by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 20, 2015 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
Raise your hand if you: Hate thinking about sponsorship Love thinking about sponsorship but never actually do anything about it Worry your proposal looks amateurish Have no idea what to charge (too much? or too little?) Don’t follow up because you feel like a nuisance Feel like you have to promise the world, or aggressively ‘spin’ your driving resume like your competition, to even get in the door Are tired of hearing: “We don’t get involved in motorsports”, “It’s not in the budget” or “I’ll get back to you” Resent the fact that running your own race team or track makes you feel like you have to be someone else to be successful. Yep, selling marketing partnerships is hard. But for most of us, there’s a reason why that’s the case – why many of us stop before we even start – beyond the obvious. It’s confidence. And, no, I’m not going to tell you to recite some affirmations while you brush your teeth every morning or when you breathe out in yoga class. Let’s get practical. Many racers and tracks aren’t selling (enough) sponsorship because they’re not confident about what they’re selling, or how to value it. You and I both know that you can’t sell wins. You can’t make promises about on-the-track performance. But what we can sell? Some of us are secretly afraid that we can’t deliver those offerings. Or that the people sitting across the table don’t care about those offerings, at best. Or that we’re hitting all the right notes, and completely off-key on the price. It’s all about confidence, baby. When you’re confident about what you’re...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 13, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship, Thoughts and Rants
At the end of the race, at the end of the day, what are you left with? ‘Trophies,’ according to Kenny Wallace. This morning, I had the pleasure of listening to Kenny Wallace keynote the RPM Promoter’s Workshops in Las Vegas. He made quite a few interesting points, but one that jumped out to me for racers was this (and, forgive me, but I’m paraphrasing): “For racers, the money goes into the accounts, and the money goes out of the accounts. All we have left at the end of the day are the trophies.” Kenny talked a lot about where we are as a sport, both fiscally and emotionally.He made sure to emphasize that as racing businesses, we need to be profitable. But what I took away from it was this: if you’re only paying attention to the financial side of things, you’re forgetting about why we’re here. Because at the end of the day – and this is according to Kenny – we’re all trying to get to that same moment where we’re cracking open a Bud Light after the hauler’s closed up and the lights are shut off. The money that came in has already gone out, and all we have left are the trophies. Kenny was talking about actual, physical trophies because we’re at a race track conference, but I think it goes beyond that. Our trophies are not just trophies. In your relationships, whether that’s with a fan, sponsor, racer or track, I think we need to ask ourselves: what trophy are we leaving them with? Are we giving them the trophy that they can...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Nov 5, 2015 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.” – Theodore Roosevelt (I love the sentiment of this quote, but you could even argue that ‘never doing anything’ is that mistake-less man’s mistake. Anyway, I digress. And in the first paragraph, no less!) I get emails, Facebook messages, tweets and phone calls every single week from racers asking questions about sponsorship. We all make mistakes when it comes to marketing – or, we learn what not to do, in my opinion – but there’s a general theme that I find when we talk about the mistakes racers make when pursuing sponsorship. In one word, it’s ‘focus’. Too often, racers are focused on the wrong things when approaching their marketing strategy: Focusing on the money they’ll get and what they’ll do with it instead of what their marketing partner will receive. Focusing on what they can do and not what their marketing partners want. Focusing on selling sponsorship first and building the audience that the sponsor wants to purchase access to second. Focusing on why their competition is getting sponsorship that they’re not. Focusing on how much work they’ll have to do for a ‘small’ amount of money. Focusing on the health of the economy or their perception that large companies have large marketing budgets, and vice versa. Focusing on racing results instead of marketing ROI. This is not meant to be a criticism towards racers. I, too, am often focused on the wrong things at the wrong times. Usually because the ‘wrong’ thing I’m focusing on is easier than the right thing. In my experience, focusing on...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Oct 29, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
It’s that time of year – okay, it’s always that time of year – when the stakes feel their highest for teams, tracks and manufacturers. We have to get that one last win, that one last show in, that one last sale and, often, that one last dig at our competition. Media training was a big part of my career when I started out working in professional football because my role was in the public relations department. Helping athletes to understand how to deal with media was one of our most important jobs, and I learned a lot about the importance of positive messaging as it benefits the: Athlete Team Sport Marketing Partners To say that trash talking in the media was discouraged is an understatement. Trash talking, in my opinion, hurts everyone. When you see another driver spinning his or her version of a story, it’s so tempting to hop on the media or social media bandwagon and try to correct it. Or put out your own equal-and-opposite take on the situation. But if you’ve ever worked with me, you know that I advise my clients to take the high road every time, no matter how difficult or tempting the situation is. (And, by the way, the high road doesn’t always mean silence. “No comment” is a response, too.) Why? Trash Talking Makes YOU Look Bad Whether you’re talking directly about your competition’s actions or highlighting your position at their expense, in this industry there are plenty of witnesses. If you think you can pretend you didn’t hit someone on the track or scream obscenities at them in the...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Oct 22, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media
As I write this, the offseason is barreling towards us like a train about to derail. Not that I don’t love the offseason…mind you, it’s become the most productive time of the year for me. In fact, last year’s offseason brought about a lot of changes for me in my business and in our personal life. I was able to do my annual Charlotte and PRI trips, along with adding the Florida RPM workshops and outlining the marketing and PR plan for the Dirt Classic months in advance. Personally, we also took a huge leap when Carl left the job he’d held for over 10 years at his family company to pursue racing as a more full-time profession. I talk more about how that came about in another blog on positioning yourself for opportunities. This year, the offseason looks similarly up-leveled. I have speaking engagements at the Las Vegas, Indy and Florida RPM workshops, along with the Western Auto Racing Promoters Association workshops in Portland, in addition to our annual PRI and Charlotte trips. And that doesn’t include the racing opportunities that have come our way in Carl’s career. While the offseason is fun, busy and relaxing all at the same time, I have to admit that life is just not the same without racing. And it doesn’t offer you the same type of opportunities to promote yourself, whether you have a race car or a race track, as racing season does. With a little bit of preparation, though, before the season ends, you can set yourself up for promoting success in the offseason, when there are no race cars on the track and fans in...
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