How to follow up on sponsorship deals

👋 Today, we’re following up on the previous email about follows up with more about follow-ups.

Multi-word sentence puns aside, let’s dive in! 🚀

What to say in your follow-ups.

Last Revenews we looked at how to approach following up from a holistic strategy/macro viewpoint.

Today we’re zooming in and fleshing out what to actually put in those emails.

🥅 Inbound Leads

The first email to an inbound lead you can be pretty presumptive. Try and get it off ASAP to capture the intent whilst it’s HOT.

Send them the relevant segmented information, and include a CTA such as: “Would you like to see some proposals?”

Or if you’re feeling super risqué, your CTA can look like this:

“Our most effective initial partnerships are usually 3x Primary Placements @ $4k.

Based on previous data, we recommend people start with something like this. What month did you have in mind?” or “Are you free for a call on XYZ?”

Of course, getting them on a call is always preferable (as per this edition).

🎯 Outbound Leads - After the initial reply

So you‘ve got some replies. But that’s just the beginning. Set the classic 2-3 day reminder to follow up. Here are a few examples you can use:

🔎 Case Studies

Don’t repeat yourself. If you’ve already mentioned you work with XYZ, then you’ll need to (a) mention various new ones, or (b) zoom in and flesh out the details of a relevant one.

This is how TLDR showcases case studies.

🤝 Audience Insights

Showcase an audience stat you haven’t yet mentioned to grab their attention and increase the likelihood of thinking your audience is a fit.

“Our recent survey tells us that 55% are accredited investors.

Hence why XYZ and ABC are our repeat partners!

Do you focus on accredited investors only or can you accept all individual investors?” 

👋 Founder Story

You can change pace, put your storytelling hat on and tell them about your company. Things you can include:

• Founded by impressive-sounding people such as investment bankers, CEOs, engineers, authors, etc.

• Your mission. How do you help? Who do you help? What drives you? Company values? WHY do people read? And stay around?

• Your growth journey and other channels such as socials, websites or other business departments.

• Your campaign ethos, flesh out today’s audience, your usual KPIs, slick onboarding, reporting, etc.

👴🏻 Keeping Engaged Long-Term

Your concise monthly email to keep a dormant lead engaged.

“Our recent campaign with (RELEVANT case study) was a resounding success. We used a problem-solving approach in the copy, which exceeded KPI expectations (leads).

The team all think a similar approach would do great for you.

Let us know if you’d like to re-connect.”

🤓After a pitch/proposal

During your call make sure you took note of their goals, problems, ICP, timeline and so on. Use these nuggets of information in your follow-ups.

Assuming you haven’t heard back since a proposal, here are a few examples of what the meat in your follow-up email could look like:

🔎 Case study Zoom in

“Zooming in on our partnership with XYZ. They started with a similar package, which smashed KPIs (leads/open accounts).

We’ve since expanded long-term including dedicated and bespoke content pieces.

⏰ Urgency Driver

Please drive urgency honestly! ⚠️

“You mentioned a Q3 timeline, I just wanted to let you know that we only have 2 slots left in September. Currently, we don’t have any competitors running that month either, which is rare!

We’d expect those slots to be snapped up next week by our repeat partners.

Let me know if you’d like us to reserve them and ping over an IO.”

This email is doing a few things:

• Using scarcity to drive urgency.

• Using the lack of competitors running to drive urgency.

• mentioning that you are busy and have repeat business.

• Trying to close the deal in a non-aggressive way, almost sounds like you’re doing them a favour.

Again. Urgency should be baked into your sales mindset, but do it with integrity.

🤝 Audience Insights

Use an audience stat you haven’t yet mentioned to craft a coherent media rationale.

Thinking more as a campaign planner and less of a salesperson will ironically help you sell more. Plus, assuming your ideas are good, it’ll help with performance!

Here’s one idea from the perspective of a crypto media company.

“Our recent survey told us that 56% of our readers feel left out of the recent bitcoin bull run and are scrambling to find a new exchange.

We think it’s a great time to get XYZ front and centre of the newsletter and host a series of educational webinars.

This would build XYZ as the thought leader in a crucial time in the cycle.

If this sounds good, do you have any topics you’d like to start with?”