Building the Best Sponsorship Sales Deck
This post aims to provide a brief education on how your organization can go about building the best sponsorship sales deck. Additionally, please contact us here to receive a sample sponsorship sales deck that can be used as a useful frame of reference during your design process.
A sponsorship sales deck is not just a presentation; it's a strategic asset used by rights holders to showcase their value to potential sponsors. Whether you're in the midst of initial exploratory meetings or advancing towards a detailed proposal, understanding how to leverage your sponsorship deck effectively is crucial for sponsorship success.
That being said, the sponsorship deck is just one part of how you will secure new partnerships. A listen-first approach, a strategic solution-building mindset, and good relationship management are all extremely important as part of the overall sponsorship sales process!
General Content Flow of a Sponsorship Sales Deck
Generally speaking, I recommend looking at a sponsorship sales deck as having five sections (see below):
Click the “+” below to learn more about about each section’s contents. Note that each section below’s name is for descriptive purposes only - not an actual copywriting recommendation.
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What is the organization?
What programs does it operate/oversee?
Include the basics for anyone who’s not already familiar.
An opportunity for powerful and engaging storytelling.
These slides can stay the same from pitch to pitch!
CONTENTS MAY INCLUDE:
Mission/Purpose
High Level Event Schedule
Different Divisions/Areas of Organization
Powerful High Level Metrics
Brief History or Origin Story
Notable Publicity/Media Attention,
Powerful Quotes or Statements that Speak to the Organization’s Differentiation
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What makes the property and its programs unique, special, and attractive?
What are its notable attendance, viewership, digital engagement, or fandom/brand metrics?
How does it stack up against comparables in the same sector, geographic region, and/or fan demographic focus from a fandom, following, and brand image perspective?
Consider reputational ramifications of too much comparison to other properties. While selling the offering is important, it's also important to "play nice in the sandbox" that is the sports/entertainment industry.
Don't be afraid to put in the time to crunch numbers, and develop conclusions that have never been made before (e.g. amalgamating data, comparing to other properties etc.)
CONTENTS MAY INCLUDE:
Powerful statistics, charts, and quotes around the property’s audience (on-site, broadcast, digital, other) and fandom.
Charts or statistics that compare the organization/property against comparables.
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How does the property deliver value to sponsors?
What general types of sponsorship benefits outcomes are available across properties and programs? What do they generally entail from an asset standpoint?
CONTENTS MAY INCLUDE:
Logos of current sponsors, sponsor testimonials or case studies
List of sponsor benefit/asset buckets
Powerful imagery to showcase high value assets
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What specific package or packages are being showcased to this particular sponsor reading the deck (or listening to the presentation)? For an intro deck, this section may not be necessary.
CONTENTS MAY INCLUDE:
Lists and images of sponsorship assets included in proposed packages
Annual investment level for each package being showcased
A summary slide of the 2-5 packages being showcased and their notable benefits/costs
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Important details on all of the above info that would have made the main body of the deck too cumbersome to read/digest
CONTENTS MAY INCLUDE:
Granular and graphical breakdowns of audience and fandom data.
Asset details and imagery for proposed/showcased package(s).
Adjust Your Deck Based on Situational Context
The key to success in building your sponsorship sales deck is taking this general outline and tailoring it to the situation. The length of each of section in the above framework, and the thoroughness of the information within each section, will depend on Timing/Purpose, Audience/Reader, and Medium of Delivery:
Know Your Timing and Purpose: The value of your deck varies depending on the stage of the sponsorship discussion. Tailor your content to suit the context—be it sparking interest in an exploratory meeting or sealing the deal in a follow-up presentation.
Understand Your Audience/Reader: The type of information and experience you’re looking to convey through your sponsorship sales deck can often depend on the role of the person who reviews it!
Consider the Medium of Delivery: How the content will be consumed by your audience/reader can play an important role in your design and content decisions.
1) Know Your Timing and Purpose
The common stages of a successful sponsorship sales conversation often warrants three different types of decks:
Intro/Overview Deck gives a brand overall familiarity with your property or properties and the associated (general) sponsorship offerings. A general recommendation would be that this deck is shorter (<20 slides), more visual, and designed to present a compelling and powerful story to the reader/audience.
While this deck provides a glimpse at the organization’s core sponsorship offerings, there’s no need to get specific with opportunities/packages until the brand tells you, in response to this deck, if they’d like to learn more about a certain type of package.
Tailored Opportunities Deck often hones in on specific offerings and investment levels that might be of interest to the brand based upon what you have learned about their needs/objectives. This type of deck should generally be kept to ~30 slides or less + a light appendix.
To view an example of this type of deck, click here and request our “Sample Sponsorship Sales Deck”
Proposal fully fleshes out one or more sponsorship packages (including pricing and asset mix details). This type of deck should still be kept to ~35 slides or less but it might warrant a more substantial appendix to get specific about assets and package structure.
2) Understand Your Audience
Your sponsorship deck will be scrutinized by a diverse set of eyes, each with unique expectations and priorities. Tailoring your deck to cater to these varied perspectives is essential for resonance and engagement:
For different readers/audiences, tailor your deck’s content accordingly:
C-Suite Executives: Focus on the alignment with the brand's image, marketing themes, and the potential to impact high-level KPIs.
Sponsorship Marketing Experts: Highlight the quality and variety of benefits, logistical feasibility, and cost considerations in addition to executive concerns.
Creative Brand Marketers: Demonstrate how the opportunity supports the brand's positioning and creative campaigns, leveraging personalities, stories, and intellectual property.
Sponsorship Valuation Agencies and Media Buyers: Provide detailed metrics on the value of impressions and engagements across all touchpoints.
3) Consider the Medium of Delivery
A live presentation demands a visually-driven approach with minimal text, allowing you to verbally elaborate on key points. Conversely, a deck intended for independent review should be more detailed, providing all necessary explanations through text.
Is the deck going to be presented in a boardroom in 30 minutes?
Is it going to be skimmed on the subway via mobile phone?
Is it going to be reviewed by a team of analysts over the course of several weeks?
Polish Your Design
Beyond its content and situational structure, it’s important that your deck’s story, insights and value proposition resonate with the reader or audience as much as possible. By harnessing some simple design principles for your sponsorship sales deck, you can ensure that you’re putting your best foot forward and maximizing the opportunity in front of you!
Click the “+” to learn more about about each design principle outlined below.
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Consistent approach to fonts and font sizes (titles, sub-headings, body of text) throughout the deck.
Use the organization's brand guidelines and visual identity.
Keep some space between images and copy from edges of slide.
Consider consistency in the shape/size of images for slides that are meant to have a consistent look. Do not stretch images disproportionately to achieve this - instead use cropping tools.
PDF the presentation before sharing (or risk fonts and spacing not appearing as intended)
Consider compressed versions if the file needs to be sent by email (although image quality may be sacrificed).
The below images are from a useful web article on slide design here.
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Reminding the reader where they are in the grand scheme of the full presentation is important.
“Bread Crumbs” - a small icon, based on a visual structure laid out on a slide earlier in the presentation to represent the deck's sections/flow, can be subtly placed in the corner of slides (either every slide or only separator slides), with the current section being highlighted for the reader's reference.
Consider separator slides and slide titles that captivate the reader/audience.
Effective use of separator slides to ensure the reader understands that they have now entered a section of the deck that focuses on a different subject matter. And of course, a proper title slide and closing slide (with contact info) is essential.
If a deck is really robust (often useful for an appendix), PowerPoint and PDF files have hyperlink features that can allow the reader to jump to a certain section from the table of contents by clicking.
If budget allows, some new tools are emerging as an alternative for standard presentation decks - e.g. DigiDeck, Channel 1, CustomShow, and recorded presentations. If an offering is especially robust, these tools may be worth considering.
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Use images as a full background for certain slides. You may need to use effects to adjust the image when you do this to ensure text is fully readable over top of the image.
Build a database of quality images that show sponsorship assets for the slides that focus on sponsorship offering. Direct photographers to take such photos as needed rather than just action shots.
Never compromise on image quality/resolution. Leverage royalty-free stock images if needed - e.g. Unsplash, Pixabay.
Use of graphics and icons can help enhance the look of slides that list components or elements of a concept, or that list key metrics.
For bigger, important pitches, leverage a graphic designer to really show how an asset/right would look with the brand as a sponsor (mock-ups).
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The tone and writing style needs to be carefully considered based on your property’s brand and the impression you want to leave on your audience.
Utilize a professional copywriter if possible. But be careful that there are certain industry/technical terms that should not be adjusted by the copywriter.
Ensure consistency of tone throughout the deck (be cautious of compiling slides that were written by different individuals). Ensure consistency around use of first/third-person (e.g. "we", "you", "us")
Be careful of exaggerating statements that clearly indicate a bias that undermines credibility. You want to instill confidence in the reader/audience that statements being made are truthful and vetted.
Indicate sources of statistics in small font (use a consistent approach for this sourcing throughout the deck) or as a hyperlink to a web page, or to a file stored on a Google Drive / Dropbox folder.
Ultimately, a lot of work and preparation can go into building the best sponsorship sales deck for your organization… but like with most things, once you get some momentum, maintaining and updating your materials becomes relatively efficient. And of course, getting feedback from prospects and sponsors will help you to refine and iterate along the way!
