Soliciting & Acquiring Haunted House Sponsors Part 1

Posted by haunt educator on Jan 23, 2012 in Finance, Marketing | 0 comments

Knowing Your Audience

When it comes to approaching potential corporate sponsors you need to do a little work ahead of time. You need to know your audience and by knowing that you can create a list of potential sponsors to approach. If you want your haunted house event to successfully acquire sponsors then you need to have a lot of people involved and have a specific focus. Sponsors like when a lot of people are involved because they can reach a large audience at once. By having a focus though you allow sponsors to reach a specific target audience which is why a lot of large well established haunts have sponsors like Red Bull, Monster or some other energy drink. When you first start out you want to focus on the specific focus route since you will have a smaller attendance but once you are established go for the sponsors that want to reach a lot of people at once.

Think creatively also when you plan your haunt event. Try to find ways to reach outside your business. An easy example of this would be an animal shelter hosting an event might try to get veterinarians, pet stores and groomers and trainers to come. With a haunt if you have some companies local that would benefit from having a stand on site then approach them. An example would be maybe a ice cream vendor. Another added benefit to this is you allow more people to learn about your haunt business who may want to volunteer or sponsor a night. Think about what local businesses and companies would be interested in reaching your target audience. These are great targets for haunted house sponsors.

Sponsorship Levels

When determining your sponsorship levels you want each level to be distinct and to be beneficial enough that previous sponsors will want to move up to a higher level come next year. Have a wide range of sponsorship levels so that even small businesses can get involved and larger businesses can get larger packages that fit their size and budget. Your low level entry spot may just be a logo on the program or flyer for $200 to $500. While your top level sponsor could be $10,000 and with that they receive complete publicity with logos in all material, banners on site, mentions in radio spots too.

You want to focus your levels on what they do to benefit the company sponsoring you. Put down what you will offer with a price next to it and then add it up to get an idea of what that level should cost. Remember flexibility is key here and being able to customize a level for some sponsors to meet their marketing needs could land you some bigger sponsors or more smaller sponsors. Some might not want to offer you money but instead just product for your event while others might want to do half money and half product. Logo’s on T-shirts and announcing of names for food and beverage companies is a favorite for the companies. Often times they may want to setup on site for a few nights also.

Consider these benefits for the sponsor companies and brainstorm some creative ones of your own.

Banner displayed on site

Sponsors name announced at event

Name or Logo on newsletter

Name or Logo on flyers or programs

Name or Logo on print media ads, newspaper or magazines

Name or Logo on website with link back to their site

Logo on T-shirts or other merchandise

Banner or Logo in Photo Op scene (pictures with actors or electric chair, put their banner behind so its in each photo that will get tweeted or facebooked and sent via mobile to friends.)

The ideas go on and on, you can get as creative as you want with this just keep in mind it needs to benefit the sponsor in some way or it is not worth having on the list. Make sure to have focused and beneficial levels for your haunted housesponsors and keep the audience in mind when thinking of potential sponsors. You do not want to go after a landscaper for a haunted house because that is not going to be their target audience. Then again they are all local residents so that might work out actually. You get the idea though.