You don’t have to be Danica Patrick or Mars/Venus author John Gray to attract corporate sponsors.
Hundreds of authors, speakers and experts who already have the talent to serve a specific niche—and are far less famous—are teaming up with major corporate and nonprofit sponsors to deliver a message that resonates with a much bigger audience.
My friend, Jacqueline Whitmore, partnered with Sprint, and she’s been interviewed by the media about topics like cell phone courtesy.
What’s In It for You
Here’s a peek at what you’ll learn. These are five tips from Brendon on why you need to partner with a major company or nonprofit:
1. People don’t know you.
But they know established organizations like Sony, the YMCA, Wachovia, Wal-Mart, Kiwanis, Coca-Cola, Toyota, US Bank and Junior Achievement. When your name is linked with theirs, you have borrowed credibility. Every one of those organizations, by the way, has partnered with Brendon.
2. Your partners have already figured out how to serve and sell to your audience.
They know which marketing tactics work best, down to the last little detail, like whether email works better than postcards or what color scheme resonates with their audience.
They’ve also figured out your demographic because they’ve been doing it for decades. And they spent thousands of dollars on research and marketing studies. They know your customers and what they want. These organizations can teach you about your own audience and make you much more effective.
3. They have a budget.
They already have a line item in their budget for sponsorships. That means you aren’t pulling money out of your own wallet to reach your demographic.
Fortune 500 companies and major nonprofits plan up to 18 months out and have their budgets in place. If you already have expertise but you’re starting your marketing from scratch, you can tap into money that’s already there.
4. They need you.
They’re already reaching huge pools of people. They have access to staff and volunteers.
But sometimes they run out of ideas and don’t have time to provide the various types of content for their audiences—content you probably already have.
5. You owe it to your message.
You already have the talent. Brendon calls it a “universal message from above.” Your job, he says, it to broadcast that message to the universe.
“Your voice, your message and the way you deliver it is unique, and that uniqueness is worth its way in gold,” he says. But you probably can’t do it as well by yourself than if you could with a big sponsor behind you.
Register here for Thursday’s call (affiliate link).
Our one-of-a-kind photo-filled book on the baby boomers (including Generation Jones), titled ONCE UPON OUR TIMES (Because Life Isn’t a Fairy Tale): 65 Years Growing Up Baby Boomer, will be published late 2013. The two authors (Sharon Sultan Cutler in Chicago and Cookie Tischler in Los Angeles) have researched the 6.5 decades the oldest boomers have lived – and take readers into the hearts and minds of these diverse 79 million Americans- music, fashion, fads, politics, culture, and all the changes we’ve endured during our lives. We even have interviews and exclusive photos of The American Bandstand original ‘Regular’ dancers from the late 1950s plus the singing icons of early rock n’ roll that Gen Y may or may not have heard about.
Because the authors talk about our nostalgic remembrances, we are looking for business sponsors to be part of our bulletin board book cover collage as well as be part of the book, website and press releases. For instance, we are in talks with Bonomo Turkish Taffy owners about becoming our Official Candy Sponsor. Hopefully, a few iconic brands (car, food, housewares manufacturer, etc) will see the value of hooking up with our major publicity push as well as features they will offer us to sell books in bulk.
This may not happen before the book goes back to press a few times, and WOM (word of mouth) plus social media spread the word on the merits of owning a copy or gifting a friend or family member.
And it doesn’t hurt that the two authors were acquaintances in high school, are re-careering as first-time authors at 66, self-publishing using out-sourced professional guidance…and, oddly enough, haven’t seen each other in person in 48 years. Yes, baby boomers are the active, engaged, healthy and wealthy group advertisers must never forget!
Sharon, I highly recommend you register for the teleseminar. There are opps galore for corporate sponsors for you book.
By the way, I LOVE Bonomo Turkish Taffy and didn’t know they still make it. I can remember how gooey it was when we tried ripping it apart. Or, we refrigerated it and cracked it on the sidewalk into little pieces.