[Gridlocked]

Hey kids,

I am putting together a sponsorship proposal package for our team and have no idea where the market value for a square inch of car is running these days. I have heard that you take the total costs for a season and divide it by the total available square inches on your car.

I just thought I would ask what you would take for a, let's say, 3"tall by 6" long sticker on the car for a season. I know this will vary in value per the placement, but i'm just looking for a general.

Thanks,

 

[Lurch]

If sponsorship were only so simple...

You are worth precisely what someone will pay you, not a penny more. As for assessing value to your team in general, you have to ask some serious questions.

What championship are you running in?

Are you running a whole championship or just a few rallies?

If just a few rallies, are they all in a certain region of the country?

Are you capable of running in the top few of your class? Top several overall? Is your equipment? Does your equipment look good and professional to the outside observer?

Is the championship you are running in covered in the media? Where? TV? Mags? Which mags/channels?

What do you have to offer? VIP credentials at X number of rallies? A guide to take your VIPs to press stages/rally stages while you are racing? (Do you even want your sponsors around when you are racing? Pressure?) Title sponsorship of rally team? Logos on apparel, paint schemes on cars/service vehicles? Website? How many hits? Can you put together a corporate entertainment package for them that will knock their socks off?

Are you and/or the car available for product introductions, marketing campaigns, special events?

Can you keep them updated with fresh news after every rally or if you're not rallying, often enough to keep their interest and see value?

These questions are just scratching the surface, but I know of NO sponsor who pays money for a sticker right THERE and that is the end of it til next year. Sponsorship is a two way street that is a LOT OF WORK!

The answers to these questions will help you figure out who you should be targeting and what you really have to offer. If you can find where they are currently advertising and what they pay for what kinds of return they expect, you may very well be able to assess a value that makes sense to them. Always remember that you want to over-deliver. Tell them what they will get and give them more. They will come back if they see the effort is doing well for them.

As for the pitch, everything needs to be right. You need the right person, the right timing (preferably when they just found an extra 10 grand in their marketing budget ),the right company, the right presentation, etc. If you suspect you don't have one of the variables ready, wait until you do (timing is, of course, the hardest mark to hit).

Good luck.

edit...ps...Rally team owner/driver/marketingVP/vehicleprojectmanager is the toughest job I've ever had, but its the most rewarding.

 

[RichardM]

>If sponsorship were only so simple...
>
>What do you have to offer? VIP credentials at X number of
>rallies? A guide to take your VIPs to press stages/rally
>stages while you are racing? (Do you even want your sponsors
>around when you are racing? Pressure?) Title sponsorship
>of rally team? Logos on apparel, paint schemes on
>cars/service vehicles? Website? How many hits? Can you
>put together a corporate entertainment package for them that
>will knock their socks off?
>
>Are you and/or the car available for product introductions,
>marketing campaigns, special events?
I think these are the two most important things. Many of the NASCAR drivers are not in the top of the finishing order but they do these two things well (YES, I know all about NASCAR TV exposure). As in the movie Stroker Ace, wearing the chicken suit brings the money.

Richard
PS: See how much sponsorship I don't have.

 

[Gridlocked]

Lurch,

Thanks for the awesome reply. We were the small red VW that borrowed a tool from you in the parking lot of the hotel at LSPR, just so you know who this is coming from...

The reason why I asked is because I had two people E-mail me asking what it would take to sponsor us. One guy is in Chicago, just wanting to run a sitcker for the season, and the other guy I have a meeting with on Sunday. He runs a custom body shop in the Minneapolis area and I want to be prepared. I have already told him that our team is very new to this, I just don't want to ask for too much.

I am currently developing a full (20 page) package with quite a few of the above mentioned questions/points already answered or adressed. I have been thinking about this whole deal quite a bit before I started making it and look at it from the perspective that if I was the sponsor, what would I want for a return on my investment.

Anyway, THANKS AGAIN for the great reply, I really appreciate it!!! How's the Mazda after the little roll?

 

[Lurch]

Ted,

Yeah, I know who you are.

You got one of the hardest parts covered...getting the meeting. Set up a trip and a meeting with the guy in Chicago, too. Then sit down and hammer out a program that makes sense for both of your goals. Forming a friendly face to face relationship is key. Wear a sport coat, but try not to come off as stuffy. For a body shop, I would probably just wear a sweater.

What are you looking for? Free bodywork? A million dollars? Be realistic, whatever you are looking for. Offer a scale of options to them, increasing the value significantly with increased buy in.

Here are a few nuggets of info...

-A company is more likely to part with 3x the retail value of product than 1x that value in cash.

-You need cash.

-Services are often hard to collect. An agreement now is great. They get their stickers on your car. But when you need repairs done 3 months from now and they have a dozen PAYING customers waiting in line, your job gets low priority...and your deadline (the next rally) doesn't move.

-Get things in writing.

-Buy them dinner.

As for an answer to your first question, I could say 50cents or $40,000 and both answers could be right. Depends on the sponsor, the team, the series, the events, the coverage, the marketing plan, the sponsor's ad agency, etc.


edit...the Protege is undergoing surgery soon. Will make limited appearances this year, but will be competitive where it does run.

 

[Ray]

Gim-me a 12 p-p-ack per-r e-e-vent.. (hick) for me co an I.. :+

It's like Lurch said.. it varies depending who and where.

Whiplash RallyeSport

 

[JohnLane]

Lurch.......Nicely thought out replies.
The sponsorship gig can easily turn into the second career one did not wish for when all we want to do is go and play in the woods.
Schmoozing sponsers is BIG WORK.
I have sure been appreciative of my bodyshop and glass sponsers!!
They have been very kind about fixing me up with the manner of work which I am not able to do. I try not to keep them too busy.

John Lane
Viva Le Pro Le Ralliat

 

[Lurch]

Thanks John. I'm glad to see guys interested in the business side and I think bringing in more outside money and exposure is a good thing. I see a landscape in the future where more help will be available to all levels, from dedicated hobbyists to people trying to build a career here. If I can help a couple people find a couple bucks, I'm happy to help. I learned the hard way.

 

[Gridlocked]

Lurch,

Check E-mail. I sent you a little sumpin-sumpin.

 

[Denise McMahon]

I am trying to get sponsors for the Widget Rally Team and it is lots of hard work with getting on the phone, writing proposals, talking and educating potentional sponsors/partners about rallying and setting up meetings and lots more talking/ hoping to seal a deal at the end of the meeting and if not then more talking and following up on where you stand as far as if the deal is going to happen. Then be prepared for the rejections and there is quite a few. When NASCAR, NHRA, F1, Legends cars, Midgets, BUSCH and others have taken the piece of the money pie from you even before you open your mouth.Fortunately, I do have some direct contacts and they are helping this year with Widget...but it is not enough..so I keep plugging away for more. But at the same time you keep establishing a good relationship with your sponsors that are on board in supporting your team. And you do this around your real job that comes first.
Denise McMahon
Team Manager
Widget Rally Team

 

[ihbobry]

I fully understand that owning a car is an independant enterprise but wouldn't be in the series sponsors best interest to treat the owners/drivers as franchisee's?

Should not the SCCA/NASA (don't want to discrinminate ) marketing be able to provide template contracts, marketing plans, etc.. Anyone who has been around this year is familiar with the national marketing woes but just like politics, marketing "is all local". If they help the local programs sell themselves in a standardized way (like any product) they will have a base to build the pros off of and be able to homogenize the product into a form they can sell nationally.

I'm not looking to open the old argument of the program needs to come from the bottom up but...


Bernie

 

[Guest]

I'm curious if you have seen this with other sanctioning bodies?

There is a fair bit of dirt track racing around here, and I haven't heard of an approach like that.


My goal for sponsorship would be to indentify groups, companies, and organizations that we can benefit. Then identify what they can do for us.

Maybe that's backwards, but I've watched racers and other people looking for what amounts to handouts walk in the front door of my father's business for years now. Most of them can't offer anything but a picture to hang on the wall. After a few years, that loses it's novelty.

I have some ideas, I've mentioned them before, but probably won't go into them again as I feel they are unique, and if they were ignored before, all the better for me to capitialize on them later


Rally and other semi-private motorsports are a golden opportunity for business to business advertising. Most of us aren't consumers in the traditional sense. Many of us are in a position to make purchasing decisions for our companies.

If Ted came to me and said "I can put your charter aircraft business information in the hands of the other people I do business with and have sponsor me" that would be immediately valuable. His car displayed at an auto show probably wouldn't net any returns for that business.

Given a preference, I will do business with my friends. Sponsorship can be about networking and increasing that circle of friends. Don't limit it to stickers on a car. They probably have the least value of anything you can really offer.

I don't think I would approach perspective partners without an idea of what you want from them, and what you can offer them.

I guess we'll see how smart I think I am when the car is finished and I go begging, er, networking

 

[warwick]

I just bought and read this book:

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=0333925408

I think it is available through Amazon.

It is a great read, and is a great look into why Subaru got into rallying (plus Jaguar's branding and motorsports involvement). It has direct quotes from the top exec of Subaru and ProDrive too which are great insight.

In fact, the introduction was VERY interesting too, as it is a look into how F1 and WRC developed into the world-class championships they are today under the direction of Bernie Ecclestone and Dave Richards (respectively). It is interesting because a lot of the lessons/growing pains are applicable at some level to rallying in North America at the moment.

As for the comment in a previous post about having SCCA provide "templates" and such... You can't really give someone a template, because each person needs to really understand what they are offering, and the reasoning behind sponsorship. I see so many people putting together a cookie cutter proposal and blindly going after sponsors. To be really successful, you need to research and go after companies where you can find an "angle" of how you and the company can really work together to meet each other's goals. However, that said, there are several good books (search on Amazon, etc.) which are "toolkits" for putting together sponsorship plans.

Good luck in the good fight!

Warwick
Sponsorship & Marketing Coordinator
West Coast Rally Association

 

[ihbobry]

>
>I'm curious if you have seen this with other sanctioning
>bodies?

No, my idea publicly thrown to the wolves.

>There is a fair bit of dirt track racing around here, and I
>haven't heard of an approach like that.

My prior experiance is with friends and sponsorship of D.I.R.T. competitors. There is no return on it.

>My goal for sponsorship would be to indentify groups,
>companies, and organizations that we can benefit. Then
>identify what they can do for us.
>Maybe that's backwards, but I've watched racers and other
>people looking for what amounts to handouts walk in the
>front door of my father's business for years now. Most of
>them can't offer anything but a picture to hang on the wall.
> After a few years, that loses it's novelty.

I so agree. But how about this, if you knew what the product was you would be all over it. We all identify NSCAR. If you could identify the feeder to NASCAR you might take the sponsorship of such a little more seriously, If you could identify the feeder of THAT series you could justify "getting in on the ground level" WRC - PRO - CLUB.

>His car displayed at an auto show probably
>wouldn't net any returns for that business.

But depending on the product this works say @ a fair, or mall, or exposition. (Well a little)

>Given a preference, I will do business with my friends.
>Sponsorship can be about networking and increasing that
>circle of friends.

That is what seems to be what is the traditional method.

What am I asking:

"Is it not in the sanctioning bodies interest to codify the product and is it not in their interest to support the base if not with their own money a method that helps to define the product they themselves are trying to sell?

Bernie

 

[Guest]

>What am I asking:
>
>"Is it not in the sanctioning bodies interest to codify the
>product and is it not in their interest to support the base
>if not with their own money a method that helps to define
>the product they themselves are trying to sell?
>
>Bernie


SCCA should promote rallying, failing that, they could at least provide membership demographics. To my knowledge, that doesn't happen.

The product varies. It's the series. It's the event. It's the indiviual teams. It's the team members.

It would be in their interest to provide tools to grow the sport. I don't think it would be practical to define a product. The product varies. Only the fans and participants can be practically presented, and in some cases, even they may not what a sponsor is after.

vaguely yours
matt

 

[ihbobry]

>SCCA should promote rallying, failing that, they could at
>least provide membership demographics. To my knowledge,
>that doesn't happen.

This would be great, I'll put money down now that no one @ SCCA or any other body has real stats on the demogrphics and that is why they can't sell rallying even cheaply.

>The product varies. It's the series. It's the event. It's
>the indiviual teams. It's the team members.
Hence the need to define it. Since you referenced it,I'll ask retorically how many shows a night @ a DIRT track? 3 to 4 shows? Street stock, big & small block and whatever minor novelty right? But they all look different, Rally looks all the same, just slower and older as the race proceeds. If you define our product you can narrow the focus of the audience enough to sell them something the same way every time.


> The product varies. Only the fans and
>participants can be practically presented, and in some
>cases, even they may not what a sponsor is after.

That's the problem, you cannot sell something that is inconsistant.
look @ the WWF, McDonalds, NASCAR, WalMart, etc. We all manage our part of Performance Rally but the product must be fixed in the sponsors and consumers mind.

We all have them same goals; race, have fun doing it, pay for it and spreading the word.

Thanks for the reparte

Bernie

 

[Lurch]

SCCA DID offer kits for 2002. They had a video cd, a nicely printed trifold portfolio folder, x amount of stationary available, and a rundown of the demos and series information.

I bought one for the data and produced my own videos, proposals, etc. based on my team/potential partners/goals. The SCCA package made sense for SCCA as its members were essentially selling the ProRally series while they were selling their team. For folks who don't have the time or knowledge to develop these materials (or resources to have them done), the package probably made sense. I doubt one could be as successful as with a specific team tailored package though.

Incidentally, I don't think they sold many of the kits. They were expensive to produce and I believe they were sold at cost...to keep the hobbyists from screaming bloody murder about their fees being used to produce materials they didn't want. Fair enough.

In my opinion, the SCCA was proactive on this one and not many people took advantage. Hence, it went away.

Regarding demos, have you asked the national office or are you just assuming that if they aren't posted on SpecialStage that they don't exist?

 

[ihbobry]

I'm glad to hear that such a thing was available, being new to the sport (2 yrs) relative to your legendary status I'm completely unaware of such a production. I'll respond that I'm talking about a codification and program for all of American Rally, not just pro.

That said, if it was a product that was generally known to me I would have...

1.Aquired it as I have asked for assistance in this matter directly and here on SS to help my friend and driver to no response.

2.Assumed it would have been generally discussed post production for it's relative value and discontinuation.

Lastly I have also asked what the demogrphics are. Most recently in the thread that covered the TV production and the process of getting it on air. (And yes, I know SS isn't an official site for any sanctioning body)

If you want to sell your "kit" used skip eBay and pm me.

Bernie

 

[Guest]

>Regarding demos, have you asked the national office or are
>you just assuming that if they aren't posted on SpecialStage
>that they don't exist?


I'm assuming they don't exist based on other information from other threads about the quest for a Natioanl Series sponsor.

Hopefully you know me well enough to know I'll gladly admit when I've made a mistake.


It's my feeling, in a very general sense, that we may be seeking the wrong partners. I come from a outdoor lifestyle background, so I tend to associate sponsorship with outdoor lifestyle products.

If I make it to SnoDrift, I'll spend some time gesticulating wildly with you over a beer somewheres.

 

[Lurch]

>>Regarding demos, have you asked the national office or are
>>you just assuming that if they aren't posted on SpecialStage
>>that they don't exist?
>
>
>I'm assuming they don't exist based on other information
>from other threads about the quest for a Natioanl Series
>sponsor.

That's probably the wrong assumption, Matt. I haven't asked for 03 specific demos from Garret or Sue, but I have data from previous years. All I had to do was pick up the phone and ask.

Tangent:
Funny how this sponsorship topic always comes up in the "off-season" (when competitors finally have time to think about it) as by then budgets are pretty much set for the following year. Get your poop in a group and be ready to pitch for 2005 in a few months.

$.02