sponsors?
Follow the four steps below to get rodeo sponsors:
- Identify Prospective Sponsors
- Start Conversations & Learn More
- Keep Conversations Open & Close Deals
- Renew Sponsor Deals
1. Identify Prospective Sponsors
Once you’ve created your rodeo sponsorship program, start reaching out to companies. Think about which businesses and companies would be most interested in the audience you’re gathering at your rodeo.
Start with businesses that work in farming and ranching – the audience at your rodeo is the audience these companies are trying to reach.
People in your community will also be highly interested in your rodeo and supporting a local event. You can also reach out to doctor’s offices, dental offices, and other services that everyone needs. Even though the connection isn’t rodeo, they are local services that people in your audience need.
Beyond local businesses, reach out to national brands for your larger sponsorship packages, too. Whether it is the local feed store or a big time boot brand, all of these sponsors help you put on the kind of rodeo experience you want to deliver.
2. Start Conversations & Learn More
Start talking to your prospective sponsors – via email, phone call, or even an in-person visit. Before you start asking for money and pitching your sponsorship, build a relationship of trust.
Companies are far more likely to do business with you if they know and like you first. Consider inviting a large company from your area out to your event with some complimentary tickets to the front row, or other great seats. Involve them in a meet and greet.
As you approach your conversations, focus on learning more about their business and their interests. Once you understand what they’re looking for and their painpoints, you can help them see how a rodeo sponsorship can benefit them.
3. Keep Conversations Open & Close Deals
Once you start sponsor conversations, keep developing your relationship even if you don’t close that sponsor deal this year. They may be interested in a future year. Companies go through changes – from budget to personnel – that may make sponsorship more appealing or possible in the future.
4. Renew Sponsor Deals
Once your rodeo is over, reach out to your sponsors to thank them for their support. Ask them about their experience sponsoring your rodeo and if they’d like to sponsor again next year. Starting these renewal conversations early can help you retain more of your sponsors in addition to negotiating multi-year deals.
With Rodeo Ticket’s software, you can manage your sponsor outreach from prospecting to renewals. You can add sponsor prospects, track your outreach, and note where conversations are in a dedicated CRM.
You can also quickly create and send sponsor emails. You can accept online payments, track check payments, and note in-kind sponsor deals.
And, you can set-up automated renewal invitation emails to your sponsors. With this tool, you can automate some of your sponsor follow up. Of course, you’ll always want to have a personal touch, particularly with your bigger sponsors.
How Can I Sell Rodeo Sponsorships Online?
Rodeo Ticket makes selling sponsorships online easy with a dedicated, customizable sponsor sales page for your rodeo. List your rodeo sponsorship opportunities so people can review what each of your packages offer when they’re deciding whether or not to sponsor your rodeo.
Beyond your rodeo’s sponsor sales page, Rodeo Ticket has a rodeo sponsorship calendar that companies can use to find a rodeo to sponsor. Rodeos selling sponsorships with our software are automatically listed on this “Sponsor a Rodeo” page. You can even purchase a display ad on this page to draw even more attention to your rodeo.
While many of your sponsor sales will come from personal interactions with people, advertising and selling rodeo sponsorships online helps get the word out. You may even sell some smaller sponsorships online without doing any outreach on your own.
