Looking for sponsorship is hard, yet it is an absolutely necessary part, when wanting to establish, or continue to have a successful and long-lasting esports sponsorship. We collected the TOP 5 mistakes we see when working with Teams that are looking for sponsors, so you don’t have to make them.

1. You don’t have the right commercial set up/ Don’t take sales seriously enough

Getting a sponsor is sales. You are not asking for donations when approaching brands, you are selling your services. Sales and a proper commercial setup are key parts of your business, and you need to treat them as such. Having dedicated salespeople, or if you are flying solo, dedicated sales time is unavoidable.

2. You overvalue yourself

For brands, it is about ROI, and the ROI needs to be good. Let’s say one of your tweets is the equivalent of 10€ in media value. Now if you ask for 10€ for the Tweet from a brand, the ROI for the brand is 0. That is not a good ROI. That is a very bad ROI, and very few brands will be interested in that kind of trade-off. A good marketing ROI for a brand is 5:1, so be realistic in the amount of money you are asking for. Asking for an unrealistic amount in the best case makes you sound greedy, in the worst-case delusional.

3. You undervalue yourself

Don’t take every deal you are offered. Yes, this affiliate program is great, but sometimes the people they are trying to sell to are actually you. Some affiliate programs are great, many of them aren’t. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If you do not know what you are worth, companies will try to pay you as little as possible. It is their job to get the best deal for their brand, not for you. Of course, a great number of brands are not exploitative per se, but given the chance, they will try to pay less.

4. You have a generic deck

To a big endemic gaming brand, you do not have to explain why investing in esports is a good idea. They know. That is why they are in this business.
The same goes for non-endemic brands. Marketing professionals are not interested in the overall potential audience of the entire market when entering a sponsorship, but the value YOU can deliver to THEM. 

5. Don’t know what kind of value you deliver

What is worth than under or overvaluing yourself? Having no idea what kind of value you deliver. Because if you don’t know yourself, how should a brand know, or care? Maybe the team’s account does have a limited amount of followers, but one of your superstar players has double. The entire team is a package deal. Maybe your streams have a limited amount of viewers, but your Instagram and TikTok game is on point. Maybe you create really high-quality content, that the brand can reuse on their channels. Find out what your unique selling point is, and focus on showing that.

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