Sponsors are key to your rodeo’s success and bottom line. Their support helps make your rodeo possible from prize money to arena upkeep.
Your job is to attract sponsors and keep them coming back for more. Start by creating value in your offer. Then, deliver a positive experience for your sponsors. Follow the steps below to step up your sponsor game.
Your biggest selling point is exposure to your rodeo audience. Your rodeo gathers people who are highly interested in rodeos. Many businesses are trying to market to people in your audience.
Start by understanding the audience your rodeo draws – pay attention to demographics and where people come from to see your rodeo. Rodeos that draw more of a local crowd can make a strong appeal to local businesses like dental offices, doctors offices, veterinary offices, bars, restaurants, and retail stores.
Rodeos that draw more of a tourist audience can still appeal to local businesses by focusing on local bars, restaurants, hotels, and retail shops.
You can also reach out to bigger brands for sponsorship – think beer, Western wear, etc.
As you craft your pitch to prospective sponsors, focus on where your audience and your sponsor’s target audience overlap. You’ll have a different pitch for each sponsor, even if it’s just a little bit different.
Create different opportunities for sponsors to get in front of your audience. Think signs around your arena and ticketing area, PA announcements read during the rodeo, logo placement on printed tickets, on the rodeo website, and in emails, and ads in the rodeo program.
Many rodeos also offer sponsors complimentary tickets and special swag.
Once a business decides to sponsor your rodeo, make payment as easy as possible. Create and send invoices quickly. You can also consider accepting online payments.
When you use Rodeo Ticket to manage your sponsor program, you can accept online payments and issue invoices with the click of a button. Sponsors can even find you about sponsor opportunities with your online sponsorship pages – and if they’re ready to pay a sponsorship, they can pay instantly online or request an invoice.
Communication is the next step to delivering a positive sponsor experience – be responsive as sponsors have questions and reach out proactively to get their PA announcements or other details for delivering on the sponsorship benefits.
Take opportunities to thank your sponsors. A thank you when they agree to sponsor, a thank you when they pay, and thank yous at your rodeo go a long way to making your sponsors feel appreciated. Once your rodeo is over, send a final thank you note – either via card or email.
Rodeo Ticket makes mass communication with your sponsors simple – send emails to sponsors by sponsorship category and even put a shine on your emails with free template designs.
After you thank your sponsors for last year’s support, ask them to renew for next year. Talk to them about how their experience was and how it made a difference for their company’s bottom line. Learning this information can help you improve the sponsor experience and offers in the future and help you have anecdotes to share when you are talking to a prospective sponsor.
Reselling after someone has experienced the value is often much easier than making the initial sales pitch. You can even ask for multi-year deals to secure long-term funding for your rodeo.
Rodeo Ticket offers automated sponsor renewal requests – you can automate renewal emails to all of your sponsors each year, so it’s easy to get those conversations started.
