Raising sponsorship always starts by figuring out who your potential sponsors are.
The Pipeline
As you work with potential sponsors, you are moving them through a sponsorship process: taking raw ideas and turning them into final sponsors (or failed attempts to create one). Because manufacturing is a fitting metaphor, the sales industry stole the term "pipeline" to describe this process.
We track how far a sponsor has progressed down the pipeline along with all the other data about a sponsor. By doing so, we can quickly see how well sponsorships are going by looking at the status of the pipeline.
Because this is only a metaphorical pipe, rather than saying a sponsor is "14% down the pipeline", we attach names referring to discrete steps -- the steps for a CodeDay sponsor are below. Real sales teams would measure the liklihood of a sale at each step to figure out how many sponsorships to expect will come out of the pipeline. We won't do that, but we will attach estimates from past organizers:
- Lead - 2% chance
- Emailed - 5% chance
- Met With - 20% chance
- Won
- Lost - Revisit
- Lost - Not a Fit
We call a successful sponsorship agreement a "won" deal, or say we "closed" the sponsor. Companies which decide not to sponsor are "lost"; this comes in two flavors in the CodeDay pipeline -- "revisit", meaning "maybe a fit for a future CodeDay", and "not a fit", meaning "not likely to sponsor in the future". You can move a sponsor into "Won" or "Lost" from any stage (although moving them to Lost from an early stage is more common).
As you move through the sponsorship process, you should keep your pipeline updated. This serves to remind you to follow-up with sponsors to move them to the next step, helps communicate sponsorship status to the rest of your team, and will help future organizers figure out who to contact for more sponsorship. (It's also mentally rewarding to mark something as done!)
As you interact with sponsors, should keep a notes section for each, including relevant information as:
- What benefits they were interested in
- Thoughts on sponsorship amount
- Anything specific you pitched them on
- What interests them about CodeDay
- Anything else you hear which seems relevant for future conversations
Who Do I Email?
Sometimes this can be the hardest part of raising sponsorship: finding the right person to talk to! If you can't find someone who looks relevant on the company's website, you can use tools like Conspire, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to find the right person. You can also try Googling for "[company name] Developer Evangelist" or "[company name] Community Relations".
You'll generally be looking for someone with a title including either Marketing, Developer Evangelism, or Community Relations. If you absolutely can't find the right person, you can try emailing the CEO or another executive at the company, or anyone you know who works there. They're usually happy to refer you to the right person.
When making contact with a company, you should first see if you know someone who could introduce you to your intended contact (a "warm intro"). LinkedIn is great for helping you find these connections. Emailing someone "cold" is an acceptable option if you can't find a warm intro, but you should expect a lower response rate.
Banned Companies
Please do not work with the following companies for sponsorship. They are significantly more trouble than they're worth:
- General Assembly
- Leangap
- Whitepages