# how many people receive sponsorship requests from musicians/DJs/athletes/etc? What to do about them?



## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

Just curious on how many people receive sponsorship requests from musicians/DJs/athletes/etc.

I get at least a few people a day that hit me up saying "yo man ur shirts is tight send me some an ill wear em when i play". One guy even hit me up, didn't say much except "send me some shirts, I wear an XL" followed by his address.

I've have a few decent requests for sponsorship from people/labels who could actually benefit me but mainly it's dudes thinkin' they should get freebies because they are one of a billion people with a MySpace music page and 300 friends.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Anyone have a way to convert these beggars into buyers?


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## withindustries (Aug 2, 2007)

*Re: Sponsorship*

great question... i personally dont have an answer BUT i do recall reading that "Dirt Bag Clothing" would sponsor bands but that meant that the band would get 40% off or something and have to mention Dirt Bag during their show... the band could also sell the products at the show....


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## BWD (Mar 8, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

I have a few that do that, well quite a few. Especially with another line I m launching. I ve mentioned before that I m the webdesigner for a large bodybuilding company as well and a partner in it. Since this is show season, I see a lot of athletes daily and they for the most part are looking for some sponsorship. I ve signed 3, 2 females, 1 male and this weekend, the one lady wore my new fitness yoga suit and ended giving out my card to 35 other fitness competitors. So far in two days, that has translated into 3 other competitors buying 12 of the suits and wanting me to design 300 custom shirts for them as well. 

Long as you are smart and know who is approaching you, it could be very lucrative at some point.


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

hmmmm interesting.

I definitely plan on doing it in the future. But right now it's really gettin' on my nerves that nobodies think that I'm going give them free shirts. I don't go to their job and ask for free fries.

It's incredibly rude. It even says on my website and MySpace profile that I'm not sponsoring.

Oh well. Sorry to vent haha.


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## Rexx (Aug 13, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

i sponsor my little brother, he is a skateboarder and all his friends want sponsorships so i give them %15 off shirts. it gave me a little boost in business and gets my name out there


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## BWD (Mar 8, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

lol nice one. And I don t blame you. I guess the difference is in my case, although I may not know them really personally, I know of them or they know me to a degree.

Funny story, back in June, I was doing a run of shirts for a fitness show. Incredibly detailed work and I was swamped, short notice order too but I was trying to help an organization out. Anyways he decides to try and help me out,by sending out a message to his members that after the show, a well known fitness magazine would be doing a photoshoot with 6 models in my clothing, he was trying but man, he had 18000 members in his organization. I had to turn my email off, as every 5 minutes, I had another round of 20 emails coming in. Interesting set of pictures I received though lol


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## miloumlx (Jul 1, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

Yes, I know what you mean. This can be irritating some times, but what if you try to take some advantage of this situation. 

For example, you could tell them, all right, I'll design a Tee for your group, but in exchange, you link to me from your website and add a news about my company. 

Fans will be then directed to your web page and buy the same T-Shirt that their idol!!!! 

This is what we did not so long ago and it worked! You might want to give it a try.


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## chobay (Aug 4, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

I give out lots of freebies, but you better be famous, have a gazillion subscribers on youtube, or have a blog for a backlink..


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## b-ron (Sep 23, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*



AeresClothing said:


> I get at least a few people a day that hit me up saying "yo man ur shirts is tight send me some an ill wear em when i play".
> 
> Anyone have a way to convert these beggars into buyers?


Considering the genre of stuff you do, and the types of people you are intentionally attracting to you, you have to expect a larger amount of welfare-mentality type behavior than other companies. But even given that, you should research "street teams, " start one and invite the beggars to join it. Make them earn their goodies.


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

*Re: Sponsorship*

*miloumlx:*
Yeah I always keep in mind that giving out freebies could earn me tons of exposure, but 99% of the people that want free stuff from me, don't have a real following. They don't have a blog or website. They don't have YouTube videos. I'd just be giving my money away.

*b-ron:*
Street Teams are mostly for the younger crowd. When I think Street Teams I think 14-17 year-old-girls handing out stickers of some band with cool hair.

Right now my main marketing focus is trying to get Google to stop being a-holes and give me a PageRank. I swear one day I finally had a PageRank and it was 10/10, the next day it was gone.

I also signed up for AdWords but haven't gotten the hang of it yet.


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## marcmarcmarc (Jun 20, 2009)

You're one lucky guy..
I mean maybe a lot of them are just beggars, but the still you can try to filter the valueable ones. 
I think giving out 2-3 shirts to 10-20 people that would wear it in clubs in front of a lot of people sounds like a good investions.


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## miloumlx (Jul 1, 2009)

AeresClothing, if you lost your page rank, it's maybe because your site is not following the SEO instructions. Have you checked that?


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

*marc:*
 I wouldn't say I'm lucky. I get a lot more beggars than customers. A lot more.


*miloumlx*:
My website is optimized and I haven't engaged in any shady link exchanges or anything. I think the day when I was ranked for a while was just some sort of fluke or bug in the FireFox add-on I'm using. I probably just need to stop being so impatient and give it time.


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## marcmarcmarc (Jun 20, 2009)

well maybe it'd be better the other way around, but it's still a good opportunity imao.

I'd give it a shot. you could give out individual coupon-codes with your sponsor-shirts and tell them to recommend you and occasionally give away their coupon-code if someone asks where they'd got the shirt from. then you'd see if it pays off or not.


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## Random Obj (Jan 11, 2009)

I do ALL THE TIME! Some of the requests are pretty funny though.


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

Yeah they are but after a while it just gets annoying that more people are asking for handouts than making purchases.

I just got a request. Some dude offering some "free advertising" for me. Apparently he's asking indie designers to send him clothes. Because he owns a blog and thinks that counts as exposure. His blog is a subdomain on blogspot.com or something. And I checked the kind of traffic it gets through ranking and just basic SEO tests real quick. BAAAAD. I don't see how me sending him stuff that costs me out of my pocket is free.


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## Bravo13 (Nov 8, 2007)

It's tough. We are a mixed martial arts clothing company, and our business depends on sponsorships... we support the athletes, and their fans support us. That's just the way it works for us. Now having said that, I don't just throw shirts and fight shorts to anyone who asks. We are very careful about WHO we sponsor and when and where. 

We did a special "walk-out" shirt for a virtual unknown fighter. But we did it at a local show, in his home town. We printed up just 50 shirts with his name and a cool design. The cach is.. he sold most of them before we even got to the show. He took pre-orders from his friends and family and we sent them to him on the courier. 30 shirts sold before fight day. So with 30 of his friends walking in wearing his shirt, it was asy to sell the other 20.


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

Bravo13 said:


> It's tough. We are a mixed martial arts clothing company, and our business depends on sponsorships... we support the athletes, and their fans support us. That's just the way it works for us. Now having said that, I don't just throw shirts and fight shorts to anyone who asks. We are very careful about WHO we sponsor and when and where.
> 
> We did a special "walk-out" shirt for a virtual unknown fighter. But we did it at a local show, in his home town. We printed up just 50 shirts with his name and a cool design. The cach is.. he sold most of them before we even got to the show. He took pre-orders from his friends and family and we sent them to him on the courier. 30 shirts sold before fight day. So with 30 of his friends walking in wearing his shirt, it was asy to sell the other 20.


Heck yeah. That's awesome.

I believe I got asked about sponsoring an MMA fighter. That was pretty cool.

Athletes are constantly at the gym, out running, playing their sport, competing, etc. The majority of them are legit and get exposure. With musicians/bands/rappers it's a bit different. I gotta check 'em out, see if they are playing shows, see if they have a following, see if their genre of music would go well with our clothes, etc.

A lot of musicians though just have a MySpace music page. Hardly play any shows. Don't have a following.

After my previous post I got asked again by a rap group for shirts. I first told them after they said we could help each other out and do a little cross-promotion that I would be more than happy to post in my blog about them, that sort of thing, and to send me a bio and some promo shots and any upcoming releases and such. Then they asked for 2 free shirts that they could wear in their promo shots.

I told them that I'm sorry but I can't go spending $35 on shirts for y'all


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

Update:

One of the DJ's wanting sponsorship decided he is gonna buy some shirts and wear them during gigs and take pictures. Score!


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## BWD (Mar 8, 2009)

Way to go Kyle, first of many I hope


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## AeresClothing (Sep 3, 2009)

Thank ya!

And yeah some rap group, after I said I couldn't provide them with free t-shirts but I'd post about them in my blog, decided that they'd buy shirts anyway and get some pictures =)

I think having pictures of people wearing my shirts will increase sales and interest in my brand a lot.


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## BWD (Mar 8, 2009)

Totally agree. I m revamping both my sites and the fitness one , I ve got a ton pics of fairly big name canadian fitness people. Those will be going up soon for sure. Plus the ones who have bought my shirts, wear them and then get custom stuff from me and their friends are all ordering now., especially the yoga suits. Can t keep them in stock lol

Good luck man, added you on Twitter too


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## CxCthreads (Dec 2, 2008)

I get these all the time. Just send them your stores link with a little blurb saying that you are just a small fry trying to cover your costs and are unable to do that at the moment. Or if you want, offer them a discount.


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