by Kristin Swartzlander | Jan 22, 2016 | Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses
Want to take your marketing game to the next level, whether you’re a racer, track promoter or racing business? Look outside of racing. It might sound simple, but it’s worth considering. Because the most successful people that I know in racing didn’t get there by modeling off of other racing businesses. They don’t stay at the top that way either. They look outside of the industry, and model bits and pieces of other successful businesses. My business, and my customers’ and clients’ programs, have benefited both from my experience outside of racing and my eagerness to research, test and execute new tactics that other industries are having success with. For example: Want to offer fans better customer service? Don’t just look at what other tracks do. Consider what the best customer service providers, like Zappo’s, in the world do and how they empower their employees to enact their philosophy. Want to entice more ‘casual’ fans in? Look at how other entertainment venues or, even, gas stations like Sheetz provide a winning model of custom, higher-end food and beverage options. These are really straightforward examples, but that’s because it’s a straightforward concept: some of my best (and most profitable) ideas and strategies for my clients have come from studying the business of other industries that are seemingly unrelated. How many brilliant crew chiefs found a technological breakthrough from an inspiration outside of racing? Probably more than we know. It takes either an active level of curiosity or an active decision to ignore what’s in front of you and search for what’s better, or sometimes both. But it’s necessary if you want to be...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Jan 15, 2016 | Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Sponsorship
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a ‘business of sports’ talk with the EVP of Marketing at the Pittsburgh Pirates, Drew Cloud, and take a private tour of PNC Park. It took me back quite a bit to my days at the San Francisco 49ers, and the level at which professional sports organizations like them operate. I had a ton of takeaways that I feel can be applied to the racing industry. My favorite, by the way, is the philosophy that this blog is based around: look outside of your own industry for best practices and great ideas. Read: if you’re only paying attention to what the track down the road is doing, you’re missing the boat. One thing that really stuck out to me was how they treat their season ticket holders, or, I should say, their ‘members’. Season tickets are the Pirates biggest revenue driver, and they offer season ticket packages for as few as six games and as many as the full 81-home-game season. And they view their ticket holders as ‘members’ of an exclusive club instead of money-saving fans. In my experience, season tickets are one of the most underutilized and/or confusing promotions that tracks generally butcher. Very few have enough information available to potential customers for them to make a purchasing decision. Tracks struggle to structure the price and flexibility (some even sell them at face value, with no rain date provisions), have difficulty getting the word out about the cost savings, or are in a market that generally doesn’t want to commit to a block of time. The Pirates have to deal with some of...
by Kristin Swartzlander | Dec 31, 2015 | Media and Public Relations, Mindset, Motorsports Marketing for Tracks, Teams and Businesses, Racing Social Media, Racing Sponsorship
As we close out 2015 this week, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on the past year. We all experience successes and failures in life, work, and racing, and I’m no different. Last week, I shared the powerful impact of 2015, both on me and on the community, and how grateful I am for the progress we’re making. You can read that here. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be in the office attempting to close out 2015 and plan 2016. (I’m only three months late on my October ‘2016 Planning’ target. If you’re behind, you are not alone!) We have a lot of fun things in the works for next year that I hope to announce in January and February, but we do have one coming up SOON: Sponsorship Marketing Workshop: Crafting Effective Sponsorship Proposals – Live on Sunday, January 10th. On-Demand Forever. Details Here. We had a great response to the first sponsorship marketing workshop on crafting and value the perfect offerings (you can get the on-demand version here if you missed the live event), so I’m adding more workshops just like it to the calendar. This is something that I’ve always thought could bring value to the community with a lower price point than private coaching, so I’m excited to share that we’re planning on releasing at least one workshop per month going forward in 2016. More details on that later, but if you want to weigh in on the topics and content, please feel free to share your thoughts with me here. Some of you are new to this blog (sign up for the free newsletter if so!),...
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...
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