Ad Sales Campaign - Acquiring Corporate Sponsors

[Cognition]

How do I go about setting up a sales campaign to acquire corporate sponsors for such:

Next year (Spring 2007), I will be hosting a live music event composed of contemporary Christian music. All my guest artists will be acquired from a popular social networking site (based on their talent and fan base).

To monetize the venture, I want to sell advertising to eliminate ticket selling, since the is mostly the up-and-coming music scence, but great talent nonetheless.

The advertising will work like this: I will have 10 guest artists. Each artist will give a 5 min performance. There will be 2.5 minutes of video advertising between each performance.

Summary: The live audience will see the video ads on large LCD screen in the facility. The same ads will be edited in for my "online" audience for the streaming video.

Please help: I need all the advice I can get.

Thanks!

[Dale King]

Your best bet would be to write a strong, compelling press release, complete with details.

Another alternative would be to develop an effective telemarketing script and start contacting the marketing departments of these companies.

The main thing to remember with corporate sponsors is they're just like any other consumer.

In the end, they all want to know, what's in it for them?

If you can tell them in a compelling, persuasive manner, you'll be successful with your campaign.

Good luck!

Dale King

[Cognition]

^Wow - Thanks Dale! Good advice there.

Yeah, I plan on getting demographic data for all the registered people who will be attending the concert and watching it online.

[akula]

selling ads, is sales, sales and more sales

I'm in this biz and it's not a walk in the park

The mistake: alot of newbies think they can just pick up the phone, dial up the regional marketing manager of Cadbubry Shweppes (or what ever), and have a deal closed in under a week flat

The reality is that no one cares, deals take a lot longer than a week, and you gotta get the lawyers involved (i.e. it's expensive)

To get things done quickly - do not make this a learning curve for your self. Hire a sales person who has contacts with the sponsors you want to target. If you've never sold an ad before, take my word for it, with a time sensitive event like a concert - this is an instance where you have the luxury of learning and making mistakes.

Let me make this clear - if you're cold calling these sponsors, and you don't have a dime to your name, or a public reputation - closing these deals will be a very, very painful process. And, probably, the deals will fall through at the last minute.There's so many traps you can fall into during the negotiations, including not knowing what a letter of intent is, or making your contracts too intimidating (which to you, of course, would just seem like prudence)

the point: Hire an ad sales person. This process of selling ads is a lot more complicated than one typically assumes. I can't stress this strongly enough - start building relationships with people who can introduce you to the sponsors and guide you through the legalities of sponsorship agreements. Let me put it this way - closing a sponsorship deal can take up to 6 months or various presentations, lunches, dinners, meetings, follow up meetings, committee reviews, agreement drafting, lawyer shuffles and other associated technicalities.

[Cognition]

selling ads, is sales, sales and more sales

I'm in this biz and it's not a walk in the park

The mistake: alot of newbies think they can just pick up the phone, dial up the regional marketing manager of Cadbubry Shweppes (or what ever), and have a deal closed in under a week flat

The reality is that no one cares, deals take a lot longer than a week, and you gotta get the lawyers involved (i.e. it's expensive)

To get things done quickly - do not make this a learning curve for your self. Hire a sales person who has contacts with the sponsors you want to target. If you've never sold an ad before, take my word for it, with a time sensitive event like a concert - this is an instance where you have the luxury of learning and making mistakes.

Let me make this clear - if you're cold calling these sponsors, and you don't have a dime to your name, or a public reputation - closing these deals will be a very, very painful process. And, probably, the deals will fall through at the last minute.There's so many traps you can fall into during the negotiations, including not knowing what a letter of intent is, or making your contracts too intimidating (which to you, of course, would just seem like prudence)

the point: Hire an ad sales person. This process of selling ads is a lot more complicated than one typically assumes. I can't stress this strongly enough - start building relationships with people who can introduce you to the sponsors and guide you through the legalities of sponsorship agreements. Let me put it this way - closing a sponsorship deal can take up to 6 months or various presentations, lunches, dinners, meetings, follow up meetings, committee reviews, agreement drafting, lawyer shuffles and other associated technicalities.

Thanks. I do have to say I don't think it will be so long closing these deals because the ads are low ticket items - most likely no more than $1000 for premium advertising services.

And, I was thinking about targeting Internet and music related businesses in the small business market.

What do you think about that?

[Cognition]

selling ads, is sales, sales and more sales

I'm in this biz and it's not a walk in the park

Thanks. I do have to say I don't think it will be so long closing these deals because the ads are low ticket items - most likely no more than $1000 for premium advertising services.

And, I was thinking about targeting Internet and music related businesses in the small business market.

So, it's either selling tickets (which will be painfully slow as these are not major artists) or selling inexpensive ads...

What do you think about that?

[akula]

What do I think.....

Let me give you some feedback in the most positive terms possible

I've done ALOT of different projects

I have a feel for when a project is too difficult to complete on time

This project sounds very complicated and unfocused, and I'd really want you to simplify a lot of things and work with a management team who've been through all this stuff before

I have no idea why you say "inexpensive ads" when the whole point is to sell the ads as expensively as possible, and also, simply the idea of trying to innovate by monetising a concert with advertising rather than ticket sales.

man, you're just starting out - you can't afford to be innovative, make mistakes and fail.

want my advice? stop trying to be creative and take this deal to an established event planning company. I'd really like to see you have a strong 2-3 year stint in the event planning biz

I mean...you know...I don't know you, but here's the reality. In 99% of cases, threads like yours are basically whistling dixie. People post what ever kind of dreams and fairytales they have in their mind - but by the time they actually try to get things done, they quickly lose interest.

so yeah...you have an idea, your plan is terribly unfocused, you don't really have any track record making these projects a reality, you want advice on the best course of action, because I care about you being safe, I'm telling you that you'll have a much better time working with artists as part of some sort a liaison role with an event planning shop.

answer to your question: "targeting Internet and music related businesses", no, absolutely not unless it's myspace or some other large company. dealing with small businesses is beyond excruciating. deal with large business.

[Sam Barona]

Hi, securing sponsorship from large players is time consuming and and uncertain business. Generally speaking, large organisations have very small budgets for sposorship, which are largely spent in advance with tried and tested events, venues, etc. Add to this the fact that most of the decisions for the allocation of the remaining (usually <5%) budgets lie outside of the organisation (with their media/marketing companies), then you have a better understanding of why these types of sponsorship are a ball-ache to secure and can take up to a year to attain.

No amount of qualified sales people will change these realities.

Going after smaller targets is a better option, but one filled with obstacles. In my view, you need to target companies that have a public affinity with your cause "religious affiliation"; secondly, you need to put together a sponsorhip package that will make economic sense as well as branding sense. By this I mean that you need to have clear guidelines of who your attendees are, how many of these will be there and how their sponsorship presense will be seen.

You should aim at adopting various alternatives for sponsorship, with a headline sponsor, secondary sponsors and the like.

I strongly advice against taking a Sposorship only view on your model, or even a predominantly sponsorship view. You cannot sacrifice/risk the revenue from ticket sales in exchange for a yet to be tested revenue stream. if the venue isnt good enough for punters to pay an entry fee for, then is it good enough for a firm to sponsor? I would certainly ask my self that question.

Also, you need to differentiate between advertising and sponsorship. One is to do with building brand equity and the other, well, the name says it all. Separate the two in your packages.

You need to identify organisations that have religious affiliations (not necessarily businesses per se) and start networking. This is going to be your best forum. Through this, you will also be able to identify potential venues to sell your tiockets, so if they cannot/will not sponsor/advertise with you, then they can assist by making your tickets available to their customers.

Hope this helps


Sam

[Cognition]

This project sounds very complicated and unfocused, and I'd really want you to simplify a lot of things and work with a management team who've been through all this stuff before.

Actually, there has been planning and research on this for over a year now - it may seem complicated and unfocused to you because I am not disclosing all the details of the deal.

I don't know what your motivation is, but it seems to me that you're trying to sound like an authority figure on this and you come across as just being very negative and no help at all.

Please don't post anymore regarding this. However, thanks for the advice.

[Sam Barona]

Will you promote these through your radio station?

[Cognition]

^Actually yes - once we get enough revenue flowing from the radio station to actually host them.

But I think we will probably be conducting online concerts - that is, concerts privately filmed (without a live audience) in a studio or theatre and streaming to an online audience via promotions through the guest performing artists. The video will also be available for an on-demand basis.

[SlideRiceFC]

Actually, there has been planning and research on this for over a year now - it may seem complicated and unfocused to you because I am not disclosing all the details of the deal.

I don't know what your motivation is, but it seems to me that you're trying to sound like an authority figure on this and you come across as just being very negative and no help at all.

Please don't post anymore regarding this. However, thanks for the advice.

This is a totally unconstructive post on my part as I'm not offering my advice but I would like to say Akula was giving you good advice from the position of someone who has experience in these things from both sides of the table. It was good advice.

You are in a good area for what you're doing. I'm near Dallas as well and know that the Christian community has deep pockets. On an unrelated and quite amusing note, I used to put on Christian punk/hardcore shows back when I lived in New Orleans. I always held them at secular venues and often had non-Christian opening acts. One time I approached one of the largest CCM promoters in New Orleans about doing a joint venture (all of his shows are held in churches). He told me point blank there was no market for what I was doing. To this day I still get tense when I think about this Christian guy that put on Christian shows geared only towards a Christian audience was lecturing me that what I was doing wouldn't make me money. LOL...so much for spreading the good news and salvation is free for those who ask and all that.

[Cognition]

Actually, there has been planning and research on this for over a year now - it may seem complicated and unfocused to you because I am not disclosing all the details of the deal.

I don't know what your motivation is, but it seems to me that you're trying to sound like an authority figure on this and you come across as just being very negative and no help at all.

Please don't post anymore regarding this. However, thanks for the advice.

Akula: If you're reading this, I do apologize for my rudeness. I guess I was so hyped about hosting the live events that the reality behind actually hosting them is a little more difficult than I wanted to realize - the idea of selling ads or selling tickets.

My apologies again.

[akula]

That's alright

I'm easy :-)

I'm here to help you build a valuable business following a set of best practices on how to perform entrepreneurship

One of those practices involves not biting off what one can't chew

If you need an action plan for how to realistically launch ventures with minimal risk and minimal fuss, I'm always here to guide you in this process

What do you want to achieve over the next 12 months?

[Cognition]

That's alright

I'm easy :-)

I'm here to help you build a valuable business following a set of best practices on how to perform entrepreneurship

One of those practices involves not biting off what one can't chew

If you need an action plan for how to realistically launch ventures with minimal risk and minimal fuss, I'm always here to guide you in this process

What do you want to achieve over the next 12 months?

To initiate my internet radio station
Build quality traffic to the internet radio station and monitor and obtain demographic data for a trial period
Develop an ad sales campaign centered around the monitored traffic statistics
Execute the ad sales campaign
Initiate our live events using the internet radio stations as promotion

^I know that sounds a bit amateur, but I am completing a business plan for the above and will need to acquire a business partner to get started - mostly to acquire artists for the (irs)