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How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows

“Increase the attendance, prizes and interest in your trivia nights by attracting local sponsors”

Business person

In a previous post on the blog, which I sincerely hope you are finding helpful, we delved into the world of sponsorship in the article Why Secure Sponsors. I know from talking to a lot of fellow trivia hosts that the issue of sponsorship makes people uncomfortable…it is hard to do, it takes time and effort, there is the awkward sales pitch and generally some trivia hosts do not want to turn their nights and events into something laden with sponsorship and logs. But as we discussed in the last article on sponsorship, the benefits are plain to see. We mentioned how sponsors –

 

  • Increase the professional look of your business
  • Attract better prizes and increase relations with local firms
  • Increase prize money and hence boost attendance

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – Is it Worth The Effort?

Yes! Yes! Yes!  Find a sponsor to front $500 for a 6 month span results in $1,000 annual in your pocket!  Find 5 sponsors, and now you have $5,000 in your pocket each year doing what you already are doing.  This will be the easiest $5K in your pocket.  We will teach you how to do it.

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – They May Already Be in your Audience!

  • If someone comes up to you and expresses appreciation for your trivia show, thank them and exchange business cards.  Follow up later with them about a sponsorship.  This is the easiest sponsor sale because they have already seen you in action and are convinced of your talents.
  • Add into the trivia show a physical challenge game where you get many business cards, like a scavenger hunt to break a tie.  The player with the most business cards gathered is the winner.  Now, create a professional newsletter and mail or email it to them.  Again, these are people who have already seen you in action and are now potential clients for future shows and also could be a sponsor.

 

All these issues, I hope in the last article were enough to entice and convince you that sponsorship was the way forward but today we are going to look at how to actually secure it.  Are you looking to boost business in a triple fold way of boosting your income, the bar income and the prizes given out? Then there is no quicker and easier way than trying to attract sponsors. Here is how….

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – Stay Local

I mentioned the “l” word a heck of a lot in the last article on Sponsorship and it comes up again in the first topic here….Local. You have to stay local in your approach. You can be the best sales person in the world with a perfect trivia night and all the talk to sell the product to anyone….but you are never going to be able to sell a local quiz night sponsorship to a national firm. The chain stores, the local branches of the larger companies….these are all best avoided as you won’t get the answers you want and they won’t stoop to sponsoring a trivia night when they are running national campaigns in newspapers and on TV. (The on exception being I have known larger companies give plenty away to charity of if you are running  a charity night perhaps it could be worth it). It is the local firms, the family run places and one-store-only kind of firms you want to target and will get the most success from.

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – First Impressions Count

Consider one key aspect……the investment in sponsorship is in you. Yes, in essence they are going to be advertising in a bar that is running your trivia but at the end of the day YOU are the investment and you have to make these impressions counts. From every moment throughout the interaction you need to be professional…..prompt responses, polite dealings, smart appearances, sticking to times….all the factors you would normally do when approaching a new venue owner need to be considered here.  You only get one chance to make a first impression!

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – Marketing Materials

One major factor in looking at how to secure sponsors is looking at your marketing materials. Do they sell you? Do they look effective? This is again where the appealing website needs to come in. The more you show off the better. I always take along with me examples of the hand outs I use (printed on glossy paper of course J) and show the owners exactly where the logo and website details they want will go. I show them the website and how they will appear on it and generally try to show them how professional and organised I am and how good my resources will be.

 

Wireless Buzzer Game

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – Sell the Technology

If you are using technology, like a wireless buzzer game system either take it with you to your meeting or show videos of it in action so they can see it.  It is often hard for someone with no experience of trivia nights, or indeed anyone at all, to visualize how a product looks and how the ideas you are talking about will translate into reality. Cut out that middle man and show them…..

Do you have marketing materials that put into writing the details of what you will offer a sponsor?  Not likely, nor should these details be directly in your general marketing materials.  But if you wish to attract a sponsor, it needs to be in writing.  You can talk all day about what you will provide, and at what cost, but it is just words if it isn’t in a professional brochure or flier.  Therefore, your sponsorship marketing materials now NEED to include details of your sponsorship offer.

 

How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows – Have Numbers

You also need to remember one major thing….this is a sales pitch. You are trying to get money and maybe prizes off someone and you need to approach it in a business-like manner. It is no good going in there with a laid back approach and not being interested.  Use numbers, figures, statistics…… information like: “I have 200 people attending the trivia on a Tuesday and a further 150 the next night. There are usually 30-40 people in the bar. My website reaches 3.000 hits a week and I have 4000 Twitter followers”….You get me? That’s far more impressive than just “Sponsor my trivia night…its kinda popular”. Businessmen want to hear numbers, figures and get an impression of if the investment you are asking for is actually worth their while!

 

Your checklist:

  • Securing sponsor is easy as long as you treat it the way it should be treated….like a business deal. If you go in there all guns blazing without preparation and thinking they are going to flock at your feet and throw money at you then you are very very wrong. There are plenty of opportunities to sponsor other ventures and schemes and you need to convince the company in question why you, above everyone else that asks them, deserve the sponsorship.
  • From the first impression to the last, throughout all the marketing materials, websites and samples, the use of technology and the numbers you present the business owner needs to know what YOU are going to do for them.
  • They need to see professionalism, a positive person and potential profits.  If you can succeed in this area then you are well on your way to securing those sponsors and improving your own profits, your own business and your own customers enjoyment (through better prizes etc).

One Response to How to Secure Sponsors For Your Trivia Shows

  1. […] cheaper, newer and different services that will tempt the eye of the venue owner looking to boost profits with a sponsor. This is where the rapport comes into play If indeed, you can be the one to build the rapport then […]

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