Here are a few examples of the sponsorship opportunities you can work with:

Having clearly differentiated products is critical. Potential sponsors need to easily understand what you’re offering and how much it will cost. When it comes to advertising, this means clearly laying out what the ad will look like, where it will be placed, and what kind of recognition the advertiser will receive.

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💡 Don’t Be Scared to Bundle

This might seem to go directly against what we said above, but don’t be afraid to make higher value sponsorship bundles. While having clearly differentiated products and recognition is a must, bundling these products for a higher value sponsorship can result in a higher return on investment.

One of the most common ways to do this is with a content underwriting proposal. You can bundle exclusive newsletter sponsorship, website display ads, and social media mentions into the content underwriting recognition. This provides your sponsor extra recognition value while providing you a more stable revenue stream.

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The majority of your sponsorship sales will involve recognition on digital platforms (aka digital advertising). Recognition can also be done through print media, videos, and at events. Event sponsorship typically includes recognition on digital platforms, as well as in the event program, and occasionally with printed signage.

Remember, you can always change what you’re offering, the recognition sponsors are getting, and the prices. Experiment, find what works for you. As your audience grows, you can add in different types of sponsorships.

Recommendation: Sign up for some popular weekly and daily newsletters that feature sponsorship advertisements and sponsored content to see how it can be done, get ideas and inspiration.
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Having a formal advertising policy and sponsor criteria should be one of the first things you develop. Having this in place will help you build out the rest of your sales assets, and it will keep you on track when you start to sell sponsorship opportunities.

An established advertising policy will also help you when potential sponsors are asking for things that don’t align with your mission or would push you past your capacity. Being able to point to the policy and tell sponsors that you aren’t able to accommodate their request due to policy makes saying no a bit easier.

Advertising Resources

🔗 The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards (CAN)

🔗 Federal Trade Commission Advertising and Marketing (USA)

Set up an email for people to contact about sponsorship opportunities. This should be included in your media kit, on your rate cards, any proposals, and in any CTAs (newsletter or social media). It should also be posted on your website.

A value proposition is a statement that tells potential sponsors/advertisers why they should want to work with you. It concisely outlines what value you can provide to them. Some examples of value you can provide advertisers with:

Exercise for Building a Value Proposition

WordStream has a great, very simple exercise to help you build an effective value proposition.

Determine what the potential sponsor's focus is. Does the business/organization like to support specific areas such as the arts? Include this information in your proposals and emails. Media kits and rate sheets can be standard documents.

Your media kit is the main source of information for potential sponsors, it’s basically a resume for your business. Keep your media kit as short as possible, brand it, use analytics, and keep text bite-sized. Stick to a single call to action and repeat it throughout the document.

We typically like to keep rates out of the media kit. The media kit can be uploaded to the website behind a registration wall. Having the rate sheets kept separate allows an easy reason to contact potential sponsors who download the media kit. Indiegraf has a media kit template available to all publishers.

A simple 1-page rate card can accompany the media kit with outbound sponsorship inquiries, or it can be sent over to people who download your media kit from your website. As with the media kit, brand the rate card, keep text bite-sized, and stick to a single call to action. Break rates apart by one-time, bulk, and non-profit. Include sponsorship types and audience sizes. The rate card is a great place to include the price increase chart. Indiegraf has a rate card template available to all publishers.

While newsletter sponsorships and display advertising typically doesn’t need more than a media kit, rate card, and an email, larger sponsorship asks will often require a bit more. Having a unique, and tailored proposal can help to secure larger sponsorships. As with other types of sponsorship, showing audience demographics is important.

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Sample Initial Pitch Email (Cold)

Hi [FIRST NAME IF KNOWN]/Hi there,

My name is [NAME] with [PUBLICATION]. We are a local, independent, digital media publisher in [LOCATION].

Have you ever heard of newsletter sponsorship? It’s a great way to advertise your [BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION/EVENT] directly to the right people. Newsletter ads have a higher impact and stronger engagement than traditional display advertising on websites. Why?

Because we offer exclusivity and ads that include 50 words of copy, an 18-word headline, a link, and a large image. Advertising with us is low-risk and high-reward.

I would love to take 15 minutes to chat with you about [PUBLISHER] can help you grow your business. I’m confident that advertising with us is a great option for you. Let's schedule something for next week, what is your availability?

Don’t miss out on our limited advertising inventory.

[NAME]

[EMAIL SIGNATURE]

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The best place to start looking for potential sponsors is in your current audience! What businesses and organizations are already subscribed to your newsletter or following you on social media? Do you have any contacts within your own network? It’s always easier to bring a sponsor onboard if they are already educated about what your publication is doing.

You can look for potential sponsors in a variety of places:

When sending out sponsorship asks, research your potential sponsor to find out what they need. Do they support specific community causes? Adapt your ask specific to their needs. Don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach.

Recommendation: Don’t rely on a single type of sponsorship, and don’t rely on selling one-offs. Focus on things like underwritten content first, then move onto longer term newsletter and display ads, then fill in the gaps with one-time ad buys.

It’s important to have an easy-to-find page on your website for potential sponsors to find information. This page should include the following:

Newsletter ads are ads that are placed directly in a newsletter. They are often sold according to cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), cost-per-click (CPC), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA). We recommend selling based on CPM. There are two different ways to measure CPM.

Display advertising is the use of text, video, and image advertising to encourage users to click-through to another website and complete an action. Common types of display ads are website banner ads and side-bar ads, they can also include retargeting ads to get users who already viewed a specific website to return and take action. There are two main types of display advertising, direct and programmatic advertising.

Display advertising of either type is typically sold based on cost per mille (CPM) which is how much it will cost an advertiser to get 1,000 impressions. An impression is when a user opens an app or website and they see an ad.

Direct sales display ads are when the advertiser works directly with a publisher to purchase ad space on a specific website. Direct ads compared to programmatic are associated with higher CPMs because the advertiser is picking their ideal audience. The drawback is that direct ad buying can take more time and costs more than programmatic.

Indiegraf publishers have the ability to sell and place display ads on their website directly, without using ad-buy platforms like Google Ads/Google Ad Manager. For instructions on how to fulfill direct sale display ads using the Advanced Ads Wordpress plugin, click here.

Programmatic Advertising is the progress of buying ads through an auction and the highest bidder takes the inventory spot. This is done through an ad-buying platform like Google Ads. Programmatic advertising means you can’t guarantee where the ads will show up, and they often have lower quality of traffic coming from unknown sources.

READ MORE: Epom has a detailed article called “Programmatic or Direct Media Buying”

With display advertising, the only recognition required is the ad placement itself.

Indiegraf recommends publishers charge a higher than average CPM for the following reason:

*NOTE: Pricing through Google Ads is based on the Google Display Network

Publishers can include Google Ads on their website by linking a Google Ad Manager account to the Advanced Ads widget on their site. Unlike direct sale display ads, using Google Ads makes it possible for publishers to run ads on their website without having to interact directly with advertisers. The Google Display Network (GDN) serves Google Ads to websites, YouTube, and apps. It is an automated ad network for display advertising.

Publishers can sign up for a Google Ad Manager account by clicking HERE. There is a short questionnaire required. Answers should be as follows:

The difference between Google Ads, AdSense, and Google Ad Manager.

Event sponsorship is when a financial commitment is made by a business or organization to support an event in exchange for promotion/recognition. Events can have a single sponsor or multiple depending on the size of the event itself. Event sponsorship can be a cash sponsorship or a gift-in-kind depending on the sponsor and your specific needs. For example:

Recognition for event sponsorship can vary depending on the number of sponsors you want, the size of the event, and your budget. Are you looking for a single exclusive sponsor or would you like to have multiple sponsors at smaller amounts? Here are some examples of sponsorship recognition that can be offered:

At the end of the day, you need to cover your expenses and sponsors are looking for a return on their investment. This means that along with their commitment to the community, they want access to new customers.

When determining how to price event sponsorship, you’ll first need to understand your expected costs. Do you want all costs covered, or just a portion? Are you planning on having a single sponsor or multiple sponsors? Break your event budget down into one or more categories that you want the sponsor cover.

How you price your event sponsorship opportunities needs to reflect your expenses and an understanding of your sponsors expectations.
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Underwriting is when an organization covers the cost of or financially supports another organization. Subsidized content is a type of underwriting (and can be called underwritten content). It is when a business or organization supports a type of content being put out by a publisher. This could be a broad subject, such as Arts & Culture, or coverage of a specific topic, such as an election.

When content is subsidized, the sponsor has no control over, involvement in, or advanced knowledge of the content. Subsidized content should always be clearly identified as part of their recognition. A partnership clause should be posted as well stating that the sponsor has no influence over any aspect of the content.

Other types of underwriting can include a sponsor covering the marketing costs of a fundraising/revenue campaign, or when a sponsor covers the cost of merchandise/swag that can be sold for profit.

READ MORE: Indiegraf article “How to use swag to meet your audience goals”

Recommendation: Try to get sponsors to subsidize content not directly related to their area of business. This can help ensure you are never going to be writing an article about that business/organization under their sponsorship.
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