by Kristin Swartzlander | Jan 27, 2017 | Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
Having worked at a speed shop for a few years, I can’t tell you how many conversations I had about sponsorship. They generally went one of two ways: either the person was asking for sponsorship or a discount, or the person was lamenting that it was impossible to get sponsorship because they didn’t win. I hear this myth a lot from racers who have mindset blocks around selling sponsorship: how can I sell sponsorship when I don’t win races? Or, we hear this: It’s easy to sell sponsorship when you’re a dominant, winning team. Equating wins to sponsorship dollars at most levels of racing is harkening back to the old days of racing, where most of the attention or exposure for the driver (and their sponsors) happened at the track. And the winning driver was the one who got the most attention. That’s not the case anymore. We have countless opportunities each day to reach the people who sit in the grandstands and potentially listen to your victory lane speech. As a property, we can: Put out a tweet or post. Respond to a message. Send an email newsletter. Snap a story. Sign an autograph at an appearance. Say hello at an industry event. Have our apparel worn at a fan’s workplace. Be featured in an article. Be a guest on a podcast or radio show. Be researched on our website. All of these modes of communication – whether they’re things that we’re in control of or not – allow for marketing partners to have a far greater and deeper reach than a victory lane speech over a loudspeaker at a race track. They...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jan 19, 2017 | Racing Sponsorship
It’s the first quarter of the year, and the last few weeks for me have had a lot of focus on working on sponsorship deals for various properties. One common mistake that I see teams, tracks and event promoters make when pitching potential marketing partners is focusing on only one aspect of sponsorship: exposure to an audience. When I talk about slapping a logo on a car and turning circles (or nailing up a sign), this is what I’m talking about. Yes, ‘exposure’ is still an important part of sponsorship. But if it is the focus of your partnership, you’re only going to make it work with a few major tweaks. And I still believe, even with those tweaks, if it’s the only focus of your pitch you’re going to be in trouble. As in zero dollars trouble. Why? Because exposure is generally free or cheap these days with social media, guerilla and word-of-mouth marketing and the ability for companies to build their own audiences on a variety of platforms. In effect, purely reaching a certain number of people is going to be significantly cheaper by using other means than sponsoring your race car or track. And it’s going to be easier to explain and show ROI to a manager or company owner than trying to quantify the number of people who saw your race car or trailer. If a company can, say, reach 2,500 people in a very specific audience through Facebook ads for $100 (which you can if you’re good at it), is it economical for them to spend the same or more for them to reach 2,500 people...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 22, 2016 | Mindset, Racing Sponsorship
Thank you for reading the DirtyMouth blog this year! No surprises – my most popular blog posts of the year were about SPONSORSHIP – and mostly where I shared some hard data or hard truths. Positive, tangible advice is still probably the most popular theme of my blog, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So if you missed any – enjoy! xo, Kristin The Sponsorship Sales Cycle and Your Proposal – Wondering where your proposal fits into the sponsorship sales process? When and how you should submit it? This is the one for you. Do Social Media Policies Help or Hurt? – The question heard ’round the Internet this year. Should tracks limit social media use at the track? Should they have a say in what racers post? How should a business handle social? It’s all here. If we ever wonder if what we do matters… – This is a very personal post from the days after Bryan Clauson’s passing. If you think what you do – racing or otherwise – doesn’t affect others, I’m happy to say that you’re wrong. We are all contributing to someone’s life with what we do. I hope each and every one of you knows that. Selling Experiences with Ralph Sheheen – Thoughts from National Speed Sport News’ own Ralph Sheheen on selling experience and my take how they can benefit short tracks, racers and racing businesses. The Cold, Hard Math of Sponsor Acquisition – One of my personal favorites because of the nerdiness, this one lays out for you exactly how to reach your sponsorship numbers. How many emails or phone calls do you have to make to...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 16, 2016 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
When working with clients, answering questions in our free sponsorship success group, fielding emails or talking to racers at events, one of the biggest barriers teams feel in finding sponsorship is: “I don’t have enough time.” It’s a legit concern, but it’s a claim that we make probably every day. Think about the conversations you’re having over the holiday season. When someone mentions what they’re up to or their goals for the next year, we’ve all said we don’t have time for things that we legitimately want to do. It might be finding sponsors for the 2017 season. It might be starting a side business or working out or cooking home-cooked meals or taking the kids to a trampoline park. (<- That’s what you do with children, right? ‘Trampolines’ seems accurate.) We’ve never been – or felt – busier. There’s never enough time. But here’s the hard truth: if you don’t have time to find sponsorship, you don’t have time to have marketing partners because you don’t have time to serve them. Sad, but true. So, let’s not be that person. Let’s find the time to recognize partners that would be a good fit, connect with them, show them the value and then activate that partnership. Let’s find the time to invest in building our marketing programs, so we can take our racing to the next level. Let’s find the time to pursue wins off the track, just like we do on the track. Which leads me to my tips on how to ‘find’ or ‘make’ time, both now, during the busiest time of the year, and in the future: 1. Put it on your schedule. ...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 2, 2016 | Racing Sponsorship
Can you believe it’s already December?! Believe it or not, now’s the time to kickstart your 2017 season sponsorship program if you haven’t already. Although many businesses are focused on their end-of-year activities and not on hearing your marketing pitch, there is still a LOT you can be doing to: do right by your current marketing partners, and get prepared for the 2017 season, off the track. So, that’s what we’re talking about today: five things you should be doing in December to boost your sponsorship results in 2017. Thank your current sponsors. If you only do one thing this off-season, this should be it. I know that many racers – many people in every industry – have the ‘take the money and run’ attitude. But we’re not going to even touch on that, because I know you aren’t those kind of people. Instead, we’re going to assume that you fulfilled all of your promises over the season and activated those partnerships. That being established, now’s the time to thank your marketing partners for their part in your 2016 program. You might send them a thank you card or a holiday gift, do a little extra activation with a ‘sponsored’-type social media post or email to your newsletter list, take them to lunch or simply get on the phone and spend some time talking about what their support meant to you. It’s also a great time to break down any kind of data you can for them with an analytics report on the season – that might include data from the track (for example: number of team t-shirts with their messaging or samples distributed)...
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