How to get sponsors
If you have an audience, a few open spots or an event, you already hold one side of a sponsorship. Here’s how to find the other.
The short answer
If you want sponsors, start with the audience and trust you already hold, then find the companies that genuinely want access to those people. Sponsorship works best when you can name the exact buyers you reach and match them to a company trying to reach the same ones. Instead of selling spots to anyone, pick the handful of companies you’d actually want, and bring each one a useful reason to talk.
Your side: the audience is the asset
When you have an event, a list or a room full of the right people, you’re holding something valuable — attention from a specific group, and the trust that comes with it. A sponsor isn’t buying a logo slot. They’re buying a shortcut to people they’d otherwise spend months and a lot of money trying to reach.
The clearer you can describe who you reach, the more a sponsor spot is worth.
The other side: companies that already want your people
The missing side is a company that already needs access to your audience and has a reason to pay for it. That’s a very different search from “who might sponsor us?” It starts with your people and asks who is already trying to reach exactly them.
| Selling sponsor spots | Mapping the right sponsors |
|---|---|
| Pitch a rate card to a long list | Start from who your audience actually is |
| Whoever says yes becomes the sponsor | You choose the companies you’d want first |
| A logo on a banner for a fee | A reason the sponsor reaches real buyers |
| One cheque, then they disappear | A relationship built to run again |
The question that finds the right sponsors
Skip “how do we sell these spots?” Ask the mapping question instead:
“If you could pick ten companies and have them call you about these spots, who would you want?”
That short list is worth more than a hundred cold names, because every company on it already has a reason to care. Your job is to find the right person inside one or two of them and bring back an interested conversation.
Turn a one-off sponsor into a relationship that repeats
Most sponsor relationships are one and done. The sponsor buys once and disappears, and next season you start over. The fix is to look at what they’re actually trying to sell and what your audience already needs from them — then build one genuinely useful offer around that, instead of renting them a banner.
- 1
Describe who you reach
Be specific about the audience — who they are, what they care about, what they buy.
- 2
Pick the ten you’d want
List the companies that already need access to exactly those people.
- 3
Find the right person
Reach the person inside each company who owns reaching that audience, not the general inbox.
- 4
Bring one useful offer
Propose something your audience would actually value from them, so the deal can run more than once.
A quick example
A studio owner has six sponsor spots left and an audience that trusts her. Her side is the audience and the open inventory. The missing side is companies who genuinely want access to those members. Rather than emailing a rate card around, she names the ten brands she’d be glad to stand behind, finds the right person in two of them, and opens with what those members already buy. One spot becomes a relationship that runs every season.
Where sponsorships get complicated
The awkward part is that a sponsor and your audience don’t always want the same thing. The sponsor wants leads or sales; your people came for the content or the community, and they can smell a pitch that doesn’t belong. If the sponsor’s message doesn’t genuinely serve your audience, running it costs you the trust that made the spot valuable in the first place.
Pricing is the other soft spot. Charge by your own costs and you leave money on the table; pull a number off a rate card and you can’t defend it. The figure that holds up is tied to what reaching your exact people is worth to that sponsor — so the same spot is worth far more to a company whose buyers you match closely than to one taking a flyer.
How to price and pitch a spot
Once you know which companies you’d want, a little preparation turns a nervous ask into a straightforward business conversation.
- 1
Put a number on the access
Estimate what reaching your exact audience elsewhere would cost the sponsor in time and ad spend. That, not a banner, is what you’re pricing.
- 2
Lead with a result they want
Open with what their buyers already do inside your audience, not with your follower count.
- 3
Offer one clear package
Give them a single, specific option to react to rather than a menu. It’s easier to say yes to one good idea.
- 4
Build in a way to measure it
Agree up front how you’ll both see whether it worked — a tracking code, or a simple before-and-after. Proof is what earns the renewal.
When chasing sponsors is the wrong move
When this is the wrong tool
- You can’t yet describe your audience clearly. Fix that first — a vague audience is a hard thing to sponsor.
- The audience and the sponsor don’t truly overlap. A big logo that means nothing to your people helps no one.
- You’re selling a banner, not access. If the sponsor can’t reach real buyers through you, they won’t come back.
- A sponsor relationship already works well. Leave it be rather than reworking it for its own sake.
Questions people ask
How big does my audience need to be to get sponsors?
How do I decide what a sponsorship is worth?
What’s the difference between a sponsor and a vendor?
How do I stop sponsors being one-and-done?
Keep going
How to find strategic partners
The same move for any asset you hold, not only sponsorships.
Partnership outreach
How to reach the right sponsor so they actually reply.
Written by Greg Courtepatte
Deal Mapper in Alberta. I find the missing side of a deal and help get it moving. LinkedIn