How to Make a Great Motorsport Sponsor Proposal Pack

Gala Performance recently published a guide, written by myself over at GEM, to the steps that anybody looking to compete in motorsport should follow to give themselves the best possible chance of gaining vital sponsorship. This sponsorship can provide the key to the door for many aspiring motorsport professionals. If you read it and found value in the original introduction, then you should find even more value in this article, which takes the idea one step further and provides a guide to creating a compelling and professional motorsport sponsorship proposal document, including a cool example of a great sponsorship proposal. 

Before we get into the content, let’s talk brand and design. The example template that I present throughout this article was created by a professional designer with many years of experience, and you may not be quite so fortunate to have the tools and experience. However, there are free tools available online that make designing simple but effective documents easy for amateur designers. Canva would be the first name that comes to mind.

Brand consistency is important. Choose clear, easy-to-read fonts, choose your colours wisely (consider the livery of your vehicle, or your logo colours) and your visual style, then stick with them throughout the document.

Okay, let’s look at the content of your proposal document. 

The front cover, or first page of your digital proposal, should be a well-branded, visually appealing and clean design, specifically naming both the person or team that are requesting sponsorship, and the name of the brand that is being proposed to.  

Whilst a generic sponsorship pack isn't necessarily a big no-no, by demonstrating that you have prepared the proposal for that brand or even individual within the organisation, you are showing that you have specifically considered their brand as the right fit for the opportunity, and may make them feel valued enough to be intrigued by the proposal document.  

I recommend using an image of the vehicle, or a professional head shot of you, the driver/rider in your race suit. The vehicle image would show visual evidence of you in action, and a head shot will demonstrate that you have a professional focus on brand image and will deliver the right message.  

The next page of the document should be a covering letter, which provides a broad overview of the proposal, introduces the team or driver, and highlights reasons why you have selected their brand as a potential sponsor. Remember, you need to make them feel that they have been selected for this opportunity, so make it personal to their brand. 

Don't go too far into the specifics, but indicate what you can do for them in broad terms, and be sure to thank them for their time in reading your proposal, and considering you as a sponsorable asset.  

The next few pages should be an introduction to you or your team, your vehicles, and where you will compete with their help. Include clear, professional headshots or pictures taken from the circuit , and highlight your experience as drivers and marketable assets. 

Include your vision and mission as a team, with your on-track ambitions and expectations from the coming season and what makes you different from other potential sponsorship opportunities. 

Then, you might introduce the vehicles you drive or ride, with an overview of the specs and successes. Have you raced the same vehicle for many years, or is it new to you? Is it an upgrade on previous vehicles?  

You would then introduce the series that you're aiming to compete in, including statistics on numbers and origins of competitors, circuits that are on the race calendar, the race calendar itself, how many social media followers it has, or any other benefits that you feel would be helpful to piquing the interest of the prospective sponsor.  

It is important to sell the benefits of being associated with not just the driver, but the series they compete in. Is it on the undercard of the BTCC or BSB, for example, which have large followings and spectator counts. Does it receive large online viewer numbers?

After the introductory aspects, you would turn your attention to what you can do for that potential sponsor. Don't focus on simply adding a logo to the vehicle. Tell them everything you can do for them, and the benefits of those things. For example, if your team or company websites receive large online traffic, then a link from your sites to theirs will help with their Search Engine Optimisation.  

If you have a large social media following, which you should have worked on building as part of building your own personal or team brand, then advise what you can do for them in terms of promoting their goods and services to your audience (as par for the course, you should have researched their brand to understand how your audience is of value to them).  

Do you have a large mailing list that they would see value in? Include it in what you can do for them. If you have a strong business network, then are there introductions you can make that would benefit them? 

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Complementary tickets and VIP hospitality experiences for them, their staff or their clients should be included, if you are able to provide them. Including their logos on your team transportation, as well as the car, is another way of raising brand awareness for them.  

Offer to put press releases together that promote the partnership, which in turn may be of value to local or industry press.  

Do they have active marketing? Then consider taking part in publicity stunts with you as the focus. One of the drivers that Gala Performance has had the closest professional relationships over the years with is Max Coates. In 2021, we invited him in to take part in a video stunt called Maximum Coates, where we would simply challenge him to find out what the maximum number of coats he could wear was. It was fourteen, if memory serves. This content was a hit with our social media following, increasing our brand engagement. 

In 2020, the British Drift Championship sent two talented drivers, Ian “Bizz” Phillips, and Monster Energy sponsored Formula G Champion driver Luke Woodham, to film a series of spectacular stunts by drifting around the tight corners of the Gala Tent warehouse, to promote a new on demand TV channel they had launched.  

The point is, you should think outside of the box.  

Consider every possible piece of value you can offer to that potential sponsor, and use it all to highlight how you intend to return their investment.  

Now they know what you can do for them, back it up with numbers. Previous successes, your experiences as a driver or rider. Make it easy to absorb with infographics that detail your career in numbers. How many times have you raced? How many circuits have you raced at? What positions have you achieved? Demonstrate that you have the on-track skills to back up your brand. Make them want to be involved with a competitor of your calibre. 

You will begin to end the proposal with what you would like from them. If it is a financial sponsorship that you need, then I recommend offering tiered levels of finance, with a sliding scale of benefits you can offer.  

For example, you might offer Gold, Silver and Bronze packages, with set numbers of opportunities available per level. This gives them options to choose from as opposed to a direct request for a set figure. Not all businesses have £50,000 to offer and may be tempted by a smaller investment to get involved in you and what you’re doing, provided the benefits are great enough. Be sure to differentiate from the lowest tier to the highest, with all the finest, most valuable benefits for those that can offer larger investments. 

For example, let’s say you need £35,000 of financial backing.  

You might offer a single Gold level sponsorship package for a headline sponsor for £15,000. They are the name on the front and sides of your car, on your race suit and front stage centre on your website with company profiles and links back to their own website. You will promote them once every two weeks on your social media. They will be invited to your media days or corporate driver days for passenger laps around some of the best circuits. They can provide you with regular messages to send to your mailing list. They receive 4 VIP passes to each round that you compete in. That kind of thing.  

You might have three Silver level packages at £5,000 each that offer smaller, but still prominent space on your website, less regular social posting, fewer VIP tickets etc. 

Then you might have five Bronze level packages available at £1,000 with fewer of the above. 

Between them all, they contribute to that £35,000 target. 

If you are hoping for product sponsorship, then explain this, and tell them what they will get in return for their products. It can still work as a tiered system - for example if they supply racewear then you could request boots and gloves, a suit, or a full outfit. There are always ways to offer them options.  

The final page should be testimonials and brand logos of other organisations that either currently sponsor you or have sponsored you in the past. This adds weight and credibility to you as a driver or a team. It is the professional version of social proof and reviews that many brands love to receive. If you’ve featured in the press for any positive reasons, then include this as part of your social proof page.

As I mentioned in my previous article, you should put effort into building relationships with the people and brands that you’re hoping to receive sponsorship from. Very few businesses or their owners will be willing to part with significant investment to a stranger, regardless of the tightness of their proposal. 

Also consider the relationships of your own network, an introduction from a mutual relation will go a long way toward gaining the trust of the brand or business owner that you’re looking to gain an investment from.  

In summary, the key takeaways here are that it should look professional with consistent branding, it should be personalised to the person or brand you’re sending the proposal to, and you should sell what you can do for them, before telling you what you want from them. Thanks for reading.

The advice above is designed to promote and facilitate a DIY approach to building a sponsorship proposal that works for you. However, if you don’t feel confident in it and you would like help with getting a professional standard sponsorship proposal template together, then Gala Education & Marketing (GEM) is the digital marketing sister brand of Gala Performance. They offer professional branding services, graphic design, Search Engine Optimisation, media production and website design. With your input, they can create professional standard, on-brand templates for your mission to gain vital sponsorship. Get in touch for prices.  

For all Gala Performance enquiries, from requesting quotes for our pit, paddock and promotional motorsport products then simply send us your details via the form below, and one of the team will be in touch as soon as they can.