52 thoughts on “How To Get Sponsors For Giveaways & Competitions”

1. Excellent article. I was just thinking today that I should create my first ever contest / prize giveaway now that I have grown in subscribers…and I was wondering how best to go about getting sponsors. Nice bit of help here Jacob, thanks

2. Great information there Jacob. I found the example of an Email quite useful, as I sometimes write too much when approaching people online. I’ll use this post for future reference.

3. Adam,
   I also prefer email, even if I get things on facebook, twitter, etc I always ask them to send me an email, it is easier to track. Usually I keep the email short at first and then after their first reply you have something else to backup your story… ie. elaborate on what they will receive.

   Brian,
   Well good luck with it 🙂

   Preston,
   People skills are definitely important. Good luck for when you start finding sponsors.

   Andrew,
   Yeah I find that long promotional emails I hardly ever read, maybe just the first two paragraphs. If it hasn’t grabbed me by then, well better luck next time.

   Raph,
   Yeah it is always interesting to see how others write their letters. The casual nature I thought was perfect for the nature of the sponsor but like you said, it is dependent on who you are writing too.

4. Fantastic article. I work for a climbing company as the Marketing Manager and I prefer requests by email so I can track them. Also remember to explain what THEY will get out of it, so for example; I want to know how many participates there will be, where my logo will be used, if I am the only company of my kind that is sponsoring, media coverage, a website so I can create a click through. All of this effects how much stuff will get sent.

5. Great article Jacob. Sometimes its good to know people skills are still important.

   I’m still pretty far away from doing things like this on my blog, but i will keep it in mind for the day when I need it.

6. This are great tips to find sponsors online. Doing this will a great attitude will also help.

7. An interesting Post to read. It’s always interesting to find out what others write in letters like that. A bit like finding out what people put in their cover letters for jobs i suppose.

   One thing I will criticize though is the casual nature of your example email. However, it is really dependent on who you are writing to, as to how formal or informal it is and it is something you need to gauge when you sit down to write it.

   Thanks for sharing.

8. The whole process was dealt with brilliantly, it maintained an informal friendly feel, and it was always clear everybody was going to benefit. It is very interesting to see how many none blog owners wrote articles. Well done Jacob.

9. Amazing post, imho.

   I had asked that question myself ‘how did he make 11k for prizes’. Great followup. 🙂

10. Nice story Jacob. I have a football (soccer) website and recently managed to find a sponsor to fund a contest on my site. I simply sent him an email telling him about how important the contest is to the users, and he agreed to fund a shirt and a soccer ball. All I had to do was add the link to his online soccer store for the duration of the contest. Now, however, we have a lasting partnership in which I regularly have sponsored contests by his online soccer store.

    I totally agree with your points. In order to get a sponsor you must
    a) tell him/her why the contest is important to you
    b) tell him/her what they will receive in return
    c) tell them how many people visit your site. It is especially important for your visitors to have an interest in what your sponsor is involved with, as the sponsor may find this as an attractive reason to fund your contest.

    Thanks for your advice

11. Great suggestions.

    Keep in touch.

12. nice post, it guest I could learn to get a sponsor from this post.

13. all the way from barbados…thank you your article was very helpful….came across it by chance but i’m glad i did…ty vm.

14. thank you

15. Hi, Jacob, this is the first time to your blog, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for the straight forward tips on gaining sponsors. Although, I am not looking for any, I have bookmarked your page for the future when I am ready to do a promotion. Keep up the awesome work and I wish you continued success.

16. A friend just forwarded this post to me, thanks so much! I’m going to try it out tonight! Wish me luck!

17. What do you do if the sponsor doesn’t keep his word?

    Aren’t you concerned with legal issues like your liability to provide the winner with the gift anyway.

    • good question !

18. This article has been featured here
    http://jaredthompson-design.blogspot.com/2009/08/ultimate-list-of-best-links-from-last.html

    Keep up the good work!

19. Thank you so much !..

    Cheers
    Elijah

20. Thanks for the great info. This info will be very helpful in the near future, as I will be having a giveaway!

21. Great article! These are definitely some tips I will be using for my upcoming blog giveaways. It’s amazing how simple the process is (contact the companies), and yet we sometimes freak out over the prospect of calling (thinking we’ll get turned down). I also agree that traffic has a great deal to do with it being a better bargain for them.

22. Great Article!! We are starting the process of finding sponsors and feel lost. This article has helped dramatically!! One question, how do you get the email addresses??

23. Just go to the person’s contact page and find it there!

24. Hi Jacob cass i am a young man with the aim of organizing a quiz competition for schools in my region but getting sponsorship is my major problem .the quiz will be for junior high school .the selected subject are science,mathematics,I.C.T and English language.the quiz will be held live on a local T.V station in cape coast,central region Ghana.I am a teacher and a first year student of U.C.C offering Education.I need your help.

25. Thank you for the information. I just posted my first blog to ask for sponsors. Wish me luck!!

26. I have already tried doing this and its really tough working and dealing with sponsors. A lot of meetings to undergo and papers to sign.

27. Going for ex-deals are actually one of the best ways to get some good stuff. Promote the items in your blog entries as ex-deal for their stuff. Talk to their marketing department and ask how they work on those.

28. Something else would seem to go without saying, but I’m afraid it needs to be said.
    If you sponsor a contest on social media, there is an underlying implication (read warranty) that you WILL fulfill the promotion, contest, etc.
    I personally have been “burned” four times now (by small businesses, typically) who seemingly are using Twitter just to drum up followers. They have a giveaway or contest and announce that you will win ‘such and such,’ and then you never receive anything from the company. No further communications, etc. They don’t ever check their “mentions” and they never follow anyone, so you can’t DM them. If you are lucky enough to find an email address for them, they will not answer you as to what’s up with the contest.
    I think this practice is poor business at the least, and outright fraud at the worst.

29. I was doing some reseacrh on how to get sponsors and give away prizes. This has helped me and even given me some ideas on who to contact and what to offer for a prize.

    I have recently started my own Company and now finally I’m launching my website. For the launch I was thinking of Giving something away.

    thanx for the info.

30. That’s an excellent idea. I was looking for information on how to get sponsored and your email sample is awesome.

    I have an arcade site where people can play online games with no necessity to install anything and I really want to encourage people to come back. I will be giving away a Zune next month and I hope to get more prizes to giveaway.
    I think giveaway is an awesome way to get more traffic to your website and keep loyal visitors.

31. We launched a website http://www.IamSponsored.com It matches talented people with companies willing to sponsor them. It’s free to. You get perks, freebies and a bunch of stuff and great offers from sponsors. Check it out, There are tons of sponsorship categories also.

32. Hmm. Thanks for sharing, Jacob. Very well explained. First time here.
    But it’s difficult for a blogger to get sponsors if the traffic isn’t as high as yours, yeah? 🙂

    • You’d be surprised how much others are looking for exposure as well. We all start somewhere!

      • Hmm, true. That’s motivating! 🙂

33. Ok. Thank you so much !..

34. I have just opened up a Girls Etiquette Summer Camp and need sponsors I have an appointment with a bank to sponsor some children and I want to present myself the right way, It’s been a hard struggle and I refuse to give up it’s been four years now and all monies have been out of pocket , I need advice and you seem to be the right person to ask, Thank You.

35. If you are soliciting for a non-profit, check out the company’s CSR policies. Many of the large corporates have specific areas that they support and will not even consider your request if you do not fall in those categories. It will save you a lot of time and resources if you do your homework first.

36. Great tips. Looking to create competitions of my own sometime soon. 🙂

37. Wow! I can’t believe this thread is four yrs old! lol
    If anyone is still reading, one question that I don’t see covered yet–what if your blog is new and does not have the traffic yet to entice businesses? If my blog/website is only 6 mos. old, should I mention or leave out that I only get a couple of thousand page views/mo? I’d be curious to hear opinions about this. Thanks!!

    • It depends on the sponsor Shala, but I would be honest and tell them exactly what they would be receiving.

38. Great article! I stumbled on your post coz I’m reaching a milestone in my FB page and want to do a giveaway and this will be super useful 🙂 I have one question though, how do the prizes get sent out to the winners? Do the sponsors send the prizes to you and you send it to the winners or do they send it directly?

    • Usually the sponsors send the prizes directly.

      • Thanks for your reply! That certainly makes sense 🙂

39. A lot of bloggers don’t take advantage of this very much because most bloggers either have an eBook that they have created or some type of product or membership program that they would like to give awat.

40. Hey Jacob thnxx for sharing , to get sponsors we need to have good amount of traffic on our blog

41. Great suggestion and I was actually searching with the same query for my blog. Anyways gladly thanks to you. And i will try to those tips on my blogs.

42. I’ve been trying to contact 2 different types of companies for the past 2 weeks. I either get the “no thanks” or I get completely ignored. The thing that I don’t understand is the whole “helping someone” thing. I need help and these guys have more leverage, facebook fans, customers, etc than I do. I would like to think if I was in that position (with leverage) that I would be willing to help someone out that needed help.

    I am writing a book series called The Warfighters Series. The first book is called The Nine Of Hearts. Its very well received by both Military Personnel as well as people that like video games. I thought it would be a cool idea to get a Military company to donate a sweatshirt or a giftcard. Then for the gaming company to donate a few games or a gift card. Then, I would donate a print of my book and maybe a poster or something of the cover (which is awesome). Actually in all truth I kind of got myself a poster of the cover because it rocked that much lol.

    But, every single person I contact is all “meh” no no, no, no, that’s okay, thanks anyway. The really annoying thing to me:

    1- Most of these companies I contacted have a facebook and people are just blatantly spamming their companies and their products. But, the company won’t help me lol. That seems weird. I was trying to be respectful and send a PM instead of just outright spamming!

    2- Mine is not just a sponsorship for my benefit. I’m also picking a Military charity to donate a percentage of each book sale to. I can’t seem to understand why a company would not want to help sponsor someone when its not just me me me, I want to help someone else as well in the process too.

    Oh well. Ill keep trying I guess. The most difficult thing is finding a gaming company because GameStop is like THE place for games. On the other hand, there are like 500000000 military apparel stores online.

43. wow wonderful tips thanks jacob… traffic should be high on site to get sponsors…

Comments are closed.