How to Find Contest Sponsors and Guides on How to Win them Over

As we all know, contests are always an effective and fun way of promoting your blog be it for the sake of seo or just for increasing your blog popularity. Of course we are also aware of how important the role of prizes are when it comes to making a great contest.

The general rule is, the bigger the prizes, the more attractive the contest.

Contest owners have two options when it comes to prizes.

First is to shoulder them all, which might actually be a lot financially demanding, but more gratifying since you don’t need to worry about rounding up sponsors and sharing with them the seo benefits.

The second option, and the most practical and popular way is to look for prize sponsors, which can be more fun since you’ll actually be going around the blogging community to meet and talk to other bloggers in your niche. Plus, depending on how good your convincing powers are, you might actually end up hosting prizes that are ten times more than what you can offer yourself.


With that, I’ll share to you tips on how to find contest sponsors

Picture credit to NSTI dot org. And yeah, I know it'll be cool to have humongous companies as sponsors. lol.

Round Up Your Blogger Friends. Everybody have at least a couple of them willing to extend a hand. They’re the first ones you should contact for it’s easier to relay to them your request, plus you might get extra lucky, if they’re generous enough, they might actually help you in spreading the word.

Surf Around Your Blogging Niche. Assuming that the sponsors you want are relevant to your topic, what you need to do is just to look around and visit those blogs you feel will also benefit from your contest. At least if a blogger’s serious enough with his seo duties, chances are he’ll agree right away since sponsoring enables easy link backs.

When You Find Potential Sponsors, Contact them Immediately! Look for their email addresses and send out messages regarding your upcoming contest and your request for a sponsorship.
Tip: It’s better if you compose your message first than just typing everything directly in email. A well constructed email should look professional, enticing and brief since you don’t want them to get discouraged with chunky paragraphs. Here’s a simple tip on how to make professional emails.

What to Say in the Email. It’s always de rigueur to tell them how you find them, say through browsing around, through a friend or through an article you stumbled somewhere etc. Be direct, it’s bad habit to beat around the bush (plus it’s annoying). Say something like “I found your blog to be both great and relevant so I was wondering if you’d take the opportunity to sponsor my upcoming contest”. Again, be direct. Some contest owners are even more demanding that they actually ask a definite prize to sponsor (say a cash prize or an ad spot), but I guess it’s more polite to just make a list of the prizes you’d like to give so the interested sponsor can take his pick. Don’t forget to tell him though that any form of sponsorship will be appreciated.

Remember the keys. Be direct, be enticing, be professional, be polite and most of all (if they agree) be absolutely grateful.

Wait for a Reply Within 48 Hours. Most bloggers aren’t online everyday so two days is the basic waiting period. If they don’t reply within their limit, chances are 1) They’re on vacation which is too bad 2) They blog like one or twice every week which means they are not really that serious so don’t bother 3) They are not interested. Period. Anyway, take advantage of whoever wants to sponsor and don’t waste your time resending emails since it will just make your look like you’re pestering them.

Important Note: If you’re contest is still like weeks away, you can always hope and wait for a reply even beyond 48 hours. If you’ve sent a mail to a webmaster or to a company, chances are you’re mail is still on the bottom of the already long mail list so be patient. One more thing, don’t tell them about the time limit in replying to your mail (it’s basically just for your self) since it’s almost rude.

Keep Tabs and Update Your Sponsors. Granting that they have already donated prizes, don’t forget to send in a thank you mail. When your contest has gone live, send them an email too and more updates every 12 hours or so (depending on how good your contest is picking up).

Btw, if you're really looking for contest sponsors right now, I'm here willing! Contact me quick!