How to Get Brands in Nigeria to Sponsor your Football Program or Event [Follow these 5 Practical Steps]

 Do you organize a community based football tournament that is already attracting a lot of spectators? Or are you planning to shoot a game show on national TV or host a fans fest online and you need a sponsor for the project? Then you are in luck to find this article. Here you’ll learn practical steps to get corporate brands in to sponsor that event.

Sponsorship, as they say, is the life blood of sport, without it, you may find it difficult to fund some programs that require huge amount of money.

It may be different in other part of the world, but here in Nigeria, you don’t just write Sponsorship proposals from your head and go about to submit them from one corporate headquarters to another; hoping that one of the companies may become interested and hand you over a Hundred Million Naira cheque for your event. NO! it doesn’t work that way!

Before anything else, write a pre-sponsorship document describing the event and how it would play out; state figures of expected attendance (Spectators) and extended media exposure and number of viewership. State the estimated Price of Exclusive, Official, Associate or co-sponsorship as the case may be.

Give the event persona. I mean, state the class of people that the event will be attracting –age, sex, income and complimentary interest…  Indeed, certain events enable brands reach specific segments such as heavy users, investors, uncovered market or specific group that have been demographically, psychological or geographically segmented.

Practical Steps You Should Take

1. First, research to find out those companies in Nigeria that include sponsorship as part of their marketing effort. For instance, telecommunication networks as MTN, Airtel, Glo, Etisalat… have history of sponsorship, even in related football events. Banks such as FCMB, EcoBank, Diamond Bank, Zenith Bank.. are also open to taking up sponsorship.

Well, as I mentioned before, don’t just go on to submit your proposals to the corporate Headquarters of these companies. A friend of mine told me how Diamond Bank receives an average of 200 sponsorship proposals per day. They hardly have time to read the dozens of proposals submitted to them; rather the management employed some staff to decline those proposals in the most courteous manner.

2. Find an insider in the companies you plan to submit your proposals.  Find at least a middle level management staff in the Corporate Communications department of that company. He or she would be the right person to give you proper guidelines on how to fashion your proposal as well as how to penetrate the decision makers in that company.

 I shouldn’t tell you that it isn’t legal to approach an inside staff for things like these… so you must be very discreet. Indeed , any staff that may be willing to stick out his neck, may ask for a huge amount of money in return – it could cost him the job.

3. Find out the corporate objectives of that company for taking up sponsorship of events. Then, find a way to align your event  to meet those objectives. Your inside-man may lead you to it or you may deliberately ask for it.

The bottom-line is, through football sponsorship, a company attempts to reach its target customers through their lifestyle. There are other corporate objectives listed below:

• To increase Public Awareness of the company, the product, or both.

• To alter or reinforce public perception of the company

• To identify the company with a particular market segments

• To involve the company in the community interest

• To build goodwill with community and media

• To generate media benefits

• To achieve sales objectives

• To create an advantage over competitors through association or exclusivity

• To gain unique opportunities in terms of hospitality and entertainment

• To secure entitlement or naming rights

4. Write a convincing sponsorship proposal with the guideline you have received and your understanding of the corporate objectives. Then submit as you are directed by your inside man.

Be pro-active to design a PowerPoint alternative of the proposal, with info-graphics of relevant statistics, figures, budgeting and the sponsorship measurement parameters.

In fact, if your sponsorship amount is that large, then be ready to make a defense of the figures. Therefore, prepare to make a convincing presentation to the company’s top management.

5. Finally, be ready to play the politics. Releasing sponsorship funds has never been easy anywhere in Nigeria. Your inside man may lead you to other top management staff or their family members or concubines that can help convince the final decision maker to release the funds – usually in batches.

Be very tactful in bargaining with the different strata of helps you received, so you can still make significant profit for your troubles.

GreenHunters Sports International can support you in finding the right sponsors for your next football program or event in Nigeria. Our services are very affordable. Call: +234 809 877 2556 0r email: gh.sports1@gmail.com