by Kristin Swartzlander | Mar 3, 2016 | Mindset
As someone who does marketing for a living, I do my best to go out and consume a lot of content, products and services in order to learn about the craft. ‘It’s called market research…’, I tell my husband and my accountant. I mean, it’s like taste-testing. It makes you a better host, I say, to ensure that your guests will enjoy that dessert. And if you need to taste-test an entire package of bacon or bowl of cookie dough, well, that’s between you and your spatula. No judgement here, my friend. One thing I notice, though, with marketing content is that there seems to be three types of bloggers: those who write to attract to new readers, those who write to serve their existing audience, and those who manage to do both. Guess which one I aim to be? And, thus, this post. While writing about tools and resources isn’t going to attract new customers, it is going to serve you – the people who are already here, lending me your precious time and attention. So here we are. (And, speaking of time and attention, if you’re a track that’s interested in getting more in-depth on setting up tools and systems to market yourself throughout this season, we have a free workshop coming up next week on Thursday, March 10th at 10am EST. You can sign up here. Can’t make it live? We’ll provide a replay for everyone who registers.) Now, to the meat of the issue. What tools do you need to run your race track or team? Sometimes, on Tuesdays, we get together on the free DirtyMouth Sponsorship Success...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 25, 2016 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses
If you’ve been around these parts long – that sounded very Southern…I feel like there needs to be a ‘y’all’ inserted here – you know that I believe pretty heavily in thinking not just outside of the box, but outside of our industry for ideas on how to survive and thrive. That’s how the best do it. After all, we’re not competing against other race tracks for fans. We’re competing against every other activity they’re choosing to do or not do. So I was really happy to get to listen to Speed Sport’s own Ralph Sheheen last week at RPM Daytona talking about exactly that. Specifically, he highlighted his experience with and observations of the AMA Supercross events. Here are a few things that I took away from his talk that I think you’ll benefit from, whether it’s as an event promoter, racer or marketing partner: The emphasis at Supercross Live is, first and foremost, on families. It’s family-friendly, from the advertising to the event experience. If you have, or are observing, an aging fan base, you can presume that they are lifelong fans. This sport isn’t built for an aging demographic, so you can guarantee they didn’t just walk in for the first time last race. If you want to create lifelong fans today, you have to get them in young. Appealing to young fans and parents, who are constantly looking for outlets to entertain their children in a safe, fun, cost-effective activity, you need to be family-friendly from the outset. They only have two racing classes. [Oh. My. Word. Did y’all just die?! Stay with me here.] This is a...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 18, 2016 | Racing Social Media, Thoughts and Rants
This week, I got to travel to Florida to speak at the RPM Promoter’s Workshops. My presentation was on social media, and how tracks can use Facebook in particular to succeed in promoting their events. It was fun to get to talk to a lot of tracks who were more interested and active on social media than even a year ago, and hear about their insights. And some promoters even got up and shared the results they’d gotten based on my training or advice with the nearly two hundred other promoters in the room, which meant more to me than any of them know. Social media was definitely hotter topic than last year, and there was one topic that was particularly popular among those who are still unsure about social media’s place in the sport or are outraged by what some tracks are doing. They came to me through two questions: What do you think of the controversial ‘social media policies’ that some tracks are adopting, banning or fining those who share negative opinions about the track on social media? What do you think of industry members – fans, teams, media and tracks – who criticize the sport on social media? I loved taking part in these discussions – mostly because they were asking the questions in the first place. Most of those asking knew that social media was a powerful tool, had heard the arguments of those who fear the effects of social media and were open to a discussion on the opposing side, which was very exciting to me. Some were even looking for tips on what to say to their peers who supported...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 12, 2016 | Racing Social Media
Next week, I’ll be making a quick trip down to Florida for the RPM Promoter’s Workshops, where I’ll be speaking about social media and how to use it well to promote your racing series or track. (Note: I’ll also have a booth right outside of the meeting room – stop by, say hello and grab a little gift if you’ll be there!) Particularly, I’ll be talking about Facebook – since that’s where the majority of our fans spend at least some of their time – and the recent technical changes that have been causing post reach and engagement to plummet. I’ll also be talking about how to own your audience instead of allowing Facebook to control access to your current and potential customers. Those who listened to my talk in Las Vegas, Portland, or Indy, you heard about the scary reality that is the new Facebook. The old Facebook worked really well, with only a little bit of time, strategy or financial investment. That’s no longer the case for two reasons: the Facebook algorithm and the Facebook IPO, which allows Facebook to monetize with advertising. The Facebook algorithm – a mathematical equation made up of more than 100,000 factors – works to decide whether to show your content to your fans, in what order and how often. We talked about how to work technically with the algorithm to increase the amount of content that your fans actually get to see. Basically, all of that advice boils down to this: give your fans what the want to see, how they want it, and when they want or need to see it. But what do your fans...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Feb 5, 2016 | Mindset
At the end of last year, I gave you some advice on how to keep the offseason from getting you down.You can read it all here. One valuable piece: “What you do in the offseason can set the tone for what you do the rest of the year. It’s the foundation of your season.” I really feel that’s the case. Unfortunately for many of us – myself included – the offseason has zoomed by and we’ve found ourselves, well, what’s the positive term for ‘looking down the barrel’ of the impending race season? It’s so close. And that’s so exciting, if we can stop breathing into a paper bag for long enough to realize it. For all of you who join me in panic mode at this time of year – whether you haven’t gotten as far as you wanted to in your off-season progress or you’ve lost motivation in the midst of to-do’s – here are some tips to get back on track with your plan for getting back onto the track: Make a list. It sounds simple, but just get it out of your head. Write down every single thing that you wanted or needed to get done before the season. Don’t let go of the things that you know you don’t have time to do – they’ll just haunt you. Get them on paper. Prioritize. Now, find yourself another piece of paper and create two columns. Label them: ‘Need to Do’ and ‘Want to Do’. Put every single thing on your first list into one of the two columns. Don’t know where to put something? If you think about not getting...
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