How do you find sponsors?

From: Jan Hviid Hemmingsen <admin_at_pulze.com>
Date: Fri 30 Mar 2001 13:15:08 -0600

I run a number of sites of most which are related
to Soccer. Now, to make some more activity in
relation to the message board I run on
http://www.soccerforums.com I decided to make some
quizzes that encourages and awards those who are most
frequent visitors and to command more attention to
the forums in general. To make it attractive to
participate in I want to have prizes, but I a little
lost as to how to find those and wonder what others
do and if there are places online that co-ordinates
these things even for those of us who cannot command
millions of page views.

Thinking about it I have come to the conclusion that
sponsoring site events like quizzes actually should
be very attractive. To take my own site as an example
can someone sponsoring quizzes reach hundreds of
active members and passive visitors as it has more
than 1000 topics posted a day and have a handful new
people signing up a day just as there are many who
visit without registering. The sponsors would for
limited amounts of a few hundred dollars for example
be able to present themselves in more ways and with
a very positive spin since they support the site and
give things away to the visitors.

I have seen sponsorships on other sites, but they are
either far from my subject matter, seems to be
related to affiliate programmes and other indirect
and less specific sites or products etc Since the
soccer audience is quite targeted and predominately
fall within the demographics of males between 15 and
25 should it be a pretty attractive group to reach I
would think.

One obvious problem it raises for me as a site owner
is of course that although it promotes the site it
does not bring income and growth any closer together
than they are now. I live off banner advertising so
growth is not worth anything unless it is followed by
ad sales rather on the contrary as most growth means
higher expenses.

Now, I am sure that some of the knowledgeable people
on the list have some experience with this subject of
finding, keeping and optimizing sponsors and sponsorships.
I know it can be done and is done on big sites, but what
about the smaller to medium sites? And what is the
benefits and drawbacks you have experienced? Does it help
traffic, but hurt advertising sales or the reverse? and so
on. All advice and information is deeply appreciated and
I am sure I cannot be the only one wondering about this :)

Kind regards,

Jan Hviid Hemmingsen
Xtratime Soccer Forums
http://www.soccerforums.com
Discussion, rumors, praise, news, information, ratings on
all the great teams, players and events.



Received on Fri Mar 30 2001 - 13:15:08 CST