Greetings fellow sword-nerds,
This post is for anyone who is involved in the competitive scene, in any way and is intended as a comprehensive guide, that might contain some inspiration to help you improve the level of professionalism in your organisation, via sponsorship.
My belief is that this scene has attractive and interesting opportunities for sponsors and that increased sponsor involvement would have an overall positive effect on the competitive community.
Firstly, I want to address why I think increased sponsor involvement would have an overall positive effect on the competitive community. I'm looking at this initially because if you don't agree, then the rest probably won't be relevant to you.
What sponsors could offer you-
...to tournaments:
-Servers. This is the nature of the deal I had with MarkMods for the NFC. Perhaps your tournament doesn't have its own servers however there are benefits to having tournament servers in many ways.
-Prizes. I also had a deal with MarkMods where the winning 3 teams would all receive an amount of free hosting from MarkMods. Having prizes gives teams more to play for and adds prestige as well as importance to your tournament for many people. Since prizes can be almost anything, you could make a sponsorship deal with almost anyone for this. Think outside the box! (T-Shirts, pizza delivery, gaming gear, games! cuddly toys...) You might even convince a company to sponsor with cash, perhaps as a prize or to compensate the work you put in for running the tournament... anything could happen. If you're going for prizes though try to remember that this will be for a Warband team. For example if you're doing T-Shirts for the winners, try to get at least enough for the number of required participants in a team.
-Publicity. This may not be important for many tournaments right now. Most of the interest in our competitive scene is from other players who are already within it. However, a sponsor that raises the publicity of your tournament will also raise the value of your tournament to potential sponsors. If you work hard at this, you could improve any future deals you make and gain yourself a good reputation that could be used to attract bigger and better sponsors eventually. Work on your brand and make it strong.
-Professionalism. As mentioned with Prizes, giving teams something tangible to aim for is likely to only make them work harder to win which will probably improve the level of play and attitude. Having sponsors also gives an incentive for the tournament itself to be run professionally as it is aligned with the reputation of the sponsor. As a result, the opinion of the tournament among players may also be elevated, raising the prestige and interest.
...to teams (or players): This is the same four but the benefits might be slightly different for players
-Servers. If you're paying for a server right now, why not talk to a hosting company and try to get one for free.
-Stuff. Effectively a mirror of what's on the table for tournaments but expect probably a bit less. There aren't really any teams that are doing much work on their branding or trying to get themselves publicity right now. At the same time, tournaments don't offer teams many platforms to publicise their sponsors. Certainly wouldn't expect cash
... however if you managed to strike up a deal with a company and you offered them some extra services (see below) then there's no reason you couldn't get some free swag if it's what the company specialises in (think t-shirts, gaming gear).
-Publicity. I don't expect many teams have even given a second thought to the value of this and there aren't many teams doing much to build their own brands to the community or even the team members themselves, let alone the rest of the world. What publicity could offer you inevitably is better deals from sponsors. It's all about getting on the ladder and seeing how you can climb it. Although it doesn't work quite like this now, thinking long term, a well sponsored, well publicised team is also better equipped to attract the best talent if the benefits are passed onto the players. Having a sponsor could help make your team better!
-Professionalism. Some teams go for this simply because they love the game. Some teams want this but have a hard time achieving it... what a sponsor can do is provide a genuine incentive. Winning a competition for the community pride is one thing but if you know it will mean your sponsor sends you all some t-shirts, there's a another incentive altogether. You can get stuff for doing what you enjoy/what you'd already do already.
I'm assuming you've read the above as a tournament organiser or team leader and you like the idea of sponsorship for your organisation.
If you're now thinking: "Great but why the hell would a sponsor be interested in us as a tournament/team? What could I offer them that would make it worth giving away things for free?" - this next section is for you.
What you could offer sponsors-
...as a tournament:
You may think you have no way of meaningfully advertising anything but let me tell you why you're wrong. Take for example the Warband Native League:
[*]It has a playerbase of 485 players.
[*]Its weekly fixture threads get 6000-7000 clicks on average.
[*]On average, there are 16-19 WNL matches played each week.
[*]During the famous "pick nights", the board is populated by up to and around 100 users and guests concurrently.
[*]It has a clear demographic in "Competititve Mount&Blade Warband Gamers". This is very useful to sponsors.
-The forums. The WNL could reach the majority of these players and get lots of attention for a sponsor just by putting a logo at the top of their sub board. They could easily do more by adding logos to the forum topics and even to the sigs of their admins (which show up every time they confirm a server booking or make a roster update).
-Branding. When I ran the MMNFC, I included MarkMods in the name of the tournament. An easy feature that, if anything, makes the tournament sound more interesting and professional while supporting the sponsor.
-Original content. They could easily expand their advertising platforms by creating their own content (tournament hype videos, player/team features, interviews, streams and highlight videos), giving extra platforms where they could support sponsors (by including mentions or logo overlays in the content) and work on their own brand.
-3rd party. WNL could even say to me, as a livestreamer, that I had to feature their sponsor's logo on my stream in some way if I want support to stream games from their tournament via rules which mean teams have to let me stream (which I do). This is an extremely easy way they can add further value to their sponsor.
-Social Media. This ties in with original content somewhat but using twitter or facebook or YouTube or whatever to do things like post your content and make announcements or post results or interact with players... it really doesn't matter. They can all have sponsors names thrown about in various forms and all these sites are gold because they offer cold hard starts (likes, followers, subscribers) that you can give to sponsors and facebook and YouTube even measure demographics and have other details that are useful. They're all good for working on your branding and expanding your reach anyway, plus they give sponsors a good way of promoting you. Remember that with social media, for it to be valuable, you need to offer something to draw users in. No one will follow your twitter just to see you promoting your sponsor. Posting results is an obvious one for tournaments but be creative.
One useful tip is to try and tie in what the sponsors are providing you with, to the way in which you support them.
-If the tournament is providing you with servers, then name the servers something like ENL_GER_1_Sponsor (If my tournament was the ENL and the sponsor was providing me with a german server).
-If they're providing you with prizes, you can tell everyone that the company is providing them and people will recognise that they're getting involved with the M&B scene (which many round here are passionate about) and look to repay that by investigating their products. You can advertise t-shirts for tournament winners as provided by: e.g. "Bill's T-Shirts" which provides publicity for the sponsor directly.
Be clear here as well, I'm listing all the things tournaments could do. I feel like you could get somewhere with a lot of sponsors just by featuring a handful of the above.
Working on your brand will always be helpful as well. It makes your tournament more valuable.
...as a team:
While your reach as a team is probably and will probably always be less than that of most tournaments, you can still be of value to a sponsor.
-The forums. You probably have a thread and users. Logos in the thread in your players' sigs are an easy way to advertise your sponsors. Since this will make you ambassadors for your sponsors, it may even provide an incentive to improve the behavioural and posting standards of some of you...
-Original content. Some teams already make their own videos or have members that make videos or guides. Whatever it is, if it's interesting for people and gets some views/plays/hits then you can throw up a sponsor's name at the end or beginning or wherever and it's value to them. Even conducting interviews of your own players may seem weird but try it, post it on the forums and try to publicise it. Work on your own brand and stick with it to make yourselves more valuable in the eyes of potential sponsors.
-Mentions. I am starting to offer postmatch interviews to players from teams on MB_tv. Anyone who wants to mention a sponsor there is free to do so. What you can also do is put pressure on tournaments to give you a platform. Say if I'm one of the best teams in the WNL, it could be in my interests to say: "if we win the WNL, we want you to put up an announcement from us as part of any concluding thread you make". Most tournaments would be happy to accomodate that and it gives you another platform to include a mention or logo of your sponsor in a place where a lot of people will see it.
-Server Announcements. If your team runs a server with an admin mod, you can probably put announcements on the server. Include a sponsor in one or two of those. If you can provide some stats about the popularity or activity of the server, even better.
-In game. Modifying your players' in game names to something like TAG_Captain_Lust_CocaCola is an easy way to draw attention to your sponsor. Anyone familiar with the SC2 scene will know about all the EG players having RC at the end of their name for Raidcall. It's a smart trick and just another option. Rememeber to think creatively about what you can offer sponsors and you'll soon realise the sky is the limit.
-Website. I don't think a website is strictly necessary for team sponsorship. Maybe you could even get a sponsor to make you a basic one if they wanted it but having one will probably help. Just think about your own branding a little bit and what a sponsor would want to align their name with.
As with tournaments, tie in what you're willing to offer sponsors with the sponsorship you get. If you're getting your server given to you, then put your sponsor's name in the server name and in the welcome message explain that they're giving it to you. This will make people want to support the sponsor and it will also give your sponsor an incentive to make sure the server runs well, as their name is attached to it.
If you get t-shirts, post some pictures on the forums of you wearing them. You can't be much uglier than everyone else around here so don't be shy and make sure you help your team's brand by showing some personality and putting faces to your names.
There's plenty more you could probably do, these are just the suggestions that my small mind managed to put together. I see original creative content coming out of the community every day so do yourselves a favour and get something for it while expanding the reach of your content.
OK, tournament organiser/team leader/player you've made it this far. Rah-spect.
What you're probably thinking now is: "Oh boy, I sure would love a sponsorship deal for whatever I'm a part of organising but how do I get one?"
Then read on...
Finding sponsors-
-Forms. You'll find companies have their own forms you can fill out to apply for sponsorhip with them like this and this (second one has different forms make sure you fill out the right one). If you're concerned by a form saying "what was your last event win" or something that you can't answer, just explain so.
-Email or web contact. Almost every company will have a "contact" option somewhere on their website. You can send an email to any company you like asking for sponsorship. If you know someone from a company, consider asking them. It might make it easier if you have an insider. Also, you might want to target sponsors relevant to the industry such as gaming manufacturers and companies you think M&B players would be interested in. Another technique is to look at existing competitive teams and try targeting sponsors who have already got involved in the world of esports. Useful links for that LoL Teams - Dota 2 Teams. Don't be afraid to push the boat out and look for sponsors of less notable or famous teams as well. They might be the ones more interested in making small time deals.
-Skype or instant messenger. Don't be afraid to try and contact your details through these means. Build up a personal relationship with a sponsor. Be friendly and polite but there's no reason to be overly formal if that doesn't suit you. Be as open as you possibly can and try to get any potential sponsors excited about the prospect of working with you.
If you're writing a first email to a potential sponsor, try to make it fairly concise. There may be someone answering emails at this company who will take one look at a long email and go "whelp, that never happened" and put it in the bin. It happens.
Attracting and dealing with sponsors-
-Personal relationship. Don't be afraid to build up a personal relationship with their sponsors. Ask them what they want and how you can help them to make sure they're happy sponsoring you. If you're in a deal with a sponsor, just ask them how it's going every now and then to make sure they're happy.
-Get other people to send messages to your sponsors. If your tournament has a sponsor, encourage people to send messages to that sponsor thanking them for their participation. It makes a difference. Even if you're doing everything and holding up your part of the agreement, it's hard for sponsors to measure the direct effects of their sponsorship a lot of the time but if they have players thanking a sponsor for participating in a tournament they've played in and adding something special to it, then it makes them feel like it was worth their while and is more likely to encourage more investment into your tournament and the scene as a whole. If it's a team then at the very least, get your members to send emails to the sponsors individually to say thanks... until you have that 1m strong fanbase to do it for you
.
-Fulfill your end of the bargain. Any deals you make should be kept. This is a minimum requirement. You should be going above and beyond to support your sponsors if you can get them, not failing to tick the boxes. That's how you lose sponsors.
-Incentive based deals. You can make a deal much easier for a sponsor by saying "If our team wins so-and-so tournament, we want 8 t-shirts/mousemats/whatever". That way, they know your team will get a reasonable amount of attention and if you combine that with a guarantee you will be part of some winners interview or post on some closing thread with clear view thanking the sponsor and posting a logo, then it's guaranteed return for sponsor almost and a much lower risk for them to take. Anything is negotiable, so think about it hard and find a deal which can work for them because remember, right now, you're all playing for nothing anyway (except M).
-Ask them what they'd be interested in. Come up with suggestions but make it clear you're open to discussion and negotiation...
-Play up your strengths. The way I see it, as a basically unsponsored scene right now, Warband is pretty much a golden opportunity for a sponsor. Anyone entering the scene won't be flooded out or drowned out by the noise of 100 other companies looking for attention, everyone will see their involvement and I think most people would be appreciative of it. Don't assume sponsors will know that, tell them yourself! You can also see the stats I listed above for WNL. They were easy to find, give your sponsor some numbers that will get them interested.
-Be open and honest. Say it's not the biggest game out there. Remember you're probably not trying to negotiate in 1000s of $ for the time being. You don't need 100k concurrents on your twitch stream to get some free swag or a few months of game server hosting.
That's pretty much all of the advice I have. It should be everything you need to go out there and try to find some sponsorship for whatever you're doing. My last thought would be to think creatively. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, you are the ones that need to innovate and dazzle sponsors to bring them into the scene.
Go ahead and discuss in the thread if you like. Tell me I'm an idiot and this is all a waste of time! Just please take away from this thread the idea that sponsorship could be possible and beneficial for whatever you're doing in the scene. Consider it.
Oh yeah and here's a template email for tournaments. It's not perfect and in an ideal world you'd write your own with some decent prose and just use this for inspiration. If you do use this, make sure you modify it properly and don't be afraid to make extra modifications to clearly reflect the sort of deal you're looking for.
Teams can use this too. Just takes a few modifications and it works fine (I couldn't be bothered to make another template). No rule restricting you to be a team or a tournament anyway. This could work if you're a content producer, livestreamer, fan site administrator.
This post is for anyone who is involved in the competitive scene, in any way and is intended as a comprehensive guide, that might contain some inspiration to help you improve the level of professionalism in your organisation, via sponsorship.
-I got involved in competitive Mount&Blade shortly before the release of Warband in March 2010 when I joined the Court of Reveran clan.
-From there I proceeded to get further motivated by the competitive aspect of the game and took to running tournaments. This started with the European Native Mixed 5-a-side. I then ran the Nations Cup 2011, 3 seasons of the European Native League, the European Native Summer Cup and the failed MarkMods Native Fall Cup.
-I have been part of several clans and numerous other teams during my time in the scene achieving a European Native League win and 2nd place in the first Nations 5 a side tournament.
-As of now, I work for the developers of the Mount&Blade series, TaleWorlds Entertainment doing Community Management and Public Relations. I also run MB_tv a Twitch.tv channel that brings live Warband content out, primarily in the form of competitive matches at present.
-From there I proceeded to get further motivated by the competitive aspect of the game and took to running tournaments. This started with the European Native Mixed 5-a-side. I then ran the Nations Cup 2011, 3 seasons of the European Native League, the European Native Summer Cup and the failed MarkMods Native Fall Cup.
-I have been part of several clans and numerous other teams during my time in the scene achieving a European Native League win and 2nd place in the first Nations 5 a side tournament.
-As of now, I work for the developers of the Mount&Blade series, TaleWorlds Entertainment doing Community Management and Public Relations. I also run MB_tv a Twitch.tv channel that brings live Warband content out, primarily in the form of competitive matches at present.
My belief is that this scene has attractive and interesting opportunities for sponsors and that increased sponsor involvement would have an overall positive effect on the competitive community.
Firstly, I want to address why I think increased sponsor involvement would have an overall positive effect on the competitive community. I'm looking at this initially because if you don't agree, then the rest probably won't be relevant to you.
What sponsors could offer you-
...to tournaments:
-Servers. This is the nature of the deal I had with MarkMods for the NFC. Perhaps your tournament doesn't have its own servers however there are benefits to having tournament servers in many ways.
-Prizes. I also had a deal with MarkMods where the winning 3 teams would all receive an amount of free hosting from MarkMods. Having prizes gives teams more to play for and adds prestige as well as importance to your tournament for many people. Since prizes can be almost anything, you could make a sponsorship deal with almost anyone for this. Think outside the box! (T-Shirts, pizza delivery, gaming gear, games! cuddly toys...) You might even convince a company to sponsor with cash, perhaps as a prize or to compensate the work you put in for running the tournament... anything could happen. If you're going for prizes though try to remember that this will be for a Warband team. For example if you're doing T-Shirts for the winners, try to get at least enough for the number of required participants in a team.
-Publicity. This may not be important for many tournaments right now. Most of the interest in our competitive scene is from other players who are already within it. However, a sponsor that raises the publicity of your tournament will also raise the value of your tournament to potential sponsors. If you work hard at this, you could improve any future deals you make and gain yourself a good reputation that could be used to attract bigger and better sponsors eventually. Work on your brand and make it strong.
-Professionalism. As mentioned with Prizes, giving teams something tangible to aim for is likely to only make them work harder to win which will probably improve the level of play and attitude. Having sponsors also gives an incentive for the tournament itself to be run professionally as it is aligned with the reputation of the sponsor. As a result, the opinion of the tournament among players may also be elevated, raising the prestige and interest.
...to teams (or players): This is the same four but the benefits might be slightly different for players
-Servers. If you're paying for a server right now, why not talk to a hosting company and try to get one for free.
-Stuff. Effectively a mirror of what's on the table for tournaments but expect probably a bit less. There aren't really any teams that are doing much work on their branding or trying to get themselves publicity right now. At the same time, tournaments don't offer teams many platforms to publicise their sponsors. Certainly wouldn't expect cash
... however if you managed to strike up a deal with a company and you offered them some extra services (see below) then there's no reason you couldn't get some free swag if it's what the company specialises in (think t-shirts, gaming gear).-Publicity. I don't expect many teams have even given a second thought to the value of this and there aren't many teams doing much to build their own brands to the community or even the team members themselves, let alone the rest of the world. What publicity could offer you inevitably is better deals from sponsors. It's all about getting on the ladder and seeing how you can climb it. Although it doesn't work quite like this now, thinking long term, a well sponsored, well publicised team is also better equipped to attract the best talent if the benefits are passed onto the players. Having a sponsor could help make your team better!
-Professionalism. Some teams go for this simply because they love the game. Some teams want this but have a hard time achieving it... what a sponsor can do is provide a genuine incentive. Winning a competition for the community pride is one thing but if you know it will mean your sponsor sends you all some t-shirts, there's a another incentive altogether. You can get stuff for doing what you enjoy/what you'd already do already.
I'm assuming you've read the above as a tournament organiser or team leader and you like the idea of sponsorship for your organisation.
If you're now thinking: "Great but why the hell would a sponsor be interested in us as a tournament/team? What could I offer them that would make it worth giving away things for free?" - this next section is for you.
What you could offer sponsors-
...as a tournament:
You may think you have no way of meaningfully advertising anything but let me tell you why you're wrong. Take for example the Warband Native League:
[*]It has a playerbase of 485 players.
[*]Its weekly fixture threads get 6000-7000 clicks on average.
[*]On average, there are 16-19 WNL matches played each week.
[*]During the famous "pick nights", the board is populated by up to and around 100 users and guests concurrently.
[*]It has a clear demographic in "Competititve Mount&Blade Warband Gamers". This is very useful to sponsors.
-The forums. The WNL could reach the majority of these players and get lots of attention for a sponsor just by putting a logo at the top of their sub board. They could easily do more by adding logos to the forum topics and even to the sigs of their admins (which show up every time they confirm a server booking or make a roster update).
-Branding. When I ran the MMNFC, I included MarkMods in the name of the tournament. An easy feature that, if anything, makes the tournament sound more interesting and professional while supporting the sponsor.
-Original content. They could easily expand their advertising platforms by creating their own content (tournament hype videos, player/team features, interviews, streams and highlight videos), giving extra platforms where they could support sponsors (by including mentions or logo overlays in the content) and work on their own brand.
-3rd party. WNL could even say to me, as a livestreamer, that I had to feature their sponsor's logo on my stream in some way if I want support to stream games from their tournament via rules which mean teams have to let me stream (which I do). This is an extremely easy way they can add further value to their sponsor.
-Social Media. This ties in with original content somewhat but using twitter or facebook or YouTube or whatever to do things like post your content and make announcements or post results or interact with players... it really doesn't matter. They can all have sponsors names thrown about in various forms and all these sites are gold because they offer cold hard starts (likes, followers, subscribers) that you can give to sponsors and facebook and YouTube even measure demographics and have other details that are useful. They're all good for working on your branding and expanding your reach anyway, plus they give sponsors a good way of promoting you. Remember that with social media, for it to be valuable, you need to offer something to draw users in. No one will follow your twitter just to see you promoting your sponsor. Posting results is an obvious one for tournaments but be creative.
One useful tip is to try and tie in what the sponsors are providing you with, to the way in which you support them.
-If the tournament is providing you with servers, then name the servers something like ENL_GER_1_Sponsor (If my tournament was the ENL and the sponsor was providing me with a german server).
-If they're providing you with prizes, you can tell everyone that the company is providing them and people will recognise that they're getting involved with the M&B scene (which many round here are passionate about) and look to repay that by investigating their products. You can advertise t-shirts for tournament winners as provided by: e.g. "Bill's T-Shirts" which provides publicity for the sponsor directly.
Be clear here as well, I'm listing all the things tournaments could do. I feel like you could get somewhere with a lot of sponsors just by featuring a handful of the above.
Working on your brand will always be helpful as well. It makes your tournament more valuable.
...as a team:
While your reach as a team is probably and will probably always be less than that of most tournaments, you can still be of value to a sponsor.
-The forums. You probably have a thread and users. Logos in the thread in your players' sigs are an easy way to advertise your sponsors. Since this will make you ambassadors for your sponsors, it may even provide an incentive to improve the behavioural and posting standards of some of you...
-Original content. Some teams already make their own videos or have members that make videos or guides. Whatever it is, if it's interesting for people and gets some views/plays/hits then you can throw up a sponsor's name at the end or beginning or wherever and it's value to them. Even conducting interviews of your own players may seem weird but try it, post it on the forums and try to publicise it. Work on your own brand and stick with it to make yourselves more valuable in the eyes of potential sponsors.
-Mentions. I am starting to offer postmatch interviews to players from teams on MB_tv. Anyone who wants to mention a sponsor there is free to do so. What you can also do is put pressure on tournaments to give you a platform. Say if I'm one of the best teams in the WNL, it could be in my interests to say: "if we win the WNL, we want you to put up an announcement from us as part of any concluding thread you make". Most tournaments would be happy to accomodate that and it gives you another platform to include a mention or logo of your sponsor in a place where a lot of people will see it.
-Server Announcements. If your team runs a server with an admin mod, you can probably put announcements on the server. Include a sponsor in one or two of those. If you can provide some stats about the popularity or activity of the server, even better.
-In game. Modifying your players' in game names to something like TAG_Captain_Lust_CocaCola is an easy way to draw attention to your sponsor. Anyone familiar with the SC2 scene will know about all the EG players having RC at the end of their name for Raidcall. It's a smart trick and just another option. Rememeber to think creatively about what you can offer sponsors and you'll soon realise the sky is the limit.
-Website. I don't think a website is strictly necessary for team sponsorship. Maybe you could even get a sponsor to make you a basic one if they wanted it but having one will probably help. Just think about your own branding a little bit and what a sponsor would want to align their name with.
As with tournaments, tie in what you're willing to offer sponsors with the sponsorship you get. If you're getting your server given to you, then put your sponsor's name in the server name and in the welcome message explain that they're giving it to you. This will make people want to support the sponsor and it will also give your sponsor an incentive to make sure the server runs well, as their name is attached to it.
If you get t-shirts, post some pictures on the forums of you wearing them. You can't be much uglier than everyone else around here so don't be shy and make sure you help your team's brand by showing some personality and putting faces to your names.
There's plenty more you could probably do, these are just the suggestions that my small mind managed to put together. I see original creative content coming out of the community every day so do yourselves a favour and get something for it while expanding the reach of your content.
OK, tournament organiser/team leader/player you've made it this far. Rah-spect.
What you're probably thinking now is: "Oh boy, I sure would love a sponsorship deal for whatever I'm a part of organising but how do I get one?"
Then read on...
Finding sponsors-
-Forms. You'll find companies have their own forms you can fill out to apply for sponsorhip with them like this and this (second one has different forms make sure you fill out the right one). If you're concerned by a form saying "what was your last event win" or something that you can't answer, just explain so.
-Email or web contact. Almost every company will have a "contact" option somewhere on their website. You can send an email to any company you like asking for sponsorship. If you know someone from a company, consider asking them. It might make it easier if you have an insider. Also, you might want to target sponsors relevant to the industry such as gaming manufacturers and companies you think M&B players would be interested in. Another technique is to look at existing competitive teams and try targeting sponsors who have already got involved in the world of esports. Useful links for that LoL Teams - Dota 2 Teams. Don't be afraid to push the boat out and look for sponsors of less notable or famous teams as well. They might be the ones more interested in making small time deals.
-Skype or instant messenger. Don't be afraid to try and contact your details through these means. Build up a personal relationship with a sponsor. Be friendly and polite but there's no reason to be overly formal if that doesn't suit you. Be as open as you possibly can and try to get any potential sponsors excited about the prospect of working with you.
If you're writing a first email to a potential sponsor, try to make it fairly concise. There may be someone answering emails at this company who will take one look at a long email and go "whelp, that never happened" and put it in the bin. It happens.
Attracting and dealing with sponsors-
-Personal relationship. Don't be afraid to build up a personal relationship with their sponsors. Ask them what they want and how you can help them to make sure they're happy sponsoring you. If you're in a deal with a sponsor, just ask them how it's going every now and then to make sure they're happy.
-Get other people to send messages to your sponsors. If your tournament has a sponsor, encourage people to send messages to that sponsor thanking them for their participation. It makes a difference. Even if you're doing everything and holding up your part of the agreement, it's hard for sponsors to measure the direct effects of their sponsorship a lot of the time but if they have players thanking a sponsor for participating in a tournament they've played in and adding something special to it, then it makes them feel like it was worth their while and is more likely to encourage more investment into your tournament and the scene as a whole. If it's a team then at the very least, get your members to send emails to the sponsors individually to say thanks... until you have that 1m strong fanbase to do it for you
.-Fulfill your end of the bargain. Any deals you make should be kept. This is a minimum requirement. You should be going above and beyond to support your sponsors if you can get them, not failing to tick the boxes. That's how you lose sponsors.
-Incentive based deals. You can make a deal much easier for a sponsor by saying "If our team wins so-and-so tournament, we want 8 t-shirts/mousemats/whatever". That way, they know your team will get a reasonable amount of attention and if you combine that with a guarantee you will be part of some winners interview or post on some closing thread with clear view thanking the sponsor and posting a logo, then it's guaranteed return for sponsor almost and a much lower risk for them to take. Anything is negotiable, so think about it hard and find a deal which can work for them because remember, right now, you're all playing for nothing anyway
(except M).-Ask them what they'd be interested in. Come up with suggestions but make it clear you're open to discussion and negotiation...
-Play up your strengths. The way I see it, as a basically unsponsored scene right now, Warband is pretty much a golden opportunity for a sponsor. Anyone entering the scene won't be flooded out or drowned out by the noise of 100 other companies looking for attention, everyone will see their involvement and I think most people would be appreciative of it. Don't assume sponsors will know that, tell them yourself! You can also see the stats I listed above for WNL. They were easy to find, give your sponsor some numbers that will get them interested.
-Be open and honest. Say it's not the biggest game out there. Remember you're probably not trying to negotiate in 1000s of $ for the time being. You don't need 100k concurrents on your twitch stream to get some free swag or a few months of game server hosting.
That's pretty much all of the advice I have. It should be everything you need to go out there and try to find some sponsorship for whatever you're doing. My last thought would be to think creatively. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, you are the ones that need to innovate and dazzle sponsors to bring them into the scene.
Go ahead and discuss in the thread if you like. Tell me I'm an idiot and this is all a waste of time! Just please take away from this thread the idea that sponsorship could be possible and beneficial for whatever you're doing in the scene. Consider it.
Oh yeah and here's a template email for tournaments. It's not perfect and in an ideal world you'd write your own with some decent prose and just use this for inspiration. If you do use this, make sure you modify it properly and don't be afraid to make extra modifications to clearly reflect the sort of deal you're looking for.
Teams can use this too. Just takes a few modifications and it works fine (I couldn't be bothered to make another template). No rule restricting you to be a team or a tournament anyway. This could work if you're a content producer, livestreamer, fan site administrator.
Dear [SPONSOR],
I am contacting you as an organiser of [TOURNAMENT NAME] for Mount&Blade Warband, to enquire about sponsorship from your company.
Here is where you can find all the information about the tournament: [TOURNAMENT THREAD OR SUB-BOARD LINK]
The tournament [will be/is being] run over [X] weeks, with a total of [X] participating teams and [X] participating players.
[APPEALING STATS SUCH AS THREAD VIEWS OR STREAM VIEWS OR WHATEVER SELLS YOUR TOURNAMENT]
The tournament has the potential to offer the following sponsorship features for your company: [DELETE OR MODIFY AS APPROPRIATE]
-Logos and/or ads placed on the forum threads that provide information about weekly fixtures and overall standings.
-Static and/or video ads on streams of tournament matches that run [X] times a week.
-Your company's name included in the name of the tournament servers and a mention in the server welcome message.
-Static and/or video ads in original content produced by the tournament including interviews, adverts, match previews, player features and team features released [X] times a week.
-[EXTRA OFFERS AND IDEAS USE YOUR HEADS]
In return, I would be looking for support in the following ways: [DELETE OR MODIFY AS APPROPRIATE]
-Prizes for the [winners/top [X] finishers]. My thoughts are for [X] of [SPONSOR PRODUCT] distributed within [US/EU/EU and RUSSIA and TURKEY].
-The hosting of [X] Mount&Blade Warband game servers in [LOCATION] from [START DATE] until [END DATE].
-An [advert/news item] on your site for [X] weeks to bring attention to the competition.
-[MAYBE YOU WANT SOMETHING ELSE LIKE FREE PIZZA FOR A WEEK FOR YOURSELF. WON'T BENEFIT THE SCENE MUCH IMO AND WILL PROBABLY DETER A SPONSOR CAUSE IT WON'T REALLY IMPROVE THEIR IMAGE IF PLAYERS DON'T KNOW HOW THEY'RE SPONSORING YOU BUT IT'S STILL LEGIT. THINK: NEGOTIABLE]
Any of these terms are negotiable and I am hoping to start dialogues to learn about your interests as a sponsor and how I could satisfy them with the tournament. [DELETE THIS IF YOU'RE PLAYING HARD BALL]
You can reply to me directly via this email: [PUT YOUR EMAIL, STUPID]
Alternatively, you can get in touch with me over skype for a text or voice chat with this contact: [YOUR SKYPE GOES HERE]
Best Regards,
[YOUR REAL NAME] aka [YOUR ONLINE TAG]
I am contacting you as an organiser of [TOURNAMENT NAME] for Mount&Blade Warband, to enquire about sponsorship from your company.
Here is where you can find all the information about the tournament: [TOURNAMENT THREAD OR SUB-BOARD LINK]
The tournament [will be/is being] run over [X] weeks, with a total of [X] participating teams and [X] participating players.
[APPEALING STATS SUCH AS THREAD VIEWS OR STREAM VIEWS OR WHATEVER SELLS YOUR TOURNAMENT]
The tournament has the potential to offer the following sponsorship features for your company: [DELETE OR MODIFY AS APPROPRIATE]
-Logos and/or ads placed on the forum threads that provide information about weekly fixtures and overall standings.
-Static and/or video ads on streams of tournament matches that run [X] times a week.
-Your company's name included in the name of the tournament servers and a mention in the server welcome message.
-Static and/or video ads in original content produced by the tournament including interviews, adverts, match previews, player features and team features released [X] times a week.
-[EXTRA OFFERS AND IDEAS USE YOUR HEADS]
In return, I would be looking for support in the following ways: [DELETE OR MODIFY AS APPROPRIATE]
-Prizes for the [winners/top [X] finishers]. My thoughts are for [X] of [SPONSOR PRODUCT] distributed within [US/EU/EU and RUSSIA and TURKEY].
-The hosting of [X] Mount&Blade Warband game servers in [LOCATION] from [START DATE] until [END DATE].
-An [advert/news item] on your site for [X] weeks to bring attention to the competition.
-[MAYBE YOU WANT SOMETHING ELSE LIKE FREE PIZZA FOR A WEEK FOR YOURSELF. WON'T BENEFIT THE SCENE MUCH IMO AND WILL PROBABLY DETER A SPONSOR CAUSE IT WON'T REALLY IMPROVE THEIR IMAGE IF PLAYERS DON'T KNOW HOW THEY'RE SPONSORING YOU BUT IT'S STILL LEGIT. THINK: NEGOTIABLE]
Any of these terms are negotiable and I am hoping to start dialogues to learn about your interests as a sponsor and how I could satisfy them with the tournament. [DELETE THIS IF YOU'RE PLAYING HARD BALL]
You can reply to me directly via this email: [PUT YOUR EMAIL, STUPID]
Alternatively, you can get in touch with me over skype for a text or voice chat with this contact: [YOUR SKYPE GOES HERE]
Best Regards,
[YOUR REAL NAME] aka [YOUR ONLINE TAG]
