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I need some advice!

I've agreed to write a begging promotional letter/email for a friend who's putting on a rally in aid of the NABD, asking them to sponsor various parts of the rally.

So I need to tell them a bit about the man, a bit about the rally, and a bit about the NABD, then ask for money! (in return for adverts, banners, etc.)

Not sure how long the letter should be, or who's the best person in a company to address it to - PR man? advertising? director? Cos if I send it generally to the company I reckon it will end up in the Spam bin or File 13!

Isn't there existing NABD bumph you could attach a personalised covering letter to as a starting point?

Yeah there's loads of it!

But I reckon I need to keep it fairly short or they won't bother to read it.

I've got plenty of info, just thought I'd gather some ideas before I start.

Keep it relatively brief initially, I would keep it down to a page, maybe two at the most.
If you don't have too many people to contact, I would try a letter for the small list of people you have targetted in your main group, local companies can be a good choice. Keep it pretty brief and concentrate on the man and his situation with some brief details of what you hope to achieve.
The main thing is to always try and catch their attention in the first few lines if you can.
You should make it clear that any size sponsorship donation would be considered, but the more they pay the more they get!
Offer to get back to them with much more information if they are interested, don't hit them with pages of it up front, they will read the first page at the most and bin it. I would send it to the PR or Marketing Manager/Director.
You could try email for a broader approach for less likely candidates, as it is obviously much cheaper. The problem with email these days is that filtering gets rid of a lot of incoming mail of this type. The stuff that gets through often never really gets read, as you just get too much these days, I bin dozens every day at work.
Never ever make a comment such as "If you are not interested please pass on to a friend" or anything like that or the spam filters will always bin it as a chain letter.
These are just my thoughts mainly based on the letters I used to send out to try and get sponsorship for my rally car, or motorsport events I was organising many years ago, there may be people on here with much more professional skills.

Good luck with it.

Short and sweet i'd make it and give a reference to a web site if they want more info, its how I wound up sponsoring The Royal Marsden.