by Kristin Swartzlander | Sep 5, 2013 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
It’s disheartening but appropriate that when I started the work week in Pennsylvania the temperature was about 10 degrees cooler than over Labor Day weekend, when it still seemed like summer. My calendar isn’t the only one saying it’s nearly fall. Although I don’t head back to the same kind of office I used to, September brings out the same kind of joy and panic I experienced in my ad agency days. It’s a month full of both reflection on past accomplishments and shortfalls, and opportunities for new growth. Why? The month of September is often when companies start setting budgets for the next year. Seems crazy, right? But it takes a freaking long time for companies to review the last year’s marketing objectives, decide what worked and what didn’t, and roughly hash out what the company plans to do in the future. All of that weighs in on the projected budget. For many companies, September marks the beginning of the end of the year. At this point, you’ve got two months before the holidays hit and employees begin a downward, tryptophan-induced spiral of elf-yourself videos during conference calls, snooze-button-influenced outfits (and attitudes) and vacation days. You’ve got to get to workin’ in while the work is still good. Plus, with media deadlines set months in advance, the media buy calendars are already being turned to December or January. Since you buy ad space in chunks, sometimes guaranteeing a minimum ad spend for the entire year, September is the time that you need start finding a clear vision for the next calendar year. If you’re not already connecting the...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Aug 22, 2013 | Media and Public Relations
It’s the same story every week – we pick up the racing paper, turn on a podcast, and log into a social media account just to see a driver patting himself on the back for how much he accomplished despite his lack of funds. According to him, he’s running an old chassis with a motor that’s never been freshened, and he hauls it all to and from the track on his own dime. But he doesn’t have a day job, he’s running a new chassis, and his sponsor bought him that too-new-to-need-freshened motor. As a publicist, it makes me want to scream for a number of reasons. I hear it over and over again from clients – the frustration of dealing with drivers that cry poor. They believe that those drivers are gaining fans and patrons – the guy that walks up and buys them a tire because they feel bad for him – by lying about their situations. But ask yourself this: How did the people who actually did help non-successful driver X feel when they weren’t thanked? When all they heard was that driver didn’t have any support? Did it belittle their efforts and contributions? You bet. Having a chip on your shoulder about not having support or real sponsors does nothing but attract pity, at best. If you’re lying about it, it’s worse – it’s demeaning. It depreciates the people that feel they have supported you and makes the fans that cheer for you feel duped when they figure it out. Yes, there are some people that will give the guy who complains that he’s broke...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Aug 6, 2013 | Racing Social Media
If you’re a sprint car racing fan, there’s no doubt that you’re tuning in to the Knoxville Nationals this week. Below is an updated list of Twitter handles for the 2013 410 Knoxville Nationals drivers that I issued last year. This list includes drivers on Knoxville’s pre-entry list and their Twitter handles, broken into groups based on their qualifying night as of Tuesday, August 6th. New drivers or drivers that have joined twitter since the 2012 list have been noted in bold. Wednesday Qualifiers (by car number): 0 Jonathan Allard – @allard0 1 Sammy Swindell – @1sam91 1a Jacob Allen – @JacobAllen1a 1D Justin Henderson – @Henderson_racin 1K Kyle Larson – @KyleLarsonRacin 2 Dale Blaney – none 2K Kevin Ingle – none 2L Ed Lynch Jr – none 2LX Logan Forler – @forlerracing 2MF Brad Foster – none 2s Lee Sowell – @leesowellracing 4x Dakota Hendrickson – @dakota_joshua 4J Lee Grosz – @leegrosz 05 Bill Boles – none 6 David Gravel – @DavidGravel89G 7x Dustin Selvage – @sprntcar7 7s Jason Sides – @SidesMotorsport 7TAZ Tasker Phillips – none 9 Daryn Pittman – @darynpittman 9W Brandon Wimmer – @brandonwimmer 10V Glen Saville – none 11K Kraig Kinser – @kraigkinser11k 11N Randy Hannagan – @hurricanerhr 12 Lynton Jeffrey – @lyntonjeffrey 12P TJ Peterson – none 15 Donny Schatz – none 17 Josh Baughman – @Josh_Baughman17 17A Austin McCarl – @austinmccarl17a 17W Cole Wood – @wood17w 18 Ian Madsen – @IanMadsen 18T Tony Bruce Jr – @tonybrucejr 19 Bob Weuve – none 19M Brent Marks – @Brent_Marks 20PK Ron Krysl – none 35 Skylar Prochaska – @ProchaskaRacing 35AU Jamie Veal – @jvr35...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jul 11, 2013 | Thoughts and Rants
In the last year, I’ve been very lucky. My consulting business has exploded, and I’ve been booked with work for months in advance. I’ve dug deep, worked nights, weekends and on the road, and set aside the work I normally do for my business, including this blog. Not to mention most of the fun stuff in life. All work, no play. But I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and realized I had created the lifestyle I wanted and had no time to enjoy it. So I took a step back, and took a sharp left turn (my favorite!). I turned down every project that I didn’t love, put together a work/life strategy and committed to complementing my business with fun projects. What does this mean for DirtyMouth and the content I create here? Not only will you see more consistent posts, I’ll be doing more of the type of writing I love with an emphasis on long, detail-heavy posts with data and research. You’ll be seeing less beginner information and more in-depth content that serious racers can use to apply business sense to all of this racing nonsense. I hope you’ll love it, too....
by Kristin Swartzlander | Aug 31, 2012 | Media and Public Relations, Racing Social Media
Over the last few weeks I’ve been extremely busy with a few projects, including shooting and editing video for one of my clients, PreciseRacing.com. The racing parts supplier was looking for a way to add interactive elements to their brand and video fit the bill. Shooting video is easy, and it can add so many layers to your racing PR program – from branding to marketing to actual, direct sales. To create videos that will make people want to subscribe to, you should have a mix of messages, not a stream of sales pitches. What are some of the things you can do with video? Action Views – nothing beats on-the-track racing action, with the exception of a really good interview, for race fans. You can also show fast-forwarded material of your crew working on the car at the track or in the shop, washing it, loading it, etc. Interviews – ask questions to your driver, crew, owner or even fans. Or, create question slides in your video editor and answer fan-submitted questions! Tours – give fans an inside look at your trailer, race shop and other places that would be interesting to a race fan. How-Tos – show fans how you do certain tasks on the racecar that they might not know about. To shoot the video, you can use an actual video camera like the Sony Bloggie Sport (I use a Flip for track videos, but they have discontinued it) or use a regular camera that has video capability. For the PreciseRacing.com videos, I used a Nikon Coolpix. I’ve also used a Panasonic Lumix with pretty good...
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