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Outreach

Sponsor Outreach: Research Partnership

Vendors can sponsor useful research without reducing it to logo placement or generic content marketing.

2 min readCategory: SponsorsChannels: 3Conversion goal: Research Partner Lead

Channel motion

This outreach motion should turn a content idea into a clear audience, channel, trigger condition, and conversion step.

Reading

2m

  • Audience: Vendor founders, category marketers, field marketing leaders, and partner teams.
  • Triggers: Sponsor category campaign
  • Conversion path: Shadow AI
When to use this motion
Sponsor category campaign
moderate
A vendor wants to reach the teams defining AI security engineering before the category hardens.

Evidence previews

The artifact sample subsystem will live separately. These links point to future evidence locations so buyers can see where deliverable examples will appear.

Persona

Vendor founder, category marketer, field marketing leader, alliance lead, or product marketing leader who wants credibility with security and AI buyers.

Trigger

Use this when a vendor wants deeper association than a logo placement.

Good fits include vendors with a strong point of view on AI governance, AppSec, cloud security, model security, data protection, identity, compliance automation, security questionnaires, or developer security.

Pain

Most sponsored content feels bought.

Serious buyers can tell when a vendor is forcing itself into a topic. They do not trust generic co-marketing.

The stronger play is research partnership around a real operational problem.

Examples:

  • enterprise AI readiness
  • agentic workflow controls
  • AI security maturity
  • secure AI product launch
  • AI governance evidence
  • role architecture for AI security teams

One-line thesis

Sponsor useful research that helps the category mature and gives buyers sharper language.

Short email

Subject: AI security research partnership

Hi,

I am exploring a small set of research partnerships around The State of AI Security Engineering report.

The goal is not generic sponsored content. The goal is useful category research: benchmarks, buyer questions, maturity patterns, operational gaps, and practical artifacts teams can actually use.

A good research partner would be associated with a specific problem area, not just a logo placement.

Examples: enterprise AI readiness, agentic workflow risk, AI governance evidence, secure AI product launch, or AI security maturity.

Worth sending the partnership brief?

LinkedIn DM

I am shaping a few research partnership slots around The State of AI Security Engineering report.

Not generic sponsored posts. More like category research tied to specific buyer problems: enterprise readiness, agentic risk, governance evidence, maturity.

Want the brief?

Follow-up

The strongest sponsor position is not “we support AI security.”

It is “we helped define the practical operating language for a specific AI security problem buyers care about.”

That is the positioning I am building around the report.

Artifact CTA

Send the research partnership brief or sponsor kit.

Advisory CTA

Offer a category/research partnership call.

What not to say

Do not promise fake neutrality if the content is sponsored.

Do not let the sponsor own the conclusion.

Keep the research credible, useful, and clearly labeled.

Conversion goal

Research Partner Lead

Use the artifact first. Let the advisory path follow from the pressure it exposes.