Pole Position – Set Your Targets and Attract the Attention of Potential Sponsors

Who Do You Target

Before you start making phone calls and knocking on doors, you want to minimize wasting your time by only contacting those companies that would be a good match for your motorsports marketing program. The key points to consider when evaluating a company are:

1. Does your race program reach the right type of consumers in the right geographical area for the potential sponsor? If your race program primarily reaches those at your local track in Anywhere, KS, then a surf shop on Daytona Beach is probably not a good fit.

2. Are your program cost options appropriate to the size of the company's marketing budget? There are probably few businesses out there that couldn't afford a few hundred bucks a year for local race team, but if you are on a big-budget running a large, national Pro series, then you'll need to focus on this one wisely.

   Approaching smaller companies may not be the most efficient use of your time, especially if you are looking for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars (or way much more) in sponsorship money. Spend your time initially working with businesses that can afford to write the bigger checks as long as they meet the other criteria.

3. Is the size of your race program appropriate for the size of company? The most common scenario is that the company is too large. Your race program may hit the right customer markets in the right location, and the company can easily afford it. However, from their perspective your program is just too small to be of any real benefit to them or not worth their time to manage.

   Also, if the company is that big, then the whole bureaucratic process you normally have to deal with is probably just not worth the hassle if you have a very small racing program. Besides we're going to give you tons of ways to prospect to find the right companies, so not having enough to call all and shouldn't even be an issue.

Now that you have an idea of the basic criteria to look for in a prospective sponsor, you can begin the task of researching, networking and prospecting for those businesses you will be approaching. You already know the general scope of your racing program because you've laid it all out in your generic proposal.

Your target market, fan demographics, series geographics, racing budget size and program benefits will be the main factors to utilize when evaluating whether a business is a good match for your program. Have that info readily available as you start the prospecting process.

Next section: Network and Prospect – The Art of Mingling - Go there now!

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