by Kristin Swartzlander | Jun 10, 2016 | Mindset, Racing Sponsorship, Thoughts and Rants
One of the questions that Carl and I both get asked frequently is: how do you make racing your full-time living? Right now, I’m putting together a post on how teams make money (hint: hired drivers with 401(k)’s are the exception, not the rule, and those race track checks don’t exactly pay the bills), and today, I want to address just one aspect of that answer: We treated it like a business even before it was one. And when I say ‘it’, I’m referring not just our race team. We took everything that aligns with making racing our full-time job seriously before we were required to by our commitments, including this blog, our personal finances, our health, and much more. It’s very easy to say: ‘when you get to X turning point, you’ll do Y.’ When my only job is racing, I’ll have the time and energy to: work out every day, have multiple cars built and lettered, take opportunities for rides outside of my own team, travel to races outside of my region, have a professional crew and appearance, structure my team financially as a business, create apparel and promotional materials, promote myself online and in the community, and, find and activate sponsorships. Your mind needs that assurance that it’s okay for you not to be doing those things until X happens. You’re already tapped out. You’re already putting in too many hours. You’re already spending too much money. You won’t have the time and energy to do any of the ‘extras’ until you go full-time. Except, I’ve found that doing those things before your team is a business...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jun 3, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
You can have one night stands, or you can have relationships. You likely can’t have both. At least not for long – just look at celebrities, politicians and athletes paying the big bucks in alimony and child support for trying to make that third setup work. In racing, and probably in life, ‘one night stands’ might produce wins. But they might cost you more in the long-term: On the track, if you can only control your win-producing -peed every once in a while, you’re likely crashing more than you’re winning. And that’s more expensive than just getting consistently faster until you’re a dominant car each and every race. If you got the lead by taking out a competitor, you earned a short term win and, likely, an instant deduction to your fan base. The same goes for the off the track end of your racing business. You might be easily able to charm the proverbial pants off of a potential sponsor. But if you’re not setup to actually deliver and activate long-term, that relationship won’t last. And, just like on the track, you might not just lose one fan. That marketing partner that you left out in the cold is likely to tell his business buddies, or the whole world (hello, internet!) about exactly how you do business. Deep, long-term relationships based with marketing partners on mutual respect, however, do exactly the opposite: they grow over time, and sometimes even multiple with referrals to more potential marketing partners and other valuable opportunities. I get asked a lot of questions about sponsorship-seeking tactics: What is the title of the person making sponsorship decisions? How do I...
by Kristin Swartzlander | May 20, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship, Thoughts and Rants
In my line of work, I get to see a lot of marketing. From flyers on windshields to social media updates – yep, that’s marketing even if you’re only selling your own image – we come across thousands of marketing messages each and every day. And we all know that there are people or companies who get it right, and people who’s marketing falls flat. It’s not wrong. It’s just there. And we aren’t buying what there is(n’t) selling. Good marketing determines quite a bit of success in racing. They might post gate times and ticket prices, or results on race night, just like everyone else. And, even though you might not be sure why, something is missing. It’s the story. We racing people are practical. We talk prices. We talk times. We talk weights and pressures and RPMs. And sometimes we forget that we do it all for a reason that has nothing to do with making a shiny thing go faster. We are too close to the details to see the bigger picture. And that bigger picture is how we market ourselves, as drivers, and teams, and tracks, and event promoters. Yes, it’s important to know how to tweet, and to actually do that. But to think you’re going to build a fan base just by putting up results, gate times and ticket prices is a big mistake. And it’s where I see many racing businesses – frankly, businesses in many markets – fall flat. Want to nurture a new fan relationship? Want to create a new customer? Tell me why you race. Tell me what you love about the...
by Kristin Swartzlander | May 6, 2016 | Media and Public Relations, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
If you’re building a racing business – a team, a track, an event or even a store – you know that you need customers. Customers come in different forms – fans, purchasers, media members, marketing partners or sponsors – and you need to get in front of them to be successful, whether you’re selling a piece of merchandise, a ticket or a story. While making a connection in person is always best, there are only so many opportunities to do so. And that’s why I think social media is the most powerful tool in any businesses’ arsenal today – we can be reaching new fans and building our audience 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no matter where you are. So, if you’re taking building your racing career seriously, and you’re approaching it as a business, you need to be looking to social media to build your audience. Agreed? Agreed. Now that we’re – ahem – agreed, let’s talk about where to find your audience. In the same way that you’re won’t be successful selling life insurance to a kid in the candy aisle, you don’t want to be hammering tweens on Snapchat with, well, life insurance pitches. (No insult meant to the insurance industry – I happily have plenty of it. But, as my friends and family will quickly remind me, I am no longer a tween.) There are a few ways to approach finding the right platforms to build your audience. These two questions should determine how you read the rest of this post: Are you going full-bore in the direction of your dreams and willing to dive into...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Apr 21, 2016 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses
There’s always that one guy in the bar. The one who’s wearing too much cologne, too much hair gel, pants that are way too tight and a look in his eyes that’s way too lecherous. The one who is – shudder – trying too hard. We all fear being seen as that person, right? Especially when it comes to racing. Racing, to many of us, is a bubble, where everyone watches what everyone else is doing, saying, wearing and tweeting. And, instead of feeling safe in our little bubble, we live in constant fear of looking like we’re trying too hard. Because even though we have an amazing racing family, we still compete with each other on at least one level, week-in and week-out. We want to look good, but not like we put any thought into what we’re wearing or how our hair looks. We want the car to be fast, but not like we bought our speed. We want to share on social media, but not so much or so often that it looks like we care what others think. We want to have a really nice hauler, but not like we have so much money that we don’t need sponsors. (Don’t even get me started on this.) Basically, we want it to appear like we woke up like this. We didn’t have to try. Success, and a cleverly-crafted Instagram bio, is our natural state. When did trying become a swear word? The same culture that wears YOLO shirts is also shaming us into caring immensely about what others think. But not looking like it. ‘You only live once.’...
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