Start Small
My first-ever legitimate sponsor was (and still is) I/O Port Racing Supplies. To show our appreciation, we slapped I/O Port Racing stickers all over our 24 Hours of LeMons car and added a patch on my driving suit.
Most sponsorship deals aren’t for piles cash (or any cash at all); usually, they are trades for a product. This was the exact scenario for my first successful sponsorship request. My team and I were building a
24 Hours of LeMons car. This was a big leap for us because we had only competed in drag racing and autocross events up to this point. Building a fully caged race car came with a lot of unexpected expenses for us. We were out of cash, but we really wanted to make it to the next event.
I started putting sponsorship proposals together for the parts we needed. The first one that worked was to Ken Myers, owner of
I/O Port Racing Supplies, asking for a four-terminal battery cut-off switch. In my proposal, I convinced Ken that LeMons was an up-and-coming racing series receiving lots of media attention. By giving me this $35 part (yes, that is correct, my first sponsorship deal was for a retail cost of $35), we could spread the word amongst a lot of grassroots teams (who were building cars) to buy all of their safety equipment from I/O Port Racing Supplies.
He was sold and shipped us the cut-off switch. Did we provide a return on investment for the $35 part? Yes, we won the race and were featured in a bunch of magazines — all of which mentioned our sponsor, I/O Port Racing.
Media Coverage
To provide ROI for sponsors, you have to work diligently to get your car into different media outlets: magazines, newspapers, and websites. This doesn’t happen automatically, you have to work to broker those deals.
Once you have received your free part from a sponsor, it doesn’t mean you are done. In actuality, it is just the beginning. You need to be appreciative and do everything you can to spread the word of the business who is supporting you. Even if that support was merely $35, it is still $35 more than anyone else was willing to give you. One of the things you can do is work to get your story in the media. This doesn’t happen automatically.
For my team, we started with our local newspaper. If you understand how papers work, it isn’t that hard to get coverage. Newspapers have the difficult task of filling a daily newspaper with content to keep the pages from being blank between the advertising they already sold. They don’t care what is on the page as long as it is somewhat relevant to local community stories.
I started sending press releases to the local sports writer to help him fill his section with something other than the usual local high school girl’s tennis coverage. He was glad to get something different to run with, and the next thing we knew, we were in the newspaper. And more importantly, we were mentioning our sponsor I/O Port Racing Supplies.
After sending lots of press releases and creating a relationship with the sports guy at our local newspaper, we were able to get some excellent media coverage for our race team, which provides more exposure for our sponsors.
Representation
Once you collect some sponsors and work with getting some media going, you need to make sure you are putting your sponsor’s name on as many things as possible. Your car needs to look professional and be clean at all times. You need to get some sort of team uniform going so any photographs taken of your team, your car, your trailer, whatever, provide exposure for your sponsors.
