For any business, sponsorships can do wonders to help lessen business expenses or serve as a separate income stream altogether. But many businesses often struggle attracting the right sponsors or getting prospects to sign on with them.

How exactly do you find and attract more sponsors for your brand? In this post, we’ll show you how to do just that using an effective online portfolio.

What you can get sponsored

You can get sponsors for all kinds of things in your business, like:

  • Content (blog posts, videos, etc). Many digital publications, like magazines and news sites, as well as content creators like bloggers and YouTubers can make a full-time income from sponsored content alone.
  • Contests. Sponsors can either provide free product or money to help you boost your efforts and increase the value of your contest.
  • Events. Events from small workshops up to big conferences can get sponsors to fund their event and marketing costs or supply materials to complete event needs (i.e. lanyards, catering, etc.)

In this next section, I walk you through the steps you can follow to create a highly compelling online portfolio to attract and sign more brand sponsors. I won’t cover all the things you need to launch your site — for detailed steps I recommend this website launch checklist – so I’ll jump right into preparing your online portfolio.

How to Create an Online Portfolio to Attract Brand Sponsorships

Tell your brand story

The first thing you’ll want to present is your brand story. Tell prospects why you started your business and what kind of work you do for your audience and customers. This is an important element to add in your online portfolio, especially if you want sponsors to connect with your mission.

If you’re starting your online portfolio for a specific event you’re hosting, you should also talk about the specific things you have planned and how this helps your customers.

Many prospective sponsors are always looking out for creators and businesses who have a similar goal and audience. This makes your brand story a perfect way to succinctly tell prospects what you’re all about out and why you’re worth sponsoring.

You can present your brand story as a video, just like GoPro does, or you can sprinkle it throughout your site in paragraphs and headings.

GoPro Image

Put your best sample work forward

Sponsors need proof that you’re creating amazing things. Be it great blog posts, high-quality videos, in-depth courses and the like, you need to showcase your best work to convince prospects you’re different than other businesses and creators in your niche.

Content creators like video makers can show how they create videos to give sponsors a taste of their creativity and editing style. Small businesses that host regular workshops and events can showcase examples of events they’ve done before.

When showing off your best work, you want to also include the results you achieved from these using actual numbers – but more on that in a bit.

Include testimonials from clients and partners

Even if you’ve never had sponsors before, you can still show prospects what it’s like to work with you. Use character references and testimonials from clients, partners, and fans of your brand that show you’re a great person to work with and sponsor.

JustCreative Image

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Your testimonials ought to highlight strengths that your prospects might want to see, such as your creativity and work ethic. Remember: people are more likely to trust you when they see other people love you – and if you really want to attract those sponsors, then you need to show that you’re a brand worth their money.

List how sponsors can benefit from working with you

Sponsors need to know what they can get when they sponsor you.

If you’re organizing an event, talk about actual ways you’ll promote their brand during said event. Will you allow them to display banners or set up a booth during your event? How many times will you credit them in your program? Will you give away free samples of their product or any promotional flyers to attendees?

If you’re a content creator looking to get posts sponsored, show your sponsors what kind of content you’re able to create. Walk them through your creative process and how this benefits their brand.

In the example below, music YouTuber Kurt Hugo Schneider not only incorporates sponsored products in his videos, he makes sure they’re a central piece of the video.

Kurt Hugo Image

In order to nail this down, get to know the brands you’d love as sponsors and try to find out their brand objectives. Are they looking for awareness for new campaigns? Do they simply want more sales on products? When you know this, it’s easier to package your sponsorship benefits into something truly compelling.

Win prospects over with data and numbers

Sponsorships are a financial transactional as much as they are relational. So one of the quickest ways to attract brand sponsors? Revealing the numbers.

Make sure you understand the numbers behind your business, including your audience size, potential reach, and your audience’s media habits. For example, people spend an average of 74 minutes on social media per day – depending on your audience, this number can be much higher, and you ought to communicate that to prospective sponsors.

Also highlight all important numbers from any previous projects or campaigns you’ve done. For example, if you’ve hosted events, courses, or conferences, then give prospects the number of attendees.

Content creators can reveal their monthly site traffic and social media followings. But you can also go the extra mile and calculate your engagement rates to show prospects that you know what you’re talking about and that you can give them the ROI they’re looking for. Refer to this influencer marketing pricing guide to tell you just what brands are looking for before investing in other creators.

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Put clear CTAs for prospective sponsors around your website

Last but not least, make it as easy as possible for sponsors to get to know your packages and how to get in touch with you for sponsorships. To eliminate questions and extended back-and-forths, you can put your specific sponsorship packages on your portfolio.

Pricing Table

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If you’d like, it’s also possible to create an “a la carte” sponsors package in order to cater to smaller brands who might be a perfect fit or are looking for something specific.

Sponsor Packages

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And of course, include call-to-action (CTA) buttons across your site, like in your menu, header, and footer areas, so prospects have only to click a button to get in touch with you.

Conclusion

Sponsorships can be a big thing to think about as a business owner. And whether or not you’ve already worked with sponsors before, you can use this guide to help you set up an online portfolio that not only attracts prospective sponsors but even convinces them that you’re a business worth investing in. Be sure to update this portfolio every time, and soon you’ll be attracting bigger names and sponsors for your content, events, and more.

Read more: 10 Valid Reasons Why Businesses Should Always Be Expanding Their Product Portfolio